Four themes identified as contributors to diseases of despair in Pennsylvania

Hershey, Pa. — Financial instability, lack of infrastructure, a deteriorating sense of community and family fragmentation are key contributors to diseases of despair in Pennsylvania communities, according to Penn State College of Medicine and Highmark Health researchers. The researchers conducted…

The Lancet: 1.5 million children worldwide have lost parent, grandparent, caregiver due to COVID-19

Study offers first global estimates of the number of children who experienced the death of a parent, grandparent, or primary caregiver from COVID-19. Researchers estimated figures based on COVID-19 mortality data from March 2020 through April 2021, and national fertility…

Exploring gap between excess mortality, COVID-19 deaths in 67 countries

What The Study Did: N ational health care systems have different capacities to correctly identify people who died of COVID-19. Researchers in this study analyzed the gap between excess mortality and  COVID-19 confirmed mortality in 67 countries to determine the…

Outcomes of patients treated by female vs male physicians

What The Study Did: Researchers investigated whether death, other hospital outcomes and processes of care differed between patients cared for by female and male physicians at hospitals in Canada. Authors: Fahad Razak, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Toronto in…

Survival for babies born with a birth defect – a “post-code lottery”

Survival for a baby born with a birth defect – otherwise known as a congenital anomaly – is a “post-code lottery”, according to scientists from 74 countries. A study published today in The Lancet , led by researchers from King’s…

Interleukin-6 antagonists improve outcomes in hospitalised COVID-19 patients

Findings from a study published today [6 July] in the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA ) have prompted new World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to use interleukin-6 antagonists in patients with severe or critical COVID-19 along with…

Do heart medications affect COVID-19 outcomes?

Cardiovascular drugs do not affect COVID-19 outcomes–such as disease severity, hospitalizations, or deaths–according to an analysis of all relevant studies published as of November 2020. The findings are published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology . Investigators included 429…

Using computation to improve words: Novel tool could improve serious illness conversations

Conversations between seriously ill people, their families and palliative care specialists lead to better quality-of-life. Understanding what happens during these conversations – and particularly how they vary by cultural, clinical, and situational contexts – is essential to guide healthcare communication…

Ben-Gurion U. develop new measure continuous traumatic stress impact

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL, June 22, 2021 — Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have developed the first methodology to assess symptoms associated with continuous exposure to traumatic stress from rocket attacks and other security threats, which are not currently…

Study reveals COVID-19 risk factors for those with IDD

Syracuse, N.Y. – A study of nearly 550 adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities receiving residential services in New York City found that age, larger residential settings, Down syndrome and chronic kidney disease were the most common risk factors for…

Study: Maternal adult characteristics do not predict stillbirth, early neonatal death

University of Illinois Chicago researchers studying birth outcomes in marmoset monkeys found there were no adult maternal characteristics like age or weight gain during pregnancy to predict stillbirth or early neonatal death, but that a mother’s birth weight or litter…

People who have trouble sleeping are at a higher risk of dying – especially diabetics

In a paper published by the Journal of Sleep Research , researchers reveal how they examined data* from half a million middle-aged UK participants asked if they had trouble falling asleep at night or woke up in the middle of…

New heart metric may increase survival for heart-failure patients

A new physiological measurement of heart function developed at UVA Health could improve survival for people with heart failure by identifying high-risk patients who require tailored treatments, a new study suggests. The study is the first to show a survival…

Important to reduce patients’ time respiratory intensive care with mechanical ventilation

More active efforts to reduce patients’ time on a ventilator in an ICU can both spare their suffering and free up intensive care resources, a thesis at the University of Gothenburg shows. Mechanical ventilation (MV) in an intensive care unit…