Public Health Scene
July 18, 2008
Fish Consumption Advisories
 A diet that includes fish provides an excellent source of low-fat protein and may reduce your risk of heart disease and diabetes.
But fish can contain contaminants such as mercury that can harm human health.
Matt Simcik, a University of Minnesota professor of environmental health sciences, says pregnant women and young children are most at risk. He recommends following the Minnesota fish consumption guidelines.
• More from Simcik from the Public Health Moment podcast
July 15, 2008
A New Report Urges Lake and Wetlands Restoration
A new report that could have a substantial impact on public policy was recently released by The University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment. The report outlines recommendations for preserving the state's natural resources.
"The recommendations in this report will serve as foundation for Minnesota's environment going forward," said Deb Swackhamer, interim director of the Institute on the Environment and the report's main author.
The report, which took 18 months to produce and relied on 40 U of M researchers and 50 people from other places, was written on behalf of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources. It could influence lawmakers funding decisions for proposals identified in the 330-page document.
The five categories of recommendations include integrated planning, critical land protection, land and water restoration, sustainable practices and economic incentives for sustainability.
More about the institute's report from MinnPost
Binge drinking tied to college culture
 What is the cause of binge drinking by U.S. college students? A new study links it to college culture — campus environments that allow easy access to inexpensive alcohol and have weak control policies and lax enforcement.
The 14-year study by the Harvard School of Public Health involved more than 50,000 students at 120 colleges and found that heavy drinking behavior of students was more common in college environments that have a strong drinking culture.
One of the lead researchers, Toben Nelson (pictured), now at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said that binge drinking varies widely depending on the college.
"At some colleges almost no students binge drink, while at others nearly four in every five students do," Nelson said.
More from TopNews
More from UPI.com
July 10, 2008
Nurses bear brunt of patient violence
 Half of all nonfatal injuries resulting from workplace assaults occur in health care and social service settings, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Nurses and other personal care workers are at most at risk — suffering workplace injuries at 12 times the rate of the overall private sector.
One of the largest studies on the issue was a 2004 survey of 6,300 randomly selected nurses in Minnesota, in which 13 percent of respondents reported having been physically attacked during the previous year and 39 percent reported having been threatened, verbally abused or sexually harassed.
“Nurses find different kinds of responses from their administrations and different levels of support,” said lead researcher Susan Gerberich, a University of Minnesota professor of environmental health sciences. “Everything from ‘This is not tolerated at our institution’ all the way to ‘If you don’t like it, people, you can leave your job.’”
More from North Carolina's Blue Ridge Now (This article originally appeared in the New York Times)
July 08, 2008
Abraham named to president’s economic panel
 The University of Minnesota's Jean Abraham has been selected to serve on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
Abraham, an assistant professor of health policy in the School of Public Health, and her fellow staff economists will provide President Bush and other government departments and agencies with the best current academic thinking on a wide range of subjects.
“This appointment will enable Professor Abraham to have a lasting impact on economic policy and health care reform,” said University President Robert Bruininks.
Said Abraham: “This is a particularly exciting time, given renewed interest in health care reform at the federal level.”
Abraham’s research specialties include health economics and policy, with a specific focus on issues of health insurance access by families, affordability of insurance coverage and medical care, consumer use of health care information to support plan and provider decision-making, and the relationship between quality improvement and costs.
More about Abraham's appointment
July 03, 2008
Abortion rate increases for older teens
 Although there was an overall decline last year in the number of abortions in Minnesota, the number increased for the 18- and 19-year-old age group.
For those teenagers who received an abortion, the number who said that they had never used birth control increased from 116 to 150.
“Especially with teenagers, we know that almost all induced abortions are the result of an unintended pregnancy. An important piece is contraceptives,” says Wendy Hellerstedt (pictured), an associate professor at the University of Minnesota who studies trends in reproductive medicine.
The Minnesota Department of Health study also indicated that the number of pregnancies and births of Minnesota girls ages 15 to 19 increased 6 percent in 2006 — twice the national average.
More from the Star Tribune
June 30, 2008
Web may hold key to fighting new HIV wave
 The Sexpulse website, in development at the University of Minnesota, is the newest strategy to slow a second wave of the HIV/AIDS epidemic rising among young gay and bisexual men.
Infection rates in that population have increased 12 percent annually since 2001, according to federal officials.
To stop the epidemic, experts like the University's Simon Rosser (pictured) say they have to go to where those connections are being made — which is less and less often in gay bars and neighborhoods and increasingly online.
Rosser and others at the University are using a $3.5 million federal grant to create Sexpulse, a prototype for online HIV intervention specifically for gay men.
"If this is successful, it is huge," Rosser told the Star Tribune. "We can flick a switch and make it available to every gay man in the world."
More about Sexpulse from the Star Tribune
More about Rosser from reporter Josephine Marcotty's blog
June 27, 2008
Cook meats at low temperatures
 Cook meats and fish at low temperatures, recommends Kristin Anderson, a University of Minnesota cancer epidemiologist.
Today, Anderson was featured on CNN.com with recommendations on the healthiest temperature to cook meat, chicken, or fish.
She says it's also important to trim off any charred or burned pieces.
In interviews with the University of Minnesota's Public Health Moment and Advances magazine, Anderson discussed how her research links charred meat to higher risks of pancreatic cancer.
Anderson on Public Health Moment
Anderson at CNN.com
Anderson in Advances magazine
June 25, 2008
 Scanning the heart's arteries for calcium deposits accurately predicts the overall death risk for American adults, a new study suggests in the July 1 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Meanwhile, a multi-institutional study led by the University of Minnesota's Aaron Folsom (pictured), provided additional evidence for the benefits of calcium scanning. It compared the prognostic value of calcium scans with measurements of the wall of the carotid artery, the major artery leading from the heart to the brain.
Researchers reported that the study of almost 6,700 middle-aged and older Americans who were followed for up to five years found that "coronary artery calcium score is a better predictor of subsequent cardiovascular events than carotid intima-media thickness [measuring the artery's wall]."
Folsom's study was published in the June 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
More about these studies in the Washington Post
June 24, 2008
Letters from 'Scene' Readers
Sharon Farsht Torodor sent in the following question regarding the June 19 Public Health Scene on Tomatoes and Salmonella that featured Craig Hedberg.
Hello:
I've been wondering -- should we be concerned about tomatoes we're growing in our own yards or that we buy from a local farm? How can we know they are safe? It would be great to see that addressed in one of these messages. By the way, I really like and appreciate these PH Scene messages!
Sharon
Hedberg responds:
Sharon,
Thank you for your question. As this outbreak reminds us, growing fresh fruits and vegetables in a natural environment means that there are possibilities for contamination to occur. We need to be mindful of this and take reasonable steps to make eating these fresh produce items both healthy and enjoyable.
Fresh produce is grown in dirt. We want to wash our hands and wash our produce under running water to remove any dirt that may be present. We want to be sure that knives and cutting boards are cleaned and sanitized to prevent cross-contamination from raw meat or poultry. Finally, we want to serve cut produce items promptly, or refrigerate them, to prevent the growth of potentially harmful bacteria.
We don't have any particular reason to be concerned about home-grown or locally produced tomatoes, and they are certainly not part of the nationwide outbreak of Salmonella infections that has been going on. But we do need to realize that all fresh produce is grown in environments that may contain potentially harmful bacteria from time to time. We all share responsibility for keeping the food we eat safe.
The Healthy Foods Healthy Lives Institute at the University of Minnesota has funded a multidisciplinary research and outreach project to work with local producers on produce safety and Good Agricultural Practices. This project is headed up by Dr. Francisco Diez, from the College of Food, Agriculture and Nutrition with collaborators from the School of Public Health and the College of Veterinary Medicine.
We anticipate that this study will help us better understand potential threats to locally grown produce, and how to prevent them.
Thanks,
Craig Hedberg
Feel free to send us your comments by e-mail (sphpod@umn.edu) or click on Comments at the bottom of each entry.
Hospitals prepared for Republican convention
 MPR reports that Twin Cities hospitals are prepared for a worst-case scenario when the Republican National Convention opens in St. Paul later this summer.
But a recent federal report questioned whether local emergency rooms have the capacity for a large-scale disaster, particularly an act of terrorism.
Michael T. Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, says that the biggest concern is a terrorist attack involving explosives or chemicals.
“Our health care system in Minnesota, like the rest of the country, has been gnawed to the bone, and frankly we've been sucking calcium. We have no real excess capacity,” he says, adding that additional federal funds for medical equipment and personnel will help.
More about convention preparedness from MPR
June 19, 2008
Tomatoes and Salmonella
 About 280 people in 28 states have become ill during the recent Salmonella outbreak involving contaminated tomatoes.
Craig Hedberg, a University of Minnesota expert in food-borne disease, provides some perspective on this outbreak and offers advice to consumers. For example, he says that in general people are eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, which is good, but also puts us more at risk of acquiring a food-borne disease.
“Our message is that we're working with industry, we're working with growers to try to minimize the opportunities for contamination and to identify which strategies may be in place to minimize contamination after it occurs,” Hedberg said.
He also states that irradiation offers promise to prevent future outbreaks.
Listen to Hedberg discuss this issue
June 18, 2008
Repelling the attack of the tainted tomatoes
Irradiation of food is an important, safe and effective tool that has been vastly underused, largely due to opposition from the organic food lobby and to government over-regulation, writes Henry I. Miller in the Chicago Tribune.
In fact, technology such as irradiation could help prevent the outbreak of food-borne disease such as Salmonella Saintpaul—which contaminated raw tomatoes and is tied to at least 160 cases of illness in 16 states, writes Miller.
Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, agrees.
"If even 50 percent of meat and poultry consumed in the United States were irradiated, the potential impact of food-borne disease would be a reduction [of] 900,000 cases and 300 deaths [a year]," he says.
More about Salmonella and tomatos in the Chicago Tribune
June 16, 2008
Researchers to keep miners informed
The research team looking into a rare cancer on Minnesota's Iron Range says it wants to meet often with mine workers and retirees.
Fifty-nine men in northeastern Minnesota have died of mesothelioma, which strikes the lining of the lung.
The University of Minnesota's School of Public Health is leading the $5 million investigation, drawing on a database of 72,000 miners. One part of the complicated effort is figuring out just how much rock dust to which workers have been exposed.
More from WCCO TV
A good night's sleep can help keep you alive
As men age, they need their sleep if they want to live long. That's according to a health study from the University of Minnesota. Disrupted sleep somehow manages to kill off even men who are in apparently good health.
Beginning in 2003, researchers followed about 3,000 healthy men age 67 and older. By January 2008, 180 of the men were dead. The men with poor sleep patterns were the most likely to die.
“Waking early, staying up late, and severely disturbed sleep patterns may have a detrimental impact on health in older men, especially since this group was generally in good health,” Misti Paudel, who led the study, told the Ottawa Citizen. “A good night's sleep is important.”
More from the Washington Post
More from Ottawa Citizen
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