Suchergebnisse

As our plane circled over New Orleans, I fixed my eyes on the window. I wanted a perspective on the damage below that did not come secondhand from television or the papers. Soon our group from Sarah Lawrence College—a professor, a dean, nine students, and two alumnae—would be landing. It was January 5. We had come for a nine-day stay to work with ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. I expected utter devastation—miles and miles of storm-ravaged homes and communities. Instead, I saw endless bits of blue. I thought that they were swimming pools. Later I found out that what I had seen were blue tarps put on houses to protect them from the wind.

People who want sustainable agriculture support local production as necessary to maintain freedom & democracy, & to assure a safe, affordable, plentiful supply of nutritious food. A sustainable agricultural system economically productive, environmentally healthy, socially responsible, & humane. Food can have a political & monetary voice when it is purchased directly from the local farmer, grown in a home garden, or processed in a cooperative. Buying convenience food supports the giant corporations that control the seed production, transportation, processing, & packaging of food. Such companies contribute to the impoverishment of farmers & farm communities, & promote practices that cause soil erosion, pollution, the decline of biodiversity, & genetic engineering of produce. They are not accountable to families, farmers, the poor, or the environment. The author highlights grassroots specific efforts by the Center for Rural Affairs, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, the Northeast Organic Farming Associations, Community Supported Agriculture, Community Food Security Coalition, the Land Instit, & the National Farmers Union, as well as their combined efforts to pass helpful legislation. L. A. Hoffman

A concise overview of this complex affliction for all those affected by addiction -- addicts, family members, and even employers. Download Plain Text version. At least one of every four people in America has had some experience with addiction -- either personally or through a family member. Addiction and its consequences cost billions of dollars each year in direct medical costs, lost productivity, accidents, crime, and corruption. Yet as a disease, addiction is still largely misunderstood. Starting with the question "what is addiction?" Elizabeth Connell Henderson takes the reader t

Implemented in 2002 by the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, Project H.O.P.E. has improved the quantity and quality of afterschool programs for the youth of Durham, NC. Project H.O.P.E. provides tutoring programs, enrichment resources, and evaluation support to non-profit community partner organizations located in the low income Durham neighborhoods surrounding Duke University. Duke University undergraduates who provide tutoring services to the Durham youth in the afterschool programs gain from valuable reciprocal service learning experiences. Project H.O.P.E. is an effective model of the mutual benefits that can be gained from effective university and community engagement in the service of at-risk students.

IntroductionAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an emerging phenomenon where microorganisms develop resistance against treatment antimicrobials, resulting in ineffective clinical interventions. The recent development of AMR surveillance systems at global and national stages highlights the growing importance of this topic from a public health perspective.
Objectives and ApproachThe objective was to link standardized population-based hospital AMR surveillance data with hospitalizationrecords to inform patient safety practices in Alberta, Canada. Incident inpatient cases of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA),identified by Alberta Health Services Provincial Infection Prevention and Control(IPC) Surveillance from five acute care facilities in the Calgary zone (April 2011 to March 2016),were deterministically linked to the Discharge Abstract Database using Provincial Healthcare Number and gender. The incident cohort was stratified into hospital-acquired (HA-MRSA) and community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) cases. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the patient outcomes and facility characteristics of these two groups.
ResultsA total of 2550 unique patients, representing 93.5% of the surveillance cohort, were successfully linked to hospitalization records. A total of 1259 patients belonged to HA-MRSA categories and 1291 patients belonged to CA-MRSA categories. Patients with HA-MRSA had longer hospital stays, were older, were more likely to have prior hospitalizations, had higher Charlson Comorbidity Scores, and were more likely to die in hospital when compared to patients with CA-MRSA. HA-MRSA results emphasized the important roles of in-hospital patient safety practices whereas CA-MRSA results alluded to the impact of community public health and primary care services onthe risk of hospitalization, although detected CA-MRSA numbers were likely underestimated due to selection bias within our linked cohort.
Conclusion/ImplicationsThis is first Canadian study describing HA-MRSA and CA-MRSA using linked population databases. It offers a glimpse into the intricate relationship between patient health and our healthcare system. This knowledge represents an important step forwarding building IPC strategies for managing AMR and improving outcomes in Alberta and in Canada.