Translate AMICOR contents if you like

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Poverty Collection

PLoS Journals : Poverty Collection: "Poverty Collection The Council of Science Editors has organized a Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development on October 22, 2007. More than 200 science and health journals, including three PLoS journals, are participating by publishing new articles. We have also collected together related articles with a poverty theme from the archive of all the PLoS journals. Global Theme Issue Related PLoS Articles "

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Cesar Victora


(Na série especial de ZH "Mentes Iluminadas" está um AMICOR:)
O mundo de Cesar Victora

O vermelho no mapa-múndi da foto abaixo é a cor do flagelo. Para observadores que o examinam à distância, as manchas e os pontos rubros indicam os lugares em que se consuma a estatística da mortalidade infantil. Anualmente, 10 milhões de crianças de até cinco anos morrem no mundo. O médico, professor e pesquisador Cesar Gomes Victora enxerga além dos pontos no mapa. Vê rostos, dramas pessoais, paisagens e esforços para a reversão dessa realidade. Para Victora, os sinais vermelhos podem se chamar Masanja, Mbuya, Leslie, Abbas, Chowdhuri, Mushtaque, Mam Bun, Ly, Veasna. Victora é cidadão deste mundo de infâncias abreviadas.Os nomes, que Victora foi guardando na agenda, são comuns em habitantes da África e da Ásia. Os continentes concentram a maior parte dos 40 países onde o pesquisador já realizou ou realiza algum trabalho. O gaúcho de São Gabriel, professor da Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel), chega aos 55 anos ao topo da carreira de cientista especializado em epidemiologia. É consultor do Unicef, o fundo das Nações Unidas para a Infância, da Organização Mundial da Saúde e de outros organismos internacionais.Leciona, como professor visitante, nas prestigiadas universidades de Londres e Johns Hopkins, dos Estados Unidos. Fica de uma semana a 10 dias de cada mês fora do país. Na semana passada, estava no Senegal. Semana que vem, será conferencista em Perth, na Austrália.O cientista conquistou reconhecimento mundial pela originalidade e qualidade das pesquisas e ações que ajudam a salvar vidas de crianças no Brasil e no Exterior. Dedica-se à saúde materno-infantil. É um dos campos da epidemiologia, a ciência que estuda a distribuição das doenças em determinado lugar e os fatores que as provocam. Sua missão prática, sustentada pelas pesquisas, é disseminar conhecimentos, fazer diagnósticos e recomendar e coordenar procedimentos de saúde pública. Seu foco é a realidade e seus contrastes sociais:- Nosso laboratório é a população, a cidade. Em todas as pesquisas que faço, há ricos e há pobres.Victora saiu de São Gabriel aos sete anos e nunca mais voltou. O pai, o coronel veterinário reformado do Exército Fernando Victora, descendente de espanhóis, morou no Rio e em Porto Alegre. Cesar Victora formou-se em Medicina na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) em 1976. Era militante de esquerda antiditadura, sem vínculos partidários, e ambientalista. Aos 19 anos, no dia 27 de abril de 1971, participou da assembléia de fundação da Associação Gaúcha de Proteção ao Ambiente Natural (Agapan), da qual é sócio-fundador. Na Agapan, editava o jornal Sobrevivência. Em 1977, fez residência em medicina comunitária no Centro de Saúde-Escola Murialdo, no Morro da Cruz, em Porto Alegre, e no mesmo ano foi contratado pela UFPel.Em 1980, começou o doutorado na Universidade de Londres. A tese: a mortalidade infantil é maior em regiões de latifúndio do que na zona do minifúndio gaúcho. Retornou em 1983 e dois anos depois publicou uma pesquisa de impacto mundial sobre a relação entre amamentação e redução da mortalidade infantil. O Unicef divulgou e pediu que se recomendasse às mães: não dêem aos filhos de até seis meses nada além do leite materno. O chazinho de bicos contaminados das mamadeiras provocava infecções e matava.No retorno ao Brasil, assessorou Estados na luta contra a mortalidade infantil e também trabalhou com o colega epidemiologista Fernando Barros na pesquisa chamada Coorte 1982 (veja no quadro). O estudo identificou os 6.011 nascidos naquele ano em Pelotas e passou a acompanhar os que sobreviveram para identificar a relação de doenças com a história de cada um (família, ambiente etc). A pesquisa, propagada pelo mundo, foi a tese de doutorado de Barros, a quem Victora se refere com admiração. Em 1991, a dupla criou o Centro de Pesquisas Epidemiológicas da UFPel, inicialmente com curso de mestrado e depois de doutorado. Foi onde Victora, o primeiro coordenador, consagrou-se como pesquisador e formador de equipes. Em outubro último, a Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (Capes) do Ministério da Educação informou que o centro, que acolhe alunos até do Irã, obteve avaliação 7, a nota máxima. É o melhor dos 31 cursos de saúde pública do Brasil. Ele comemora e mostra nove imagens na parede da sala com fotografias que fez de crianças de Bangladesh, Camboja, Rússia, Tanzânia, Laos, Cazaquistão, Bolívia, Quirquistão e Somália. E conta que o filho, Gabriel, 30 anos, faz doutorado em imunologia na Universidade de Nova York, e a filha Júlia, de 25, estuda Medicina na Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) em Porto Alegre. Os filhos e os alunos do centro vão herdar os cuidados com o mundo de Cesar Victora.( mailto:%20moises.mendes@zerohora.com.br )MOISÉS MENDES
O reconhecimento
Para Cesar Victora, pesquisa só tem sentido com aplicação prática. Tudo o que sai do Centro de Pesquisas Epidemiológicas tem utilidade. São centenas de estudos. Um dos mais divulgados mundialmente é a Coorte 1982. Acompanha desde 1983 os 6.011 nascidos em Pelotas em 1982. Coorte é um grupo de pessoas com algo em comum em determinado período. A pesquisa identifica as condições, desde as intra-uterinas, até alimentação e ambiente - dados pessoais, familiares e socioeconômicos - e tenta estabelecer a relação com doenças na adolescência e na idade adulta. Das 6.011 crianças, 97 morreram ao nascer ou logo depois. Outros morreram ou se mudaram ao longo da pesquisa. Sobraram 4,5 mil. Periodicamente, são visitados para que se avalie, por exemplo, os efeitos da subnutrição na infância. Outro exemplo: os danos que o filho herda de uma mãe fumante. Os dados orientam ações de saúde pública. Este ano, haverá coleta de DNA, para que também se avalie os fatores genéticos.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Social Determinants of the Premature Cardiovascular Mortality


De: Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) [mailto:ruglucia@paho.org]

Enviada em: segunda-feira, 29 de outubro de 2007 18:38

Assunto: Presentacion: Factores Sociales Determinantes de la Muerte Prematura debida a Enfermedades cardiovasculares Porto Alegre – Brazil

Prof. Sergio Luiz Bassanesi
Departamento de Medicina Social
Facultad de Medicina Universidad Federal de Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil
Monday 29 October 2007 in Room C
PAHO/WHO - Health Surveillance and Disease Management Area, HDM

Recording link to Elluminate web conference session:
https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2007-10-29.1009.M.1BC839C524B0BA4B8BF53A3EC0770F.vcr

Link to: PPT presentation:
http://portal.paho.org/sites/IKM/WorkSpaces/ikmbrownbag/Documents/Cardiovascular%20Diseases%20OPAS.ppt

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Genome-wide association with select biomarker traits in the Framingham Heart Study

Emelia J Benjamin1, Josée Dupuis1, Martin G Larson1, Kathryn L Lunetta1, Sarah L Booth , Diddahally R Govindaraju1, Sekar Kathiresan, John F Keaney Jr , Michelle J Keyes1, Jing-Ping Lin10 , James B Meigs , Sander J Robins , Jian Rong , Renate Schnabel1, Joseph A Vita2,, Thomas J Wang , Peter WF Wilson , Philip A Wolf and Ramachandran S Vasan
Abstract
Background
Systemic biomarkers provide insights into disease pathogenesis, diagnosis, and risk stratification. Many systemic biomarker concentrations are heritable phenotypes. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) provide mechanisms to investigate the genetic contributions to biomarker variability unconstrained by current knowledge of physiological relations.
Methods
We examined the association of Affymetrix 100K GeneChip single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to 22 systemic biomarker concentrations in 4 biological domains: inflammation/oxidative stress; natriuretic peptides; liver function; and vitamins. Related members of the Framingham Offspring cohort (n = 1012; mean age 59 ± 10 years, 51% women) had both phenotype and genotype data (minimum-maximum per phenotype n = 507–1008). We used Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE), Family Based Association Tests (FBAT) and variance components linkage to relate SNPs to multivariable-adjusted biomarker residuals. Autosomal SNPs (n = 70,987) meeting the following criteria were studied: minor allele frequency ≥ 10%, call rate ≥ 80% and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium p ≥ 0.001.
Results
With GEE, 58 SNPs had p < p =" 1.00*10-14)" p =" 3.68*10-12)" p =" 2.83*10-8)" p =" 3.19*10-8)" p =" 3.28*10-8," p =" 3.55*10-8)," p =" 1.01*10-6)" p =" 1.07*10-6)." href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?id=phs000007">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?id=phs000007 webcite.
Conclusion
The Framingham GWAS represents a resource to describe potentially novel genetic influences on systemic biomarker variability. The newly described associations will need to be replicated in other studies.

Diabetes na Prática Clínica

De: Reginaldo Albuquerque [mailto:reginaldo.albuquerque@gmail.com] Enviada em: sexta-feira, 26 de outubro de 2007 21:16Para: ALOYZIO CECHELLA ACHUTTIAssunto: Re: 2368 - AMICOR10 - 26/10/2007
Caro amigo:
.... o ebookeletronico que lançamos no site da SBD. Chama-se "Diabetes na Prática Clínica" e endereço é: http://www.diabetesebook.org.br/
O leitor pode baixar e montar o seu banco de dados das imagens para futuras aulas. Estamos com 30 mil páginas lidas desde o lançamento em 15/10. Veja que não se trata de PDFs. Foi necessário desenvolvermos uma ferramenta que permite aos leitores fazerem comentários e aos autores realizarem as atualizações.
.............
Um grande abraço e aguardo os seus comentários
Reginaldo
PS : alguns dos capítulos estão um primor com várias documentações fotográficas, como por exemplo,o de lesões dermatlógicas no diabetes. Módulo 2.

Friday, October 26, 2007

2368 – AMICOR10 – 26/10/2007

Friday, October 26, 2007

The global impact of income inequality on health by age: an observational study

Labels: Global Health, inequality

Diabetes and hypertension: inextricably linked

Labels: Diabetes, hypertension

Older Physicians Unhappy

Labels: medicine

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Reporting Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE)

Labels: epidemiology

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Poverty and Human Development – October 2007. Journals

Labels: development, inequality

Friday, October 19, 2007

Feeding a Hungry World -- Borlaug 318 (5849): 359 -- Science

NIH Poverty and Human Development

NIH VideoCasting Event Summary

New Universal Definition for MI

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.187397v1

Labels: Myocardial Infarction

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

The World Bank, October 2007

Available online at:
http://go.worldbank.org/LBJZD6HWZ0

Press Release:
http://go.worldbank.org/IUIGDTF9M0

Labels:
development, rural

The global impact of income inequality on health by age: an observational study

The global impact of income inequality on health by age: an observational study
Danny Dorling, professor of human geography1, Richard Mitchell, reader in health inequalities2, Jamie Pearce, co-director3
1 Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, 2 Public Health and Health Policy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RZ, 3 GeoHealth Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8020, New Zealand
Correspondence to: D Dorling
Daniel.dorling@sheffield.ac.uk

Objectives To explore whether the apparent impact of income inequality on health, which has been shown for wealthier nations, is replicated worldwide, and whether the impact varies by age.
Design Observational study.
Setting 126 countries of the world for which complete data on income inequality and mortality by age and sex were available around the year 2002 (including 94.4% of world human population).
Data sources Data on mortality were from the World Health Organization and income data were taken from the annual reports of the United Nations Development Programme.
Main outcome measures Mortality in 5-year age bands for each sex by income inequality and income level.
Results At ages 15-29 and 25-39 variations in income inequality seem more closely correlated with mortality worldwide than do variations in material wealth. This relation is especially strong among the poorest countries in Africa. Mortality is higher for a given level of overall income in more unequal nations.
Conclusions Income inequality seems to have an influence worldwide, especially for younger adults. Social inequality seems to have a universal negative impact on health.

Diabetes and hypertension: inextricably linked

The treatment of diabetes and hypertension has become one of the greatest challenges for medical professionals today. It is estimated that by 2025 some 1.56 billion people will have hypertension and by 2030 around 366 million will have diabetes. From October 22nd 2007, Nature Clinical Practice will be presenting a selection of articles from a variety of Nature Publishing Group journals that will focus on these conditions./.../

Older Physicians Unhappy

Older Physicians Unhappy and Looking to Bail Out of Medicine
(Apezar de a amostra que respondeu não ser representativa, o artigo serve para fazer pensar no tema)
By Mark Crane, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today October 25, 2007
IRVING, Tex., Oct. 25 -- Half of physicians from ages 50 to 65 are frustrated with their practices and plan to sharply cut back or abandon patient care within the next three years, according to a survey.
Fifty-two percent of these older physicians said they find medicine has become less satisfying over the past five years, according to a survey by Merritt Hawkins & Associates, a national physician search and consulting firm.
Only 10% of nearly 1,200 responding physicians said the practice of medicine is "very satisfying," down from 20% in earlier surveys.
What's more, 44% of the surveyed physicians said they wouldn't choose medicine as a career if they were starting out today and 57% would discourage their children or other young people from doing so./.../

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Reporting Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE)

The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies
Erik von Elm MD , et al. for the STROBE initiative
Summary
Much biomedical research is observational. The reporting of such research is often inadequate, which hampers the assessment of its strengths and weaknesses and of a study's generalisability. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) initiative developed recommendations on what should be included in an accurate and complete report of an observational study. We defined the scope of the recommendations to cover three main study designs: cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies. We convened a 2-day workshop in September, 2004, with methodologists, researchers, and journal editors to draft a checklist of items. This list was subsequently revised during several meetings of the coordinating group and in e-mail discussions with the larger group of STROBE contributors, taking into account empirical evidence and methodological considerations. The workshop and the subsequent iterative process of consultation and revision resulted in a checklist of 22 items (the STROBE statement) that relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections of articles. 18 items are common to all three study designs and four are specific for cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional studies. A detailed explanation and elaboration document is published separately and is freely available on the websites of PLoS Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Epidemiology. We hope that the STROBE statement will contribute to improving the quality of reporting of observational studies.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Poverty and Human Development – October 2007. Journals

Estou experimentando novas formas de apresentar AMICOR e aproveitando para postar o endereço das revistas que estão participando do projeto de publicar sobre Pobreza e Desenvolvimento Humano. Estamos (Maria Inês Reinert Azambuja, Sérgio Bassanesi, Murilo Foppa e eu) trabalhando nesta linha e esperamos que haja mais gente interessada.

Trying new presentation forms for AMICOR and tacking the opportunity to post the addresses of journals engaged in the project of publication on Poverty and Human Development. We (Maria Inês Reinert Azambuja, Sérgio Bassanesi, Murilo Foppa and me) are working in this line and we hope to find new colleagues interested.

Journals Participating in the CSE Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development as of October 2007

Friday, October 19, 2007

Feeding a Hungry World -- Borlaug 318 (5849): 359 -- Science

Feeding a Hungry World -- Borlaug 318 (5849): 359 -- Science
Next week, more than 200 science journals throughout the world will simultaneously publish papers on global poverty and human development--a collaborative effort to increase awareness, interest, and research about these important issues of our time. Some 800 million people still experience chronic and transitory hunger each year. Over the next 50 years, we face the daunting job of feeding 3.5 billion additional people, most of whom will begin life in poverty. The battle to alleviate poverty and improve human health and productivity will require dynamic agricultural development.
Breakthroughs in wheat and rice production, which came to be known as the Green Revolution, signaled the dawn of applying agricultural science to the Third World's need for modern techniques. It began in Mexico in the late 1950s, spread to Asia during the 1960s and 1970s, and continued in China in the 1980s and 1990s. Over a 40-year period, the proportion of hungry people in the world declined from about 60% in 1960 to 17% in 2000. The Green Revolution also brought environmental benefits. If the global cereal yields of 1950 still prevailed in 2000, we would have needed nearly 1.2 billion more hectares of the same quality, instead of the 660 million hectares used, to achieve 2000's global harvest. Moreover, had environmentally fragile land been brought into agricultural production, the soil erosion, loss of forests and grasslands, reduction in biodiversity, and extinction of wildlife species would have been disastrous.
.............
Although sizable land areas, such as the cerrados of Brazil, may responsibly be converted to agriculture, most food increases will have to come from lands already in production. Fortunately, productivity improvements in crop management can be made all along the line: in plant breeding, crop management, tillage, fertilization, weed and pest control, harvesting, and water use. Genetically engineered crops are playing an increasingly important role in world agriculture, enabling scientists to reach across genera for useful genes to enhance tolerance to drought, heat, cold, and waterlogging, all likely consequences of global warming. I believe biotechnology will be essential to meeting future food, feed, fiber, and biofuel demand.

NIH Poverty and Human Development

NIH VideoCasting Event Summary

Monday, October 22, 2007, 10:00:00 AM
Category:
Description:
More than 230 scientific journals throughout the world will simultaneously publish articles devoted to the topic of poverty and human development. Eight of the most outstanding articles from these journals addressing critical issues of global health research and policy were selected by a panel of NIH and CSE experts for presentation. New research in these articles examines interventions and projects to improve health and reduce health-care inequities among the poor. Subject areas include: childbirth safety, HIV/AIDS, malaria treatment, food insufficiency and sexual behavior, interventions to improve child survival, physician brain drain from the developing world, influenza's impact on children, and use of satellite technology to predict disease outbreaks. The presentations involve research conducted in or about resource-poor countries throughout the world and will be published in the following journals: BMJ, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, American Journal of Public Health, PLoS Medicine, JAMA, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Science. For more information, visit http://www.fic.nih.gov/news/events/cse.htm

New Universal Definition for MI

From Cardiosource:
New Universal Definition of MI - learn about the big changes in a CVN interview with Joseph Alpert.
Full text in the journal
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.187397v1

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

The World Bank, October 2007

Available online at: http://go.worldbank.org/LBJZD6HWZ0

Press Release: http://go.worldbank.org/IUIGDTF9M0

October 19, 2007 – World Development Report 2008 calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries.The report warns that the sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized.
· While 75 percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas in developing countries, a mere 4 percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture.
· In Sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is also only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is still taxed at relatively high levels.
· For the poorest people, GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in raising incomes of extremely poor people than GDP growth originating outside the sector