The News Review:
- Sharing a load to close the health gap
- Riverside, Corona dentists help uninsured children, teens
- Federal Agencies Pummel Public Health
- The Himalayan Times: Breaking News, Views, Reviews, Sports, Business,…
Sharing a load to close the health gap
The Age – Mar 29, 2008
We can learn much from health trends inother populations. From international evidence we know that it ispossible to close the indigenous health gap. Indeed, we have hadachieved significant improvements over the last three decades inAustralia — particularly with Aboriginal infant andchild-health death rates. On the basis of this — and learning from the recent declinein sudden infant death rates in the broader Australian community— I think we should confidently aim to remove the indigenouschild-health gap by 2030. In other areas I am not so optimistic. In the non-Aboriginalcommunity there was a 25-year lag between the drop in the smokingrates and the decline in lung cancer deaths. Indigenous smokingrates are today at least two times as high as the rest of thecommunity — and the trends in indigenous lung cancer rates arealarming.
Riverside, Corona dentists help uninsured children, teens
Press-Enterprise – Mar 29, 2008
, a program that has helped low-income children in the region for more than a decade. Wood said the project “is a community collaboration between local health care providers, school districts, public health agencies and local businesses. The project was formed in 1994 by a subcommittee of the Maternal Adolescent Child Health Committee that's part of the Riverside County Medical Association. It is funded through grants and donations, Wood said in a telephone interview. Mercedes Walker, program assistant with the project, said Dr. Archana Sheth, of Corona, and Dr. Gerald Middleton, of Riverside, will start providing services to the children at 9 a.
Federal Agencies Pummel Public Health
AlterNet – Mar 29, 2008
Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — are hobbled by ineptitude and in thrall to political and corporate interests. FEMA, the poster child for criminal negligence, has sat for two years on hard evidence that trailers warehousing Hurricane Katrina victims were exposing residents to dangerous levels of formaldehyde, linked to cancer and lung disease. In early 2006, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif. ) excoriated FEMA’s leadership for failure “to understand and address the public health implications” of exposure to the toxin. A year later, the agency that brought us duct tape to counter terrorist attacks took action: It advised trailer residents simply to air out their homes… In early 2006, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif. ) excoriated FEMA’s leadership for failure “to understand and address the public health implications” of exposure to the toxin. A year later, the agency that brought us duct tape to counter terrorist attacks took action: It advised trailer residents simply to air out their homes. (David Paulison, author of the duct tape strategy, now heads FEMA. 1, approximately 38,297 Katrina households were still living in toxic trailers.
The Himalayan Times: Breaking News, Views, Reviews, Sports, Business,…
Himalayan Times – Mar 29, 2008
National Demographic Heath Survey has shown that 281 mothers out of 100,000 are dying every year along with the death of 33 newborns in 1,000 births. As per the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) the county has to decrease the maternal mortality rate to 134 and neonatal (within a month of delivery) death rate to 15 by 2015. “We have achieved significantly in maternity and child health in the last ten years, but yet we have a lot more to do,” Pandit said, adding: “There are lots of challenges including patriarchal family construct, poverty, illiteracy and inaccessibility health care services that are to be tackled. “Prof Dr Pramila Pradhan, president of the NESOG said there is a great discrepancy in maternal and infant mortality rate between rich and poor. Poverty has been a major hindrance towards accessing proper health care facilities that have to be bridged to decrease the death rate of mother and child. “We are likely to achieve the goal set by the MDG, but the crucial step to be taken is increasing the skills of skill birth attendants,” she said. She also said that the government has to ensure maternal health in its priority list and proper mobilisation of the resources in national plan.
