Monday, May 28, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
More than 1 in 10 babies worldwide born prematurely
The first-ever country-by-country estimate of premature births finds that 15 million babies a year are born preterm — more than one in 10 live births.
About 1 million of those babies die shortly after birth, and countless others suffer a significant, life-long physical, neurological or educational disability, says a report, Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth, released today.
The findings "dispel the notion that this is a rare problem" and "leave no excuse for preterm births to remain a neglected problem," says Joy Lawn, director of global evidence and policy for Save the Children and co-editor of the report.
Although more than 60% of preterm births are in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, they are also a problem for some high-income countries, including the USA and Brazil. Both rank among the 10 countries with the highest number of preterm births.
In the USA, about 12% of all births are preterm, a percentage far higher than in Europe or other developed countries.
Factors driving up the rate in the USA include the number of older women having babies; increased use of fertility drugs, which increase the risk of multiple births; and increased rates of medically unnecessary Cesarean deliveries and inductions "done at the convenience of the doctor or mother," says Christopher Howson, another co-editor of the report and head of Global Programs for the March of Dimes. Other organizations involved in producing the report were the World Health Organization and the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, a global alliance of more than 400 health organizations.
In addition to a notable age gap (the rate for women ages 20-35 was 11% to 12% vs. 15% for women under 17 and over 40), a considerable racial gap also exists in the USA, Howson says.
The preterm birth rate for black Americans in 2009 was as high as 17.5%, compared with 10.9% for white Americans.
"In the United States, our preemies have among the highest survival rates in the world," Howson says. "Where we fall flat is on the prevention side. We need to do a lot more to prevent preterm births, such as improving health care access for all, bringing down rates of smoking and issues of unnecessary C-sections and inductions."
Globally, preterm births are the second leading killer of children younger than 5, and "the numbers haven't come down very much, especially when you compare it to things like pneumonia, diarrhea — where we've really made progress — malaria and HIV, where we've also made significant progress," Lawn says.
"In fact, the numbers have been increasing," she says, adding that "out of 65 countries where reliable trend data is available, only three (Croatia, Euador and Estonia) show a significant reduction" from 1990 to 2010.
For the report, preterm was defined as 37 weeks of completed gestation or less, the standard World Health Organization definition.
A recent March of Dimes analysis shows that, even though numbers are low, the risk of death of babies born at 37 to 39 weeks of gestation is twice as high as full-term babies, or 39 weeks, Howson says: "Only one week increases the risk of adverse outcomes."
An estimated 75% of the world's 1 million preterm deaths could be avoided if a few "proven and inexpensive treatments and preventions" were widely available in low-income countries, according to the report, including teaching "kangaroo care," in which tiny babies are held skin-to-skin on their mother's bare chests for warmth when there are no incubators.
Also, steroid injections for mothers in premature labor, which cost $1 an injection, help develop immature fetal lungs and prevent respiratory problems.
Obesity could affect 42% of Americans by 2030
WASHINGTON – A new forecast on America's obesity crisis has health experts fearing a dramatic jump in health care costs if nothing is done to bring the epidemic under control.The new projection, released here Monday, warns that 42% of Americans may end up obese by 2030, and 11% could be severely obese, adding billions of dollars to health care costs. "If nothing is done (about obesity), it's going to hinder efforts for health care cost containment," says Justin Trogdon, a research economist with RTI International, a non-profit research organization in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park.
As of 2010, about 36% of adults were obese, which is roughly 30 pounds over a healthy weight, and 6% were severely obese, which is 100 or more pounds over a healthy weight.
"The obesity problem is likely to get much worse without a major public health intervention," says Eric Finkelstein, a health economist with Duke University Global Health Institute and lead researcher on the new study.
The analysis was presented at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Weight of the Nation" meeting. The study is being published online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
The increase in the obesity rate would mean 32 million more obese people within two decades, Finkelstein says. That's on top of the almost 78 million people who were obese in 2010. Extra weight takes a huge toll on health, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, many types of cancer, sleep apnea and other debilitating and chronic illnesses. "Obesity is one of the biggest contributors for why healthcare spending has been going up over the past 20 years," says Kenneth Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta. The obesity rate was relatively stable in the USAbetween 1960 and 1980, when about 15% of people fell into the category. It increased dramatically in the '80s and '90s and was up to 32% in 2000 and 36% in 2010, according to CDC data. Obesity inched up slightly over the past decade, which has caused speculation that the obesity rate might be leveling off.
Finkelstein, Trogdon and colleagues predicted future obesity rates with a statistical analysis using different CDC data, including body mass index, of several hundred thousand people. Body mass is a number that takes into account height and weight. Their estimates suggest obesity is likely to continue to increase, although not as fast as it has in the past.
Finkelstein says the estimates assume that things have gotten about as bad as they can get in the USA, in terms of an environment that promotes obesity. The country "is already saturated" with fast-food restaurants, cheap junk food and electronic technologies that render people sedentary at home and work, he says. "We don't expect the environment to get much worse than it is now, or at least we hope it doesn't."
In an earlier study, Finkelstein and experts from the CDC estimated that medical-related costs of obesity may be as high as $147 billion a year, or roughly 9% of medical expenditures. An obese person costs an average of $1,400 more in medical expenses a year than someone who is at a healthy weight, they found. Other researchers have estimated the costs may be even higher.
If the obesity rate stays at 2010 levels instead of rising to 42% as predicted, then the country could save more than $549.5 billion in weight-related medical expenditures between now and 2030, says study co-author Trogdon.
Patrick O'Neil, president of the Obesity Society, a group of weight-control researchers and professionals, says that these new projections "indicate that even more people will be losing loved ones and others will be suffering sickness and living lives that fall short of their promise because of obesity.
There's no one-size-fits all solution to a complex problem that has been decades in the making, says Sam Kass, assistant chef and senior policy advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives at the White House. "This national conversation — this national movement — must continue. This is literally life and death we are talking about."
How can you lose weight and keep it off for good?
Successful dieters in the National Weight Control Registry, a group of 10,000 people who have lost 30 pounds or more and maintained that loss for a year or more, have developed many weight-control strategies. For instance, they:
•Follow a low-calorie, low-fat diet of about 1,800 calories a day.
•Keep track of food intake.
•Count calories, carbs or fat grams or use a commercial weight-loss program to track food intake.
•Walk about an hour a day or burn the same calories doing other physical activities.
•Eat breakfast regularly, often including whole grains and low-fat dairy products.
•Limit dining out to an average of three times a week, and fast food to less than once a week.
•Eat similar foods often and don't splurge much.
•Watch fewer than 10 hours of TV a week.
•Weigh themselves at least once a week.
ref : http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-07/obesity-projections-adults/54791430/1
ref : http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-07/obesity-projections-adults/54791430/1
Asteroid Craters On Earth Give Clues in Search for Life On Mars
ScienceDaily — Craters made by asteroid impacts may be the best place to look for signs of life on other planets, a study suggests. Tiny organisms have been discovered thriving deep underneath a site in the US where an asteroid crashed some 35 million years ago.
Scientists believe that the organisms are evidence that such craters provide refuge for microbes, sheltering them from the effects of the changing seasons and events such as global warming or ice ages.
Life forms
The study suggests that crater sites on Mars may also be hiding life, and that drilling beneath them could lead to evidence of similar life forms.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh drilled almost 2 km below one of the largest asteroid impact craters on Earth, in Chesapeake Bay, US.
Samples from below ground showed that microbes are unevenly spread throughout the rock, suggesting that the environment is continuing to settle 35 million years after impact.
Microbe nutrients
Scientists say that heat from the impact of an asteroid collision would kill everything at the surface.
However, fractures to rocks deep below would enable water and nutrients to flow in and support life.
Some organisms grow by absorbing elements such as iron from rock.
The research was published in the journal Astrobiology.
"The deeply fractured areas around impact craters can provide a safe haven in which microbes can flourish for long periods of time. Our findings suggest that the subsurface of craters on Mars might be a promising place to search for evidence of life," said Professor Charles Cockell, of the School of Physics and Astronomy. Cockell is first author of the study.
Privacy Mode Helps Secure Android Smartphones
ScienceDaily — Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed software that helps Android smartphone users prevent their personal information from being stolen by hackers.
"There are a lot of concerns about potential leaks of personal information from smartphones," says Dr. Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "We have developed software that creates a privacy mode for Android systems, giving users flexible control over what personal information is available to various applications." The privacy software is called Taming Information-Stealing Smartphone Applications (TISSA).
TISSA works by creating a privacy setting manager that allows users to customize the level of information each smartphone application can access. Those settings can be adjusted any time that the relevant applications are being run -- not just when the applications are installed.
The TISSA prototype includes four possible privacy settings for each application. These settings are Trusted, Anonymized, Bogus and Empty. If an application is listed as Trusted, TISSA does not impose additional information access restrictions. If the user selects Anonymized, TISSA provides the application with generalized information that allows the application to run, without providing access to detailed personal information. The Bogus setting provides an application with fake results when it requests personal information. The Empty setting responds to information requests by saying the relevant information does not exist or is unavailable.
Jiang says TISSA could be easily modified to incorporate additional settings that would allow more fine-grained control of access to personal information. "These settings may be further specialized for different types of information, such as your contact list or your location," Jiang says. "The settings can also be specialized for different applications."
For example, a user may install a weather application that requires location data in order to provide the user with the local weather forecast. Rather than telling the application exactly where the user is, TISSA could be programmed to give the application generalized location data -- such as a random location within a 10-mile radius of the user. This would allow the weather application to provide the local weather forecast information, but would ensure that the application couldn't be used to track the user's movements.
The researchers are currently exploring how to make this software available to Android users. "The software modification is relatively minor," Jiang says, "and could be incorporated through an over-the-air update."
The paper, "Taming Information-Stealing Smartphone Applications (on Android)," was co-authored by Jiang; Yajin Zhou, a Ph.D. student at NC State; Dr. Vincent Freeh, an associate professor of computer science at NC State; and Dr. Xinwen Zhang of Huawei America Research Center. The paper will be presented in June at the 4th International Conference on Trust and Trustworthy Computing, in Pittsburgh, Pa. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and NC State's Secure Open Systems Initiative, which receives funding from the U.S. Army Research Office.
Some Smartphone Models More Vulnerable to Attack
ScienceDaily — New research from North Carolina State University shows that some smartphones specifically designed to support the Android mobile platform have incorporated additional features that can be used by hackers to bypass Android's security features, making them more vulnerable to attack. Android has the largest share of the smartphone market in the U.S.
"Some of these pre-loaded applications, or features, are designed to make the smartphones more user-friendly, such as features that notify you of missed calls or text messages," says Dr. Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "The problem is that these pre-loaded apps are built on top of the existing Android architecture in such a way as to create potential 'backdoors' that can be used to give third-parties direct access to personal information or other phone features."
In essence, these pre-loaded apps can be easily tricked by hackers. For example, these "backdoors" can be used to record your phone calls, send text messages to premium numbers that will charge your account or even completely wipe out all of your settings.
The researchers have tested eight different smartphone models, including two "reference implementations" that were loaded only with Google's baseline Android software. "Google's reference implementations and the Motorola Droid were basically clean," Jiang says. "No real problems there."
However, five other models did not fare as well. HTC's Legend, EVO 4G and Wildfire S, Motorola's Droid X and Samsung's Epic 4G all had significant vulnerabilities -- with the EVO 4G displaying the most vulnerabilities.
The researchers notified manufacturers of the vulnerabilities as soon as they were discovered, earlier this year.
"If you have one of these phones, your best bet to protect yourself moving forward is to make sure you accept security updates from your vendor," Jiang says. "And avoid installing any apps that you don't trust completely."
Researchers now plan to test these vulnerabilities in other smartphone models and determine whether third-party firmware has similar vulnerabilities.
The paper, "Systematic Detection of Capability Leaks in Stock Android Smartphones," will be presented Feb. 7, 2012, at the 19th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, Calif. The paper was co-authored by Jiang and NC State Ph.D. students Michael Grace, Yajin Zhou and Zhi Wang. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Research Office.
Android Vulnerability Debugged
ScienceDaily — A group of Italian researchers have discovered and neutralized a serious vulnerability present in all versions of Android, the popular operating system developed by Google specifically for smartphones and tablet computers. The vulnerability could have been easily exploited by malicious software applications, with the effect of making devices based on Google's operating system currently on the market completely unusable. The solution proved to be effective and will be included in a future update.
The work was conducted by researchers working in various Italian universities and research centers: Prof. Alessandro Armando, Head of the "Security & Trust" Research Unit at the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento and coordinator of the DIST's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Genoa, prof. Alessio Merlo (Telematic University E-Campus), Prof. Mauro Migliardi (coordinator of the Green Energy Aware Security at the University of Padua) and Luca Verderame (recent graduate in Computer Engineering at the University of Genoa).
The team of researchers promptly reported the vulnerability to Google and to the Android "security team," providing a detailed analysis of related risks. It also designed a solution that was verified by the security team of Android, and that -- given its effectiveness -- will be adopted in a future operating system update.
If it had not been neutralized, the vulnerability discovered by the Italian team would have allowed a malicious application software (malware) to saturate the physical resources of the device, leading to complete blockage of both Android-based smartphones and Tablet computers. An especially insidious problem because this particular application does not require any authorization during installation and would tend to appear harmless to the user.
This research will be published on the proceedings of the "27th IFIP International Information Security and Privacy Conference -- SEC 2012" (Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June 4-6, 2012).
Technical Information
The identified vulnerability is based on a defect in the control of communication between applications and vital components of Android that allows to systematically exhaust the memory resources of the device by the generation of an arbitrarily large number of processes. The fundamental principle of the security of Android is the total separation between the applications (sandboxing) to ensure that each of these cannot affect in any way the operation of the others. The team of Italian researchers showed that this separation is violated in current systems and indicated the solution to be able to restore it.
Security engineering
Security engineering is the field of engineering dealing with the security and integrity of real-world systems.
It is similar to systems engineering in that its motivation is to make a system meet requirements, but with the added dimension of enforcing a security policy.
It has existed as an informal field for centuries, in the fields of locksmithing and security printing. Technological advances, principally in the field of computers, have now allowed the creation of far more complex systems, with new and complex security problems.
Because modern systems cut across many areas of human endeavor, security engineers not only need consider the mathematical and physical properties of systems; they also need to consider attacks on the people who use and form parts of those systems using social engineering attacks.
Secure systems have to resist not only technical attacks, but also coercion, fraud, and deception by confidence tricksters. For this reason it involves aspects of social science, psychology and economics, as well as physics, chemistry and mathematics.
Some of the techniques used, such as fault tree analysis, are derived from safety engineering.
For more information about the topic Security engineering, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles
New England, Mid-Atlantic Beaches Eroding, Losing 1. 6 Feet Per Year On Average
ScienceDaily — An assessment of coastal change over the past 150 years has found 68 percent of beaches in the New England and Mid-Atlantic region are eroding, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report.
Scientists studied more than 650 miles of the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts and found the average rate of coastal change -- taking into account beaches that are both eroding and prograding -- was negative 1.6 feet per year. Of those beaches eroding, the most extreme case exceeded 60 feet per year.
The past 25 to 30 years saw a small reduction in the percentage of beaches eroding -- dropping to 60 percent, possibly as a result of beach restoration activities such as adding sand to beaches.
"This report provides invaluable objective data to help scientists and managers better understand natural changes to and human impacts on the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts," said Anne Castle, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science. "The information gathered can inform decisions about future land use, transportation corridors, and restoration projects."
Beaches change in response to a variety of factors, including changes in the amount of available sand, storms, sea-level rise and human activities. How much a beach is eroding or prograding in any given location is due to some combination of these factors, which vary from place to place.
The Mid-Atlantic coast -- from Long Island, N.Y. to the Virginia-North Carolina border -- is eroding at higher average rates than the New England coast. The difference in the type of coastline, with sandy areas being more vulnerable to erosion than areas with a greater concentration of rocky coasts, was the primary factor.
The researchers found that, although coastal change is highly variable, the majority of the coast is eroding throughout both regions, indicating erosion hazards are widespread.
"There is increasing need for this kind of comprehensive assessment in all coastal environments to guide managed response to sea-level rise," said Dr. Cheryl Hapke of the USGS, lead author of the new report. "It is very difficult to predict what may happen in the future without a solid understanding of what has happened in the past."
The researchers used historical data sources such as maps and aerial photographs, as well as modern data like lidar, or "light detection and ranging," to measure shoreline change at more than 21,000 locations.
This analysis of past and present trends of shoreline movement is designed to allow for future repeatable analyses of shoreline movement, coastal erosion, and land loss. The results of the study provide a baseline for coastal change information that can be used to inform a wide variety of coastal management decisions, Hapke said.
The report, titled "National Assessment of Shoreline Change: Historical Shoreline Change along the New England and Mid-Atlantic Coasts," is the fifth report produced as part of the USGS's National Assessment of Shoreline Change project. An accompanying report that provides the geographic information system (GIS) data used to conduct the coastal change analysis is being released simultaneously.
70 Percent of Beaches Eroding On Hawaiian Islands Kauai, Oahu, and Maui
ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) — An assessment of coastal change over the past century has found 70 percent of beaches on the islands of KauaÊ»i, OÊ»ahu, and Maui are undergoing long-term erosion, according to a U.S. Geological Survey and University of HawaiÊ»i report.
Scientists from the USGS and the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at UH studied more than 150 miles of island coastline (essentially every beach) and found the average rate of coastal change -- taking into account beaches that are both eroding and accreting -- was 0.4 feet of erosion per year from the early 1900s to 2000s. Of those beaches eroding, the most extreme case was nearly 6 feet per year near Kualoa Point, East Oʻahu.
"The inevitable fate of the Hawaiian Islands millions of years into the future is seen to the northwest in the spires of French Frigate Shoals and the remnants of other once mighty islands, ancestors of today's Hawaii, but now sunken beneath the sea through the forces of waves, rivers, and the slow subsidence of the seafloor," explained USGS Director Marcia McNutt.
"These data have allowed State and County agencies in Hawaii to account for shoreline change as early as possible in the planning and development process so that coastal communities and public infrastructure can be sited safely away from erosion hazards areas," said William J. Aila Jr., Chairperson, Department of Land and Natural Resources, State of Hawaii. "This will vastly improve upon public safety and will ensure that Hawaii's beautiful beaches will be protected from inappropriate shoreline development."
Of the three islands, Maui beaches experienced the highest rates and greatest extent of beach erosion with 85% of beaches eroding. Erosion is the dominant trend of coastal change on all three islands with 71% of beaches eroding on Kauai and 60% of beaches eroding on Oʻahu.
The researchers found that, although Hawaii beaches are dominated by erosion as a whole, coastal change is highly variable along the shore -- with 'cells' of erosion and accretion typically separated by 100s of feet on continuous beaches or by rocky headlands that divide the coast into many small embayments. Most Hawaii beaches are composed of a mix of sediment derived from adjacent reefs and from the volcanic rock of the islands. Sediment availability and transport are important factors in shoreline change, and human interference in natural processes appears to have impacted the rates of change. For example, more than 13 miles of beaches in the study were completely lost to erosion -- nearly all previously in front of seawalls.
"Over a century of building along the Hawaiian shoreline, without this sort of detailed knowledge about shoreline change, has led to some development that is located too close to the ocean," said Dr. Charles Fletcher, UH Geology and Geophysics Professor and lead author. "A better understanding of historical shoreline change and human responses to erosion may improve our ability to avoid erosion hazards in the future."
The researchers used historical data sources such as maps and aerial photographs to measure shoreline change at more than 12,000 locations. Shoreline changes are measured in specialized Geographic Information System software.
This analysis of past and present trends of shoreline movement is designed to allow for future repeatable analyses of shoreline movement, coastal erosion, and land loss. "The results of this research provide critical coastal change information that can be used to inform a wide variety of coastal management decisions," said Dr. Rob Thieler, sponsor of the study with the USGS.
The report, titled "National Assessment of Shoreline Change: Historical Shoreline Change in the Hawaiian Islands," is the sixth report produced as part of the USGS's National Assessment of Shoreline Change project, which already includes the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts, as well as California.
Sex education
Sex education is a broad term used to describe education about human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, and other aspects of human sexual behavior.
Although some form of sex education is part of the curriculum at many schools, it remains a controversial issue in several countries, particularly with regard to the age at which children should start receiving such education, the amount of detail which is revealed, and topics dealing with human sexuality and behavior (eg.
safe sex practices and masturbation, and sexual ethics).
In the United States in particular, sex education raises much contentious debate.
Chief among controversial points is whether covering child sexuality is valuable or detrimental; the use of birth control such as condoms and oral contraceptives; and the impact of such use on pregnancy outside marriage, teenage pregnancy, and the transmission of STDs.
Increasing support for abstinence only sex education by conservative groups has been one the primary cause of this controversy.
Countries with more conservative attitudes towards sex education (including the UK and the U.S.) have a higher incidence of STDs and teenage pregnancy.
Research Into Adolescent Sexual Habits Reveals Surprising Findings
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2010) — Females are more likely to have an unprotected first sexual encounter than their male counterparts, new research suggests.
This finding was a surprise to Nicole Weller, an Arizona State University graduate student working toward her doctoral degree in sociology, who presented preliminary findings on research she is conducting on the relationship between early sex education and the onset of sexual activity at the 138th annual American Public Health Association Social Justice Meeting and Expo in Denver on Nov. 8. Weller is a student in the School of Social and Family Dynamics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU.
"I'm looking at the interaction between sexual education and how it impacts young adolescent sexual behavior," she said. "This in particular was an interesting finding because males usually report that they are having more sex than females."
Weller's research looks for answers to questions such as: Are adolescents more likely to have unprotected sex or protected sex? Are adolescents who know the risk of sexually transmitted diseases more likely to use contraception?
"In general, the younger that you are when you have sex, the more at risk you are of contracting a sexually transmitted disease," Weller said. Teaching adolescents early about sex is advantageous because the younger one learns, the more likely that younger person is to take precautions when they do have an encounter.
"The younger one receives sexual education, the less likely you are to engage in risky sex," Weller said. Weller is analyzing data from the National Survey of Family Growth that has been conducted since 1973. The comprehensive sexual health history survey reports information on topics such as sexual health and pregnancy.
Research also shows that young people are waiting longer than in the past to have a first sexual encounter, but the age at which people contract a sexually transmitted disease is decreasing.
"Fifteen to 19-year-olds have the most sexually transmitted diseases," Weller said. "Even though they are waiting, they are having risky sex and not taking precautions."
The disparities in different ethnic groups' sexual habits were also examined by Weller. For instance, African American males and females are more likely to have unprotected sex than their peers.
Sexual education is prevalent in America's school system in a variety of formats from abstinence to sexually transmitted disease awareness and from birth control to pregnancy awareness. "It varies in school districts and from state to state. More than 80 percent of students get some type of sex education in the school," she said. In addition, young people receive sexual education from parents, peers and medical professionals.
Further research that Weller will conduct on the subject includes looking at the different types of contraception use since some methods prevent pregnancy; others prevent sexually transmitted diseases; and some such as condoms can prevent both. She plans to measure adolescent's knowledge of the different methods and whether they know which methods are the best to use. Another focus of her studies is if the type of relationship has an influence on the type of contraception used, whether it is a serious boyfriend-girlfriend relationship or a random hook-up.
Weller has conducted previous research on infertility and is interested in the relationship between contracting sexually transmitted diseases and future infertility. "Young people probably are not thinking about having children later. When you are young, you're not necessarily thinking of those future consequences."
Sexually Abused Boys at Risk for More Unsafe Sex, Researchers Find
ScienceDaily (Apr. 4, 2012) — Young males who have been sexually abused are five times more likely to cause teen pregnancy compared to those with no abuse history, according to University of British Columbia research.
Sexually abused boys are also three times more likely to have multiple sexual partners and twice as likely to engage in unprotected sex.
Published online in advance of theJournal of Adolescent Health's June issue, the UBC study explores links between sexual abuse and risky sexual behaviour, focusing on three areas: teen pregnancy, multiple sexual partners and unprotected sexual intercourse.
The researchers analyzed 10 sets of Canadian and U.S. survey data from two decades of published studies. Conducted between 1986 and 2011, the surveys were completed anonymously by more than 40,000 male high school students in B.C. and across the U.S., including states such as Oregon, Vermont, Minnesota and Massachusetts.
"As far as we know, this is the first study to explore the strength of the effects of sexual abuse on boys' sexual behaviour," says lead author Yuko Homma, a recent PhD graduate from the UBC School of Nursing.
"Our findings show that, boys are also vulnerable to the traumatic effects of sexual abuse, which can lead to sexually transmitted infections or teen pregnancy."
Homma advises, "Parents need to speak to their sons about sexual abuse awareness and prevention, as parents of girls do. Boys may hesitate to tell parents about an incident if parents have misconceptions about sexual abuse -- that it can't happen to males."
The researchers recommend that schools include sexual abuse prevention in health education and that health care agencies screen for sexual abuse histories among boys and girls.
"Boys are far less likely to tell someone when they have been sexually abused," says co-author Elizabeth Saewyc, UBC professor of nursing and adolescent medicine. "Yet it's clear they too need support and care to cope with the trauma from sexual violence."
On average, about eight per cent of males and 20 per cent of females in North America report a history of sexual abuse.
The study was supported by the Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Consortium research grant, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's health research investment agency. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to enable its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to more than 14,100 health researchers and trainees across Canada.
Peak Risk About 16 Years Old for Teens Misusing Prescription Drugs
ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) — The peak risk for misusing prescription pain relievers occurs in mid-adolescence, specifically about 16 years old and earlier than many experts thought, according to a new study by Michigan State University researchers.
The results, based on recent nationwide surveys of nearly 120,000 U.S. adolescents, suggest prevention programs may need to be introduced earlier, in childhood and early adolescence, said James C. Anthony of MSU's Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Recent trends show clinicians and public health professionals are prescribing more pain relievers, and research suggests an increased misuse of these drugs and increased rates of overdose deaths, said Anthony, who supervised the research of postdoctoral fellow Elizabeth Meier and graduate student Jonathan Troost.
"While much of the previous thinking was that misuse of these drugs emerged in the final year of high school and during the college-age years, we found that for adolescents the peak risk of starting to misuse these painkillers generally occurs earlier, not during the postsecondary school years," Anthony said. "We suspect many physicians, other prescribing clinicians and public health professionals, will share our surprise in this finding."
The study, supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and MSU, was published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a network publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The team of researchers analyzed data from the 2004 through 2008 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health to identify when young people are most likely to start using prescription pain relievers to get high or for other unapproved uses. The results show about 1 in 60 young people between 12 and 21 years old starts using prescription pain relievers each year, outside the boundaries of what a prescriber has intended.
Peak risk is concentrated at about 16 years, when roughly 1 in 30 to 40 youth start to use painkillers to get high, or for other reasons not intended by the prescriber.
"Getting a firm grasp of when the first onset occurs is very important when we try to take public health action to prevent first occurrence," Anthony said. "With the peak risk at age 16 years and a notable acceleration in risk between ages 13 and 14 years, any strict focus on college students or 12th graders might be an example of too little too late."
The results reveal a need to strengthen prescribing guidelines for clinicians and introduce early school-based prevention programs such as effective school-based alcohol and tobacco initiatives, he said.
Other types of prevention programs include peer-resistance programs such as the popular "Just Say No" campaigns. There also is an opportunity to work with pharmaceutical specialists who sometimes can reformulate these drugs so their effects are blunted when misused.
As for clinicians with a public health perspective, Anthony said that non-opioid pain relievers such as ibuprofen can be quite effective, and that when opioid pain killers are prescribed for adolescents or in reach of teens, the number of tablets can be limited or kept under lock and key.
"Patients in transient pain are often given a larger opioid prescription than is needed. It can end up stacked in the medicine cabinet, available to anyone in or visiting the household," he said.
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Ternyata lagu anak-anak yang populer banyak mengandung kesalahan, mengajarkan kerancuan, dan menurunkan motivasi. Berikut buktinya:
1. “Balonku ada 5… rupa- rupa warnanya… merah, kuning, kelabu.. merah muda dan biru… meletus balon hijau, dorrrr!!!”
Perhatikan warna-warna kelima balon tsb., kenapa tiba2 muncul warna hijau ? Jadi jumlah balon sebenarnya ada 6, bukan 5!
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2. “Aku seorang kapiten… mempunyai pedang panjang… kalo berjalan prok..prok.. prok… aku seorang kapiten!”
Perhatikan di bait pertama dia cerita tentang pedangnya, tapi di bait kedua dia cerita tentang sepatunya (inkonsistensi. Harusnya dia tetap konsisten, misal jika ingin cerita tentang sepatunya seharusnya dia bernyanyi :
“mempunyai sepatu baja (bukan pedang panjang)… kalo berjalan prok..prok.. prok..”
nah, itu baru klop! jika ingin cerita tentang pedangnya, harusnya dia bernyanyi :
“mempunyai pedang panjang… kalo berjalan ndul..gondal. .gandul.. atau srek.. srek.. srek..” itu baru sesuai dg kondisi pedang panjangnya!
3. “Bangun tidur ku terus mandi.. tidak lupa menggosok gigi.. habis mandi ku tolong ibu.. membersihkan tempat tidurku..”
Perhatikan setelah habis mandi langsung membersihkan tempat tidur. Lagu ini membuat anak-anak tidak bisa terprogram secara baik dalam menyelesaikan tugasnya dan selalu terburu-buru. Sehabis mandi seharusnya si anak pakai baju dulu dan tidak langsung membersihkan tempat tidur dalam kondisi basah dan telanjang!
4. “Naik-naik ke puncak gunung.. tinggi.. tinggi sekali.. kiri kanan kulihat saja.. banyak pohon cemara.. 2X”
Lagu ini dapat membuat anak kecil kehilangan konsentrasi, semangat dan motivasi! Pada awal lagu terkesan semangat akan mendaki gunung yang tinggi tetapi kemudian ternyata setelah melihat jalanan yg tajam mendaki lalu jadi bingung dan gak tau mau ngapain, bisanya cuma noleh ke kiri ke kanan aja, gak maju2!
5. “Naik kereta api tut..tut..tut. . siapa hendak turut ke Bandung .. Surabaya .. bolehlah naik dengan naik percuma.. ayo kawanku lekas naik.. keretaku tak berhenti lama”
Nah, yg begini ini yg parah! mengajarkan anak- anak kalo sudah dewasa maunya gratis melulu. Pantesan PJKA rugi terus! terutama jalur Jakarta-Bandung dan Jakarta-Surabaya!
6. “Di pucuk pohon cempaka.. burung kutilang berbunyi.. bersiul2 sepanjang hari dg tak jemu2.. mengangguk2 sambil bernyanyi tri li
li..li..li.. li..li..”
Ini juga menyesatkan dan tidak mengajarkan kepada anak2 akan realita yg sebenarnya. Burung kutilang itu kalo nyanyi bunyinya cuit..cuit.. cuit..! kalo tri li li li li itu bunyi kalo yang nyanyi orang, bukan burung!
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7. “Pok ame ame.. belalang kupu2.. siang makan nasi, kalo malam minum susu..”
Ini jelas lagu dewasa dan untuk konsumsi anak2! karena yg disebutkan di atas itu adalah kegiatan orang dewasa, bukan anak kecil. Kalo anak kecil, karena belom boleh maem nasi, jadi gak pagi gak malem ya minum susu!
8. “nina bobo oh nina bobo kalau tidak bobo digigit nyamuk”
Anak2 indonesia diajak tidur dgn lagu yg “mengancam” pun tidur nggak tidur juga nyamuk maw gigit.
9. “Bintang kecil dilangit yg biru…”
Bintang khan adanya malem, lah kalo malem bukannya langit item?
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10. “Ibu kita Kartini… harum namanya.”
Sebenernya namanya Kartini atau Harum?
11. “Pada hari minggu ku turut ayah ke kota. naik delman istimewa kududuk di muka.”
Nah,gak sopan khan..kasian kali muka pak kusir diduduki anak2
12. “Cangkul-cangkul,cangkul yang dalam, menanam jagung dikebun kita…”
kalo mau nanam jagung,ngapain nyangkul dalam-dalam.
kalo maw di protes ama pencipta/pembuat lagu, kebanyakan lagu2 itu tidak diketahui pencipta/pembuat lagunya alias NN(No Name). Tapi gak perlu segitunya, pun lagu2 itu yang nyanyi anak2 dan gak panjang penalarannya jadi gak perlu diperdebatkan.
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