Patients Can Emit Small, Influenza-Containing Particles Into the Air During Routine Care

From the 31 January 2013 article at KevinMD.com

[The]majority of influenza virus in the air samples analyzed was found in small particles during non-aerosol-generating activities up to a 6-foot distance from the patient’s head..

Vaccination of health providers remains a fundamental and key part of protecting them from influenza

 

A new study suggests that patients with influenza can emit small virus-containing particles into the surrounding air during routine patient care, potentially exposing health care providers to influenza. Published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the findings raise the possibility that current influenza infection control recommendations may not always be adequate to protect providers from influenza during routine patient care in hospitals…

…

The current belief is that influenza virus is spread primarily by large particles traveling up to a maximum of 3 to 6 feet from an infected person. Recommended precautions for health providers focus on preventing transmission by large droplets and following special instructions during aerosol-generating procedures. In this study, Dr. Bischoff and his team discovered that the majority of influenza virus in the air samples analyzed was found in small particles during non-aerosol-generating activities up to a 6-foot distance from the patient’s head, and that concentrations of virus decreased with distance. The study addressed only the presence of influenza-containing particles near patients during routine care, not the actual transmission of influenza infection to others.

Fitted respirators are currently required for health care providers during aerosol-generating procedures with patients. During routine, non-aerosol-generating patient care, the current precautions recommend that providers wear a non-fitted face mask. Based on their findings, Dr. Bischoff and investigators are concerned that providers may still be exposed to infectious dosages of influenza virus up to 6 feet from patients with small wide-spreading particles potentially exceeding the current suggested exposure zones.

These findings suggest that current infection control recommendations may need to be reevaluated, the study authors concluded. The detection of “super-emitters” raises concerns about how individuals with high viral load may impact the spread of influenza, they noted. “Our study offers new evidence of the natural emission of influenza and may provide a better understanding of how to best protect health care providers during routine care activities,” the study authors wrote. However, studies of influenza virus transmission will be necessary before the role of super-emitters can be firmly established, they noted…

Whatever protective equipment or infection control practices are used for preventing influenza transmission, vaccination of health providers remains a fundamental and key part of protecting them from influenza, noted Dr. William Schaffner, professor medicine and chair of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., who was not involved with the study. “Influenza vaccination, although not perfect, is the best tool we have to protect health care workers — and their patients — from influenza illness.

 

Related articles

• Health care providers may be at greater risk of flu exposure (eurekalert.org)
• Stand Back: Flu Virus Travels 6 Feet (livescience.com)
• People with flu can release small, flu-filled particles into air: Study (sunnewsnetwork.ca)
• 2012-13 Influenza vaccine effectiveness: a preliminary estimate (bio230fall2010.wordpress.com)

 

Burnout In Middle-Aged Women

Over the years I’ve noticed quite a few middle aged women who burned out.
Far from being an indicator of personal failure, I am now seeing burn out at least partially “caused” by work conditions.
Work conditions which are over controlling to the point of demeaning. Work conditions which do not recognize and build on the full range of employees talents.

From the 21 January 2013 article at Medical News Today

Emotional exhaustion and physical and cognitive fatigue are signs of burnout, often caused by prolonged exposure to stress. Burnout can cause negative health effects including poor sleep, depression, anxiety, and cardiovascular and immune disorders. The findings of a 9-year study of burnout in middle-aged working women are reported in an article in Journal of Women’s Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Journal of Women’s Healthwebsite.*….

Read the entire article here

 

The full text of the article may be found here 

Some excerpts

“Burnout has been considered a predominantly work-related phenomenon, and, thus, high work demands, job strain, lack of control, and social support at work have been identified as psychosocial factors that contribute to stress and subsequently to burnout.^7,22–24 Little research has been focused on the prevalence of work-related stress and burnout in the general working population, however, particularly among middle-aged women,²⁵ as burnout has been studied most frequently in particular occupational groups, such as teachers and healthcare providers. Therefore, the present study is important by addressing this question and by investigating a random population-based sample of middle-aged women employed in various occupations, using a longitudinal approach”

“The present study is important because of our focus on a random sample of the general working population of middle-aged women. To a large extent, earlier research has focused on particular occupational groups, such as teachers or healthcare providers, and this age group of women has rarely been the focus of research concerning work stress and burnout. Another strength of our study is its longitudinal design, including three waves of measurements during a 9-year period. The majority of studies on burnout have been cross-sectional, and those with a longitudinal design mainly have used only two waves of measurements.”

“

Results: When using a variable-based approach, the results showed no significant changes in burnout over time. However, underlying these levels, six trajectories were identified. These clusters represented four different developmental patterns: high levels followed by recovery, increasing levels, increasing and diminishing levels, and stable levels.

Conclusions: In contrast to previous research suggesting that burnout is a stable construct over time, the present study identified distinct subgroups of women showing different developmental patterns of burnout during a 9-year period. Furthermore, our findings showed that the development of burnout was accompanied by concurrent changes in life stress as well as work-related and individual factors.”

 

 

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UC Davis study links low wages with hypertension, especially for women and younger workers

This study rightly talks about an association between low wages and hypertension, not a cause/effect.
A public health issue that I hope is pursued at national and local levels.

From the 1 January 2013 EurkAlert article

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Workers earning the lowest wages have a higher risk of hypertension than workers with the highest wages, according to new research from UC Davis.

The correlation between wages and hypertension was especially strong among women and persons between the ages of 25 to 44.

“We were surprised that low wages were such a strong risk factor for two populations not typically associated with hypertension, which is more often linked with being older and male,” said J. Paul Leigh, senior author of the study and professor of public health sciences at UC Davis. “Our outcome shows that women and younger employees working at the lowest pay scales should be screened regularly for hypertension as well.”

The study, published in the December issue of the European Journal of Public Health, is believed to be the first to isolate the role of wages in hypertension, which occurs when the force of circulating blood against artery walls is too high. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hypertension affects approximately 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. and costs more than $90 billion each year in health-care services, medications and missed work days. It also is a major contributor to heart disease and stroke, both of which are leading causes of death and disability.

While there is a known association between lower socioeconomic status (SES) and hypertension, determining the specific reason for that association has been difficult, according to Leigh. Other researchers have focused on factors such as occupation, job strain, education and insurance coverage, with unclear results. Leigh’s study was the first to focus on wages and hypertension….

…

f there were 110 million persons employed in the U.S. between the ages of 25 and 65 per year during the entire timeframe of the study — from 1999 until 2005 — then a 10 percent increase in everyone’s wages would have resulted in 132,000 fewer cases of hypertension each year,” said Leigh.

Read the entire article here

Related articles

• Study links low wages with hypertension (universityofcalifornia.edu)
• Changes in the Prevalence, Treatment and Control of Hypertension in Germany? A Clinical-Epidemiological Study of 50.000 Primary Care Patients (plosone.org)
• High blood pressure damages the brain in early middle age (medicalxpress.com)

 

Delusions Of Gender: Men’s Insecurities May Lead To Sexist Views Of Women

Delusions of Gender (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Thinking insecurities lead to sexist attitudes in other realms, including government, religious, and civic organizations….

 

From the 29 December 2012 article at Medical News Today

 

A new study led by Joshua Hart, assistant professor of psychology, suggests that men’s insecurities about relationships and conflicted views of women as romantic partners and rivals could lead some to adopt sexist attitudes about women…

..

Hart’s study found that anxiously attached men tend to be ambivalent sexists – both hostile and benevolent – whereas avoidantly attached men typically endorse hostile sexism, while rejecting benevolent sexism.

“In other words, anxious men are likely to alternate between chivalry and hostility toward female partners, acting like a knight in shining armor when she fulfills his goals and ideals about women, but like an ogre when she doesn’t,” Hart explained this month to the Society of Personality and Social Psychology’s web-based news site, Connections. “Avoidant men are likely to show only hostility without any princely protectiveness.”

The survey results also showed that anxiously attached men tend to be romantics at heart who adopt benevolently sexist beliefs, while avoidantly attached men lean toward social dominance. That, in turn, leads them to embrace hostile sexism.

The findings highlight how personality traits could predispose men to be sexists, according to Hart. This information could help couples build stronger relationships, particularly during therapy.

For the full study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, click here. To read Hart’s summary for the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, click here.

 

Read the entire article

 

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• When Men on the Left Refuse to See Their Sexism (muslimreverie.wordpress.com)
• That’s not a “response”, Michael, it’s a “denial” (freethoughtblogs.com)
• Big Idea: Let’s Bring Back Gentlemen (or Even Chivalry) (bigthink.com)
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• Undead sexist cliches: Men are supposed to be heroes, women should just cringe and cry (frasersherman.wordpress.com)
• Death to Chivalry, Long Live Politeness! (jezebel.com)
• A Troubled Response. (thisisntitatall.wordpress.com)

 

[Reblog] Exposure to Animal Agriculture Increases Prevalence of Nerve Damage

ARS Campylobacter jejuni (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

[Reblog] From the 25 November 2012 post at Scot Nass MD’s blog

 

From Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: Beef and dairy farmers are more likely to suffer from numbness and weakness, characteristics of peripheral neuropathy, compared with farmers who do not work with animals, according to new analysis of 16,340 participants of the Agricultural Health Study. The authors hypothesized that exposure to the common intestinal bacteria Campylobacter jejuni leads to greater risk of symptoms associated with Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Guillain-Barré Syndrome is an autoimmune disorder that can lead to muscle and nerve damage; it has no clear origin, although it usually appears after a minor infection. Dairy farmers also had a significantly higher prevalence of blurred vision, compared with farmers who had no exposure to animals.

Vegosen L, Davis MF, Silbergeld E, et al. Neurologic symptoms associated with cattle farming in the Agricultural Health Study. J Occup Environ Med. 2012;54:1253-1258. (12/13/12)

 

Related articles

 

• Exposure to Animal Agriculture Increases Prevalence of Nerve Damage (foodconsumer.org)
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[Reblog] Take A Break

Always thought it was a good idea to take a break from sitting every hour or so…

This came from a post at LearnStuff.org

If you think working overtime, skipping your lunch hour and staying chained to your desk will make you more productive, you need to cut yourself some slack and take a break.Working non-stop without taking a break can increase your chances of weight gain, heart disease and worse. Staring at a computer screen for more than 2 hours per day can cause Computer Vision Syndrome, a real affliction, which causes blurry vision, headaches, dry eyes and can lead to long-term nearsightedness. However, getting up and away from your desk for just 5 minutes can alleviate eye strain and reduce fatigue in addition to making you feel better. The mere act of standing at your desk instead of sitting at it can help you burn up to 2500 calories per week. Not bad for just standing around.Work hard and break hard; doing so will make you a healthier, happier and more productive employee.

Take A Break by LearnStuff.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.learnstuff.com/take-a-break/.

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Stress May Hamper Worker Performance and Health (& rebuttal article)

Yes, this is just anecdotal, but I believe there is more to this than an either/or debate.
My husband took high blood pressure medicine for years. And he often complained about the stress at work.
Within a month of changing jobs to an organization that was less stressful, his blood pressure went down and he no longer needed the blood pressure medication.

 

From the 14 September article at news@JAMA

Some bad news for workers facing stress on the job and elsewhere in their life, suggested by 2 studies published this week: stress may contribute to an increased risk of heart disease and may impair short-term memory.

Workers who encounter substantial demands at work and have little control over their situations have an elevated risk of developing heart disease compared with individuals who don’t have to face such psychological stress in the workplace, according to results of  an analysis published in the Lancet yesterday…

..

Stress may also impair an individual’s performance, a study published in PLOS Computational Biology suggests. The researchers found that exposure of rats to stress in the form of blasts of sound alter the firing of neurons in the prefrontal cortex. These changes in firing impair the ability of rats to retain short-term memory, hampering their performance in a maze task. Animals under stress completed the task only about 65% of the time compared with 90% of the unstressed rats.

The rebuttal

Don’t Blame Your Employer If You Are Feeling Stressed By Your Job

From the 18 September 2012 article at Medical News Today

Work stress, job satisfaction and health problems due to high stress have more to do with genes than you might think, according to research by Timothy Judge, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. This information has been published two days after a separate study suggesting that work stress increases an employee’s risk of heart attack by 23%.

The lead author of “Genetic influences on core self-evaluations, job satisfaction, work stress, and employee health: A behavioral genetics mediated model,” published inOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Judge studied nearly 600 twins – some identical, some fraternal – who were raised together and reared apart. He found that being raised in the same environment had very little effect on personality, stress and health. Shared genes turned out to be about four times as important as shared environment.

Related articles

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• Expert Explains Why Workplace Stress Is Killing All Of Us (businessinsider.com)
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Hard Questions For Medical Humanitarian Organizations Provoked By Adverse Effects Of Mining Industry

 

Médecins Sans Frontières logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

From the 30 August 2012 article at Medical News Today

 

Increasingly humanitarian organizations will find themselves responding to health emergencies provoked by the adverse effects of mining and other extractive industries, setting up a potential clash to do with the core principles and values at the heart of humanitarian medicine, writes Philippe Calain from the humanitarian medical organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), in this week’s PLOS Medicine.

“A pragmatic approach of engagement with the corporate sector for the delivery of aid, or an implicit support to mainstream development agendas could compromise the legitimacy of humanitarian medicine,” argues Calain. He continues, “A principled understanding of humanitarian medicine entails selfless moral commitments that are incompatible with the for-profit objectives of corporate industries.”

Drawing on MSF’s experience responding to the “worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history” resulting from artisanal gold mining in Nigeria’s Zamfara state, Calain explores the pitfalls, difficult alliances, and challenges medical humanitarian organizations must navigate in confronting the dire health consequences resulting from extractive industries, whether informal, illegal, or sanctioned.

He argues that, in developing countries, extractive industries (including ore mineral mining and oil extraction) have far reaching consequences on health through environmental pollution, communicable diseases, violence, destitution, and compromised food security. While humanitarian organisations might be called to intervene in areas occupied by the extractive sector, Calain argues that oil and mineral exploitation reveals a fundamental clash of values between humanitarianism, the for-profit sector, and privatised global philanthropy.

Operating in this relatively new terrain for medical humanitarian organizations – outside the traditional humanitarian response to armed conflict, epidemics, and natural disasters – requires a deeper examination of which types of compromises and alliances are acceptable. Responding to these kinds of emergencies, warns Calain, cannot be reduced to the development of medical and technical expertise alone….

 

Related articles

• Adverse effects of mining industry provoke hard questions for medical humanitarian organizations (medicalxpress.com)
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Why The Circadian Rhythm Affects Health

 

Overview of biological circadian clock in humans. Biological clock affects the daily rhythm of many physiological processes. This diagram depicts the circadian patterns typical of someone who rises early in morning, eats lunch around noon, and sleeps at night (10 p.m.). Although circadian rhythms tend to be synchronized with cycles of light and dark, other factors – such as ambient temperature, meal times, napping schedule and duration, stress and exercise – can influence the timing as well. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

From the 30 August 2012 article at Medical News Today

 

Disruptions to the circadian rhythm can affect the growth of blood vessels in the body, thus causing illnesses such asdiabetes, obesity, and cancer, according to a new study from Linkoping University and Karolinska Institutet.

The circadian rhythm is regulated by a “clock” that reacts to both incoming light and genetic factors.

In an article now being published in the scientific journal Cell Reports, it is demonstrated for the first time that disruption of the circadian rhythm immediately inhibits blood vessel growth in zebra fish embryos.

Professor Yihai Cao leads a research group, which has demonstrated that the breaking point is the production of a very important signalling substance: vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The formation of this substance requires a normal circadian rhythm…

..

“The results can definitely be translated into clinical circumstances. Individuals with disrupted circadian rhythms – for example, shift workers who work under artificial lights at night, people with sleep disorders or a genetic predisposition – should be on guard against illnesses associated with disrupted blood vessel growth,” says Lasse Dahl Jensen (pictured), researcher in Cardiovascular Physiology at Linköping University (LiU), and lead writer of the article.

Such diseases include heart attack, stroke, chronic inflammation, and cancer. Disruptions in blood vessel growth can also affect foetal development, women’s reproductive cycles, and the healing of wounds.

 

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Why Do Good People Sometimes Do Bad Things?: 52 Reflections on Ethics at Wor

 

From the Full Text Reports abstract of August 25, 2012

 Why Do Good People Sometimes Do Bad Things?: 52 Reflections on Ethics at Work

M. Kaptein , Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) – Rotterdam School of Management (RSM)

Source: Social Science Research Network

Why do good people sometimes do bad things in their work? This important question for the management of the ethics and integrity of an organization is addressed in this book. Drawing on social-psychological experiments, a model of 7 cultural factors is presented.

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