Prostate Most cancers Therapy Alternatives Enhance Survival Rates
As treatment choices enhance, the survival prices for prostate most cancers also boost. This is genuine for all stages besides distant phase metastasized prostate cancer Country wide Most cancers Institute Prostate Most cancers Trends.
When prostate cancer is detected at the earliest levels, individuals have the greatest opportunity for high survival prices.
One of the greatest assessments for early detection is a biopsy for PIN or prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia. PIN is usually regarded the 1st detectable type of precancerous cells in the prostate, and can lead to adenocarcinoma. This exam is independent from a PSA screening of the blood.
The PIN biopsy removes cells from distinct locations of the prostate and examines them for areas of improved cells or cellular proliferation that resemble most cancers, and ?architectural? designs like tufting, neuroendocrine and mucinous patterns. HGPIN spreads little by little through the prostatic ducts related to the development of prostatic most cancers.
If the biopsy final results are large grade PIN or HGPIN, it is regarded one of the most reliable predictors of prostate most cancers at this time.
What Are The Prostate Most cancers Therapy Options With Higher Quality PIN?
Most scientists recommend adhere to-up biopsies at a few to 6 thirty day period intervals for numerous several years, then every yr for life. Extra treatment is based mostly on gathering data about the patients specific threat. Numerous therapies are being examined, which includes preventive androgen remedy. Most invasive therapies like medical procedures and radiation are not deemed unless of course there are speedy modifications in the PIN biopsies.
Early detection of prostate cancer has the added gain of opening the door for chemoprevention as 1 prostate cancer treatment method choice. Chemoprevention entails changes in the patients way of life to steer clear of or postpone the progress of most cancers.
One research utilizing green tea extract identified 90% prevention of prostate most cancers in patients with HGPIN soon after one year of remedy. Drug scientific tests have found twenty-25% prevention of prostate cancer for the duration of 5-year studies.
Prostate most cancers is the 2nd most widespread most cancers in males soon after pores and skin cancer. It is diagnosed in roughly 220,000 new clients and kills virtually thirty,000 each year in the United States alone. African-American men have the best rate of prostate cancer in the entire world, running sixty% greater than other American guys American Cancer Society, SEER National Most cancers Institute.
Prostate most cancers has been detected in guys as youthful as twenty years outdated and by age 80 at minimum eighty% of adult men have this cancer. Since it can just take a long time to proliferate, contemplating chemoprevention as part of a patients prostate cancer remedy options offers much more pro-active and good pathways to wellness.
Males must consult with their principal wellness treatment provider for their best prostate most cancers therapy possibilities and early detection procedures.
When we first reviewed the Snapfon ez ONE (3.5 stars), we thought it was a great simple cell phone, held back by a few issues. Now, with the Snapfon ez ONE-c, some of those issues have been addressed, along with a number of other improvements and a lower price. Sure, the earpiece volume could be higher and it would be nice if the time and date set automatically, but this is still as simple as cell phones get. It's so easy to use that it's our new Editors' Choice for simple phones.
Pricing and Design Snapfon offers the ez ONE-c direct from its Web site with several decent no-contract service plans through PureTalk USA, which uses AT&T's physical network. Plans start at $10/month. The phone costs $29.99 when purchased with a plan or $59.99 without. Because it is a GSM phone, it will also work with any AT&T or T-Mobile plan.
Setting up your Snapfon is simple right out of the box. There's a fold-out user manual, filled with straightforward, easy to understand directions in a very large font.
The ez ONE-c is made almost entirely of dark grey, shiny plastic with a red SOS button on the back. It measures 4 by 2 by .5 inches (HWD) and weighs just 2.7 ounces. It looks a lot like a calculator, and it should fit into your pocket without a problem. The screen is a 1.6-inch amber LCD with 128x48 resolution, and shows the battery life, date, signal strength, and time.
The keys are extremely large?each one is about the size of a dime. They're made of matte plastic and are easy to press without making a mistake. They're also easy to read, though you can also set the phone to say them out loud as you press them. At the top of the keypad, in between the?Send?and?End?buttons, is a single function key used to navigate the phone's uncomplicated menu. Battery life was excellent at 11 hours 27 minutes of talk time.
Performance and Conclusions The ez ONE-c is a quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) GSM world phone, which means you can take it with you on trips abroad. There is no Bluetooth, camera, Internet, or any of the other features that often come standard in most phones. But this is a simple phone, so that's understandable. The only downside is the lack of Bluetooth, since many states have laws requiring hands-free use while driving.
I tested the Snapfon on T-Mobile's network. Reception was good, and call quality was decent overall. Voices sound clear in the earpiece, but extremely thin?there's no depth at all. Although the earpiece sounds a bit louder this time around, I still wish it had a louder maximum volume. Pressed firmly against my ear the volume level was good, but holding the phone like I regularly do caused it to drop off a bit. It would've been nice to see a higher maximum volume for users that are hard of hearing. The speakerphone, on the other hand, gets very loud. On the other end, calls made with the phone sound clear enough, although noise cancellation is lacking. The vibrate function is decent, but like the earpiece, it could stand to be a bit stronger.
There is a button on the left side of the phone for volume control, and another one for an FM radio. The FM radio has good reception, but it sounds tinny over the phone's speaker. It's much better over a standard pair of 3.5mm wired headphones.
There is a button on the right side of the phone for a LED flashlight, which Snapfon claims can produce a beam of light for up to 20 feet. There is also a lock button on the right side to prevent the phone from pocket dialing.
Text messaging was simple due to the large size of the phone's keys, but there is no predictive text, so you're going to need to triple tap out all your messages. The phone can only hold up to 100 messages and 200 contacts at once due to a lack of any significant internal memory. Unfortunately, it still doesn't set the time and date automatically, which is a needless hassle.
A big, red SOS button is located on the back of the phone, which is a great feature to have in case of an emergency. By pressing and holding the button down for 5 seconds, the phone will sound a high-pitched alert and proceed to automatically call 4 programmable numbers until a call connects. It will even send a text message to these numbers that says, "Emergency, please help!" Upon initial activation of the phone, the SOS button is programmed to dial the user's nearest emergency response center until 4 SOS numbers are entered.
There are other good simple phones out there, such as GreatCall's?Samsung Jitterbug J SPH-A310?($99, 4 stars) and the Just5 J509?($89.99, 4 stars). While the Snapfon lacks Jitterbug's live operator, on-call nurse, and personal security service, it still manages to provide a sense of security with the SOS feature, and it's even easier to use and less expensive than the Jitterbug. The J509, meanwhile, lacks a standard headphone jack and isn't a world phone. That leaves the ez ONE-c as the easiest choice, and our Editors' Choice, for a simple phone.
I began to dread the calls. I knew what he wanted: money, help, love. But he'd gotten himself into this mess, I reasoned, and there was nothing I could do. Any money I sent would go to drink, and besides, I didn't have much myself.
I had known my friend for thirty years, back in the day when his eccentricities were charming. He was the Kramer in our group, the wacky wit, the groovy wardrobe straight out of the 1940's one day, the Renaissance another. He never seemed to have much of a future, but still I imagined when we were old and crotchety, we'd end up rooming together in some old restored Victorian bickering over how high or low to set the thermostat and what to watch on TV.
He was an excellent cook. He once got me a job cooking at a classy restaurant in Seattle where it turned out the chef was a con artist who couldn't grill a cheese sandwich. Those were hysterical days, one mad cap culinary adventure after another, and I marveled at how my friend could work the line, plating a dozen different dishes at precisely the same time with the mastery of a blackjack dealer.
He'd never had much to start with. His mother had died when he was a teenager, then his father, then his sister. He dropped out of high school and migrated west to start his new life where coming out as a gay man would be easier. Now the life he'd started was going from promising to promiscuous, just as AIDS hit the scene. How he escaped it, I'll never know, but his friends weren't quite so lucky. First one died, then another. His long time partner, the one guy he always came back to, and who always came back to him, died as well and soon my friend was alone.
He never made much money, but managed to stay afloat between cooking jobs and the occasional carpentry gig; he was always good with his hands. But as time went on, the world roughed him up a bit. His back began to betray him, leaving him in agonizing pain. Standing all day in the kitchen got to be too much, and heavy labor was eventually out of the question. But still he got by, managing apartments, catering now and then. Small jobs. Short term jobs. No benefits.
He'd always had the coziest apartments, filled with his collection of vintage robots, antique tableware and mid-century furnishings. Whenever I needed a place to stay, in between trips to and from Europe or romance, he always had a room to spare, just as long as I didn't mind sharing it with a naked mannequin or robot. Then housing prices shot up and it got a whole lot harder. The apartment managing gigs became scarce and rents soared way beyond his means. He turned his treasures into rent money until he had less and less and ended up renting a room. Then he took to drinking.
I moved away and was gone a long time. Kept in touch now and then, but mostly lost touch. Then a couple of years ago I moved back to the Northwest and saw my friend had grown older. His wavy hair was gray and mostly gone, his skilled hands now shook from drinking. He could still turn out a great meal, on a good day.
He had a few under-the-table gigs and was still getting by, but just barely. It had been years since he'd worked a full-time job and just as long since he'd had any health care. His teeth were hurting, and his fingers were numb and tingling, but once he started drinking they were no longer a problem.
He could no longer work the line because his timing was shot and now he was just another old guy. Every month he panicked when rent was coming due. When he finally got a job he quit it three days later.
Then he moved back east. He had a job waiting for him, he said. When I picked him up to take him to the train station, there he was, standing on the corner with an old busted up suitcase held shut with a bungee cord, a blanket rolled up and tied with some rope. He was wearing a dirty Fedora.
He got in the car and smelled like a bum, that foul boozy smell of sweating flesh and nights of hardcore drinking. "Just go," he said, his voice near tears, "and stop at the liquor store on the way." I waited outside while he got a pint in a brown paper bag. When I said goodbye at the station, I thought I'd never see him again. I went home, sad and relieved. It was no longer my problem.
Then the phone calls came. Things hadn't worked out as he'd planned. He began to move here and there. It was never clear where he was, if he was safe. I prayed that he was, but that was all. He'd done it to himself. Anything I did would be enabling.
"I'm leaving here tomorrow and will be at the bus station on Thursday," he wrote me in an email. "Can you pick me up and let me stay just one night? I'll call you when I get there."
Just one night. I was so irritated. How could I say no to just one night, but then what? Why had I ever even answered the calls, I wondered, I had enough to deal with. I couldn't help him; he'd done this to himself. He needed to get into treatment.
I called our old friends, but no one had room. We all felt the same way. But still. Who else did he have to turn to? How could he get into rehab with no money or insurance? I couldn't shake my annoyance at his return as I went about my day, running errands, shopping.
A homeless man downtown asked me for some money. I gave him a dollar, like I usually do. Handing over that dollar, thinking this is going to be my friend, standing on a corner with a cardboard sign, I wondered what kind of friend I really was. It was so much easier for me to sympathize with a total stranger asking for a buck, than the friend I'd known for decades. Was I only sympathetic to people I thought of as blameless victims? Somehow when our own friends hit rock bottom, we can be so unforgiving, abandoning them when they need us most. Helping them would be enabling. Just being there would be inconvenient.
I met him at the bus station, and brought him home to a good dinner with some old friends. We gave him a cell phone and gift certificates for some decent clothes. We had a list of shelters and resources for the homeless. I let him stay one night, then dropped him off to his new life.
He joined us for Thanksgiving. He'd sobered up, but who knows for how long. He wasn't shaking anymore, the color had returned to his face and he was laughing. He'd made a new buddy in the shelter, but he couldn't go back for a week. By leaving for a Thanksgiving meal and a shower he'd lost his spot for seven days. He wasn't worried. He had a list of other shelters.
I'd watched him over the years go slowly homeless. And the more his needs grew desperate, the more I and others pulled away. He'd done it to himself, there was no denying. And the world had done it to him, through a housing market and health care system that sure didn't make it easy. None of us could have stopped his descent. But being there for him when he was falling, when he needed his friends more than ever, well that wasn't comfortable.
"Avoid people who bring you down," the self-help books advise. "Associate with successful people," we are told. And give generously to the poor. As long as we don't know them. I know my friend, and that's what makes his downfall so unpleasant. It rubs off on me, annoys me. But sometimes the biggest difference we can make is not in the lives of strangers who are less fortunate, but in the unfortunate lives of those we do know. It's never convenient, but who ever said that friendship always would be?
?
Follow Janice Harper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Janice_Harper
LIMA, Peru ? A Peruvian judge has set Jan. 6 as the trial date for Joran van der Sloot in the killing of a Peruvian woman five years to the day after U.S. student Natalee Holloway disappeared.
The 24-year-old Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in Holloway's 2005 disappearance on the Caribbean island of Aruba.
Peruvian prosecutors are seeking 30 years in prison for the Dutchman on first-degree murder charges in the killing of Stephany Flores.
Van der Sloot met the 21-year-old Lima student in a casino and took him to his hotel room.
He confessed to the killing but says he became enraged upon finding Flores reading about the Holloway case on his laptop. Flores' family and prosecutors contend he planned the killing in order to rob the young woman.
DERBY, Conn. -- A typo has led to the election of the wrong man to a finance board in Derby, Conn.
James J. Butler was the highest vote-getter, winning 1,526 votes for the 10-member Board of Apportionment and Taxation, which monitors the town's finances.
However, his father, 72-year-old James R. Butler, was the candidate nominated by Democrats. The News Times of Danbury and New Haven Register report that he said he wants the job and that his son is not interested in public office.
James J. Butler, who is 46, would not comment on whether he wants the job. But he calls city officials incompetent for confusing him with his father.
Av Harris, spokesman for the secretary of the state's office, says James J. Butler should be sworn in because he was elected.
New York ? A tiny, no-fuss device promises to keep faulty hearts beating on schedule. How does it work?
A new wireless, ultrasound-powered pacemaker promises to make implantation easier for doctors, and life more comfortable for patients. The device, which was unveiled Monday, is currently undergoing a rigorous trial in Europe. If those tests are successful, this new pacemaker could hit the commercial market soon. Here's how it would work:
Remind me: What does a pacemaker do? An artificial pacemaker is implanted in the chest of a cardiology patient "to help restore a normal heartbeat," says The Economist. Traditionally, the device consists of a battery and control system implanted "just under the wearer's skin," and electrodes attached directly to the heart. If a person's heartbeat becomes irregular, the system "deliver[s] an electrical charge from the artificial pacemaker's batteries that causes the cardiac muscle to contract, pacing the pumping."?
SEE ALSO: The laser that turns brown eyes blue
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What's so special about this new version? Usually a pacemaker's battery is connected to the electrodes through a complex system of leads fed through a person's veins. This new device, called a wireless cardiac simulation (WiCS) system, has no wires at all. Instead, it uses ultrasound to transmit signals and energy between the battery and electrodes, says Duncan Graham-Rowe at Technology Review. The implantable receiver is about the size of a "grain of rice," and converts ultrasound signals into heart-regulating electricity.?
And this is better? Potentially. By eliminating wires, the device "simplifies the delivery and implantation of the system and means you can put the electrode in a place where it can better mimic the body?s natural electrical-to-muscle movement," says Andrew Diston, head of global medical technology practice at Cambridge Consultants, which developed WiCS along with EBR Systems. Plus, "all leads are prone to failure, especially when they are exposed to continual movement inside the body." This new device means less invasive surgeries and less chance of patient infection.
SEE ALSO: A vaccine for breast cancer?
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Sources: The Economist, The Engineer, Technology Review
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A kangaroo waits on the side of the fairway on the 13th hole as Australia's Scott Hend hits a shot in the background during the first round of the Australian PGA golf Championship held at the Hyatt Regency, Coolum, Australia, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
A kangaroo waits on the side of the fairway on the 13th hole as Australia's Scott Hend hits a shot in the background during the first round of the Australian PGA golf Championship held at the Hyatt Regency, Coolum, Australia, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
Co-leader Steven Bowditch of Australia, right, talks to his caddy, Greg McMilan, left, during the first round of the Australian PGA golf Championship held at the Hyatt Regency, Coolum, Australia, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
Bubba Watson of the USA plays a shot on the 16th fairway during the first round of the Australian PGA golf Championship at the Hyatt Regency, Coolum, Australia, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
Two kangaroos watch as Australia's Anthony Summers and his caddy walk past during the first round of the Australian PGA golf Championship held at the Hyatt Regency, Coolum, Australia, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
A caddy watches a kangaroo on the fairway of the 13th hole during the first round of the Australian PGA golf Championship held at the Hyatt Regency, Coolum, Australia, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
COOLUM, Australia (AP) ? Steven Bowditch and Choi Joon-woo shot rounds of 6-under-par 66 Thursday to take a one-stroke lead after the first day of the Australian PGA and outshine a strong field that includes British Open champion Darren Clarke and Americans Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler.
Bowditch, playing in intermittent afternoon rain, birdied the 17th and 18th holes after a bogey on No. 16 at the Hyatt Regency resort course. Choi, who plays on the OneAsia tour and has no wins in a four-year pro career, had a chip-in from 90 meters for eagle on the 16th hole.
Watson and Australians Andre Stolz, Aaron Townsend and Aaron Baddeley had 67s, while Wu Kangchun of China was in a large group with 68s. Clarke and Fowler were three behind after 69s.
Three International teammates at last week's Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne ? Australia's Jason Day and South Koreans K.T. Kim and Y.E. Yang, also shot 69. U.S. Amateur champion Kelly Kraft started strongly, but shot 76 after back-to-back double bogeys on the back nine.
Clarke was in the same group as Adam Scott (70) and Greg Norman (72). Scott made a huge recovery from his opening 40 ? including a triple-bogey 6 on the par-3 11th ? to shoot 6-under 30 coming home.
Defending champion Peter Senior shot 70 and fellow Australian Geoff Ogilvy a 72.
Bowditch, a Sunshine Coast local who has been playing the Coolum course for 15 years, said "it's in the best shape it's ever been in."
"They've narrowed a few fairways, the greens are firm and fast," said Bowditch, who made a 25-footer for birdie on 18 but had two three-puts on his first three holes.
He'll leave on Monday for the final six rounds of the U.S. PGA Tour qualifying school in California.
"I'm in a fortunate situation, I have conditional status for 15 to 20 starts next year, and I've also got Nationwide," Bowditch said. "The pressure will still be there, though."
Scott had a rollercoaster of a round ? nine birdies, a triple bogey, a double bogey and two bogeys. After a birdie on the 10th to open his round, his 6 on the par-3 third came after a ball in the water, one of three he plunked into ponds on his first nine.
"I played a little too aggressive on those opening holes, then after that, I had to play aggressive," Scott said. "This is the kind of course where you can make birdies, but if you hit bad shots at bad places, it can really hurt you."
Watson's 67 included a bogey on the par-5 third and birdies on two of the par-3 holes on the front nine, his last. He came to Coolum from Melbourne, where he played in the winning U.S. team at the Presidents Cup.
"I'm not fresh, I'm dead tired," Watson said. "You just have to try to fight through it. I lost my last two matches, so I don't have much confidence coming in. Tomorrow I could come out exhausted and shoot 80."
Clarke is playing at Coolum for the first time.
"I made a couple of silly plays because I don't know the course and that is where it cost me," said Clarke, who arrived on Monday from Northern Ireland. "It is a long way from home and I'm a little bit tired, the jetlag got me, but I'll have a good rest and get ready for tomorrow."
Clarke had a bird's-eye view of playing partner Scott's up-and-down round.
"He was shocking at the start and then he played fantastic," Clarke said. "Great performance to come back and shoot 2-under."
WASHINGTON ? The supercommittee's failure reflects the nation's divide: Americans crave both the Republicans' demand for low taxes and the Democrats' insistence on protecting social programs. So far, no group or leader has persuaded them they can't have both and there's no quick solution in sight.
It's possible the stalemate won't be broken by the time of the 2012 elections, nearly a year away. Some GOP strategists think Republicans can oust President Barack Obama and win control of both chambers of Congress. That would enable them to enact much of their agenda, and Americans could render a judgment on its results.
Or, perhaps, Democrats will score big victories that will force Republicans to yield some ground.
The bipartisan supercommittee's collapse stems from an all-too-familiar reality of modern politics. Republican lawmakers respond to activists who overwhelmingly oppose higher taxes. And Democrats answer to activists who will tolerate no nicks in Medicare, Social Security and other programs without steeper taxes on the wealthy.
The same differences pushed the nation to the brink of default last summer, prompting the first-ever downgrade of the government's creditworthiness.
Yet no leader or group has convinced enough Americans that everyone must accept some pain to bring taxes and government services more closely in line. So the federal debt hit $15 trillion last week. And the government suffered another embarrassment Monday, immediately spooking U.S. markets and possibly unsettling foreign markets in the days ahead.
Nineteenth Century Americans venerated Henry Clay as "the Great Compromiser" for helping resolve knotty national problems. Today, that title would almost surely be hurled as an insult, especially at a rally or caucus to nominate someone for Congress.
The supercommittee's six Democrats and six Republicans knew they would be criticized for failing to reach an accord. But they saw a worse fate in straying too far from their respective parties' uncompromising stands on taxes and social programs.
Many veteran politicians expect more versions of recent elections, which were heavily influenced by partisan activists who put a scare into lawmakers threatening to veer from party orthodoxy.
"Compromise is not where the incentives are in the political process right now," said former Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, who once headed the GOP's House campaign committee. Because so many House districts are solidly Republican or solidly Democratic, he said, "members are judged by what their primary electorate thinks of them."
Eventually, Davis said, repeated failures to tame the deficit might inflict so much pain on Americans -- possibly through a severe recession or even depression -- that today's primary-dominated voting patterns will change.
Some lawmakers doubtlessly see this coming, Davis said. "But the incentives in the system do not reward you for being ahead of the curve."
Congress reflects the public divide over tax and spending priorities. A new Quinnipiac poll found that 73 percent of Republicans want to address the deficit with spending cuts only, while only a third of Democrats hold that view.
More than half of Democrats favor a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts. Only one Republican in five agrees.
Independent voters, as usual, occupy a middle ground. Slightly more independents favor a spending-cuts-only approach to a strategy that includes some new taxes. But neither option hit 50 percent in the poll.
In 2006, independent voters broke heavily for Democrats, helping that party regain the House majority. In 2008, independents again favored Democrats for Congress, and they helped elect Obama.
But last year, independent voters swung strongly to Republicans, who regained control of the House. Strategists in both parties are angling for independents' support next year.
One possible way to break Washington's cycle of logjams is for independent voters to increase in number and to insist on systemic changes in practices such as congressional redistricting and Senate filibuster powers.
Nathan Daschle, who heads a political networking firm called Ruck.Us, and whose father was a Democratic Senate leader, said the only way he can envision "really changing the incentives of our political system" is to have huge numbers of Republican and Democratic voters switch their affiliation to independent.
William Galston, a Brookings Institution scholar who worked in Bill Clinton's White House, sees two possible turning points before the 2012 elections. Pro-military lawmakers from both parties might succeed where the supercommittee failed, he said, by crafting a tax-and-spending compromise that would avert the cuts scheduled at the Defense Department.
Or, Galston said, Europe's financial problems and the United States' political gridlock might lead to so much economic damage that even devout liberals and solid conservatives will have to rethink their intransigence.
"If people decide there's no difference between the United States and the Eurozone," Galston said, "we may discover the hit we took in global esteem in the summer was just the beginning of the decline."
Peter G. Peterson, a former Commerce secretary and leading critic of deficit spending, said in a statement Monday: "Meaningful deficit reduction requires both parties to vote for a plan that does not reflect their partisan litmus tests."
For now, many lawmakers see that idea as a one-way ticket out of Congress in their next primary elections. Such thinking points to more gridlock ahead.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE ? Charles Babington covers politics for The Associated Press.
NEW YORK (AP) ? In a Nov. 21 story about digital book security, The Associated Press erroneously reported on the publishers involved in Amazon.com's Prime lending program, which allows members to rent one book a month from a selection of titles. Books from Penguin Group (USA) are not included.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2011) ? Financial incentives work for doctors. Could they work for patients, too? Could they encourage them to change unhealthy behaviors and use preventive health services more? In some cases, yes, according to Dr. Marita Lynagh from the University of Newcastle in Australia, and colleagues. Their work, looking at why financial incentives for patients could be a good thing to change risky health behaviors, indicates that incentives are likely to be particularly effective at altering 'simple' behaviors e.g. take-up of immunizations, primarily among socially disadvantaged groups.
Their article is published online in Springer's International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.
Following the proliferation of pay-for-performance programs for health care providers, the application of the same principles for individual behavior change is becoming an attractive option. But is it fair and does it work? To answer these questions, Lynagh and colleagues reviewed recent research looking at the effectiveness of personal financial incentives aiming to change health behavior, principally in the fields of smoking cessation and weight loss. They found that the effectiveness of incentives depends on the types of behaviors targeted. Incentives appear to be most effective at altering behaviors which are simple, discrete and time-limited such as take up of immunization and attendance at health and education services, and less effective for complex and entrenched behaviors such as smoking, diet and exercise.
However, in the case of these more complex behaviors, supporting the financial incentive with social support and skill training significantly increases the likelihood of success.Financial incentives are also more likely to work with socially disadvantaged groups, particularly when the incentives address real barriers to change such as transport, medication and child-care costs.However, there is currently little evidence for long-term behavior change with one-time incentives.
Regular reinforcement with a measured schedule of incentives (i.e. escalating size of incentive with frequent monitoring and rewards) is more effective at both initiating and maintaining behavior change. This especially applies in the case of more complex behaviors like drug treatment and smoking cessation, where long-term change is the real challenge.The authors conclude: "We need effective public health interventions that clinicians can adopt easily to encourage people to change their health behaviors, to produce improved health outcomes for populations and a reduced burden on health care systems. Financial incentives are not the panacea to all health risk behaviors, but do hold promise for encouraging certain population groups to modify particular health behaviors."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Springer.
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Journal Reference:
Marita C. Lynagh, Rob W. Sanson-Fisher, Billie Bonevski. What?s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander. Guiding Principles for the Use of Financial Incentives in Health Behaviour Change. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 2011; DOI: 10.1007/s12529-011-9202-5
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
>>>back now with that stunning announcement from the l.a. sheriff's department that made headlines around the world. a new look into the death of
natalie wood
, one of hollywood's biggest mysteries for decades. tonight we're hearing from a woman who says she heard something that night, 30 years ago, and there is new information about where the investigation is headed. we get more now from
nbc
's ayman mahadin.
>> reporter: the investigation into what happened to
natalie wood
30 years ago this week now turns to the boat where she was last seen alive.
ron nelson
bought the "splendor" five years after her death and now docks it in honolulu.
>>this is where the argument would have started.
>> reporter: wood, her husband
robert wagner
, actor
christopher walken
and the captain were all aboard the "splendor" thanksgiving weekend in
1981
.
nbc
news confirmed investigators will be in honolulu early next month in search of new clues into the death of the three-time oscar nominated actress. john nazarene is a private investigator.
>>i would want to look at boat, sitting where it's at, the conditions that night, and getting a feel for what people could see.
>> reporter: initially wood's death was ruled as an accidental drowning but now the boat's captain says he lied to police in the initial investigation and points the finger at
robert wagner
. police say wagner is not a suspect. for years there has been speculation that
natalie wood
was the victim of a
love triangle
that ended tragically following a night of alcohol and arguments. marilyn wayne says she was on a nearby boat that evening.
>>i heard a woman calling for help, help me, somebody, please help me, i'm drowning.
>> reporter: but doug bombbart who found natalie's body still believes she slipped and drowned.
>>my position is that it was a horrible accident. it was something that is very unfortunate.
>> reporter: still, investigators say they now have new information.
>>the comments from the captain now, you know, there was a lot of liquor on board that night and there was emotions. i can't think of a worse chemistry for an accident.
>> reporter: for the
child actress
turned silver screened icon, her death now proving to be as captivating as her career. ayman muhadin,
nbc
news,
los angeles
.
CHICAGO (AP) ? Dale Sveum was introduced Friday as the Chicago Cubs' new manager, rejoining Theo Epstein to attempt to end a 103-year World Series championship drought.
"The past is the past no matter where you are," Sveum said during an introductory news conference at Wrigley Field. "You're only as good as you are right now. It doesn't really matter what happened in the past."
Sveum received a three-year deal with an option for 2015 as the Cubs try to reshape their entire operation.
Sveum, the Milwaukee Brewers' hitting coach the last three years, was Boston's third base coach in 2004 and 2005 when Epstein was the general manager of the Red Sox. Epstein became Chicago's president of baseball operations last month, and former Red Sox executives Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod joined the Cubs' front office Nov. 1.
"Dale won't get caught up in the trappings of the job," Epstein said. "He's very comfortable in his own skin."
Sveum replaces the fired Mike Quade. Also interviewed were Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux, Phillies bench coach Pete Mackanin and Indians bench coach Sandy Alomar Jr.
The Cubs and Red Sox were both interested in Sveum, who interviewed twice with each of the teams. Second interviews occurred this week during the general managers and owners meeting in Milwaukee.
"My head probably was spinning, but I think the arrow fell in the right spot," Sveum said.
Sveum, who turns 48 on Wednesday, served as the Brewers' interim manager late in the 2008 season after Ned Yost was fired. He helped Milwaukee to a 7-5 record over the final 12 games as the Brewers claimed the wild card.
Milwaukee then decided to hire a more experienced manager in the offseason and went with Ken Macha, who lasted two years before the Brewers hired Ron Roenicke.
Sveum stayed on as the hitting coach and supervised one of the best offenses in the National League last season. With Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder leading the way, the Brewers hit an NL-high 185 homers and were third with a .261 batting average on their way to the NL Central title ? well ahead of the fifth-place Cubs.
During his time in Milwaukee, Sveum also served as third base and bench coach.
Sveum managed three years in the Pirates' minor league system before joining the Red Sox in 2004, the year the Red Sox ended their 86-year championship drought.
He had a 12-season major league career that included 25 homers and 95 RBIs in 1987. He was injured in an outfield collision the following season, then missed the 1989 season and was never the same player.
But during his career, the low-key Sveum got to play under some of the marquee managers in the game, including Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Jim Leyland. Each had an input on how he plans to approach his new job.
"I think the one common thread is the ability to motivate and none of them were screamers or yellers," Sveum said.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2011) ? For the first time, astronomers have produced a complete description of a black hole, a concentration of mass so dense that not even light can escape its powerful gravitational pull. Their precise measurements have allowed them to reconstruct the history of the object from its birth some six million years ago.
Using several telescopes, both ground-based and in orbit, the scientists unravelled longstanding mysteries about the object called Cygnus X-1, a famous binary-star system discovered to be strongly emitting X-rays nearly a half-century ago. The system consists of a black hole and a companion star from which the black hole is drawing material. The scientists' efforts yielded the most accurate measurements ever of the black hole's mass and spin rate.
"Because no other information can escape from a black hole, knowing its mass, spin, and electrical charge gives a complete description of it," said Mark Reid, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "The charge of this black hole is nearly zero, so measuring its mass and spin make our description complete," he added.
Though Cygnus X-1 has been studied intensely since its discovery, previous attempts to measure its mass and spin suffered from lack of a precise measurement of its distance from Earth. Reid led a team that used the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a continent-wide radio-telescope system, to make a direct trigonometric measurement of the distance. Their VLBA observations provided a distance of 6070 light-years, while previous estimates had ranged from 5800-7800 light-years.
Armed with the new, precise distance measurement, scientists using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer, the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics, and visible-light observations made over more than two decades, calculated that the black hole in Cygnus X-1 is nearly 15 times more massive than our Sun and is spinning more than 800 times per second.
"This new information gives us strong clues about how the black hole was born, what it weighed and how fast it was spinning," Reid said. "Getting a good measurement of the distance was crucial," Reid added.
"We now know that Cygnus X-1 is one of the most massive stellar black holes in the Milky Way," said Jerry Orosz, of San Diego State University. "It's spinning as fast as any black hole we've ever seen," he added.
In addition to measuring the distance, the VLBA observations, made during 2009 and 2010, also measured Cygnus X-1's movement through our Galaxy. That movement, the scientists, said, is too slow for the black hole to have been produced by a supernova explosion. Such an explosion would have given the object a "kick" to a much higher speed.
"There are suggestions that this black hole could have been formed without a supernova explosion, and our results support those suggestions," Reid said.
Reid, Orosz, and Lijun Gou, also of CfA, were the lead authors of three papers on Cygnus X-1 published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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BALI, Indonesia ? President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao conferred Saturday in a surprise meeting on the sidelines of a major Asian summit, focusing on the economic matters that have prompted disputes between the two major world powers.
The session was not a formally planned moment of diplomacy but rather a late add-on to let the two men continue their conversation from a group dinner the night before.
"We have a very complicated and quite substantial relationship with China across the board," White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon told reporters after the session.
"We do have economic issues, they are around the proper contribution that the Chinese make to global growth and that goes to currency and other policies," he added.
He said Obama stressed the importance of China adjusting the value of its currency, which the United States contends is deeply undervalued. He said Obama and Wen also briefly discussed territorial disputes in the South China Sea toward the end of their meeting.
But Donilon also downplayed tensions between the two powers, saying the two countries also have found vast areas of agreement.
The meeting came on the last leg of Obama's nine-day Asia-Pacific trip, in which he has focused on bulking up America's presence in the region, including setting up a Marine task force in Australia, in moves largely seen as hedges against China's rise.
The last-minute meeting underscored the significance of China in the U.S. eyes, however. Obama met with met with Chinese President Hu Jintao just last weekend in Hawaii for an Asia-Pacific economic summit.
Only photographers and a videographer were allowed in at the start of the meeting with Wen, where the two men exchanged small talk.
A commentary run by the official Xinhua News Agency on Saturday suggested China was uneasy but not alarmed over the renewed U.S. focus on Asia.
"Actually, China as well as other Asian nations never considered the United States had left the Asia Pacific and had never tried to squeeze it out of the region," said the piece, which carried the headline: "U.S. return to Asia raises more questions than can answer."
The commentary noted that the U.S. was trying to court some Asian countries, a clear nod to recent U.S. overtures toward Myanmar, and was interfering in long-standing regional disputes, an apparent reference to U.S. military support for the Philippines as it confronts China in increasingly tense disputes in the South China Sea.
"If the United States sticks to its Cold War mentality and continues to engage with Asian nations in a self-assertive way, it is doomed to incur repulsion in the region," it said.
China has been angered by the U.S. stand that it has a stake in security and unhampered international commerce in the disputed territorial waters of the South China Sea. Wen had told a meeting of Southeast Asian nations on Friday that "external forces should not use any excuse to interfere" in territorial disputes in the sea.
China claims all of the sea, while several Southeast Asian nations claim parts.
Donilon said the United States, as a maritime power, wants territorial disputes resolved peacefully.
"We do believe they should be resolved in accordance with international norms and international law," he said.
Wen's portfolio, though, is chiefly economic, and that is where his conversation with Obama focused, Donilon said. The United States and China have been tussling over China's currency, and over intellectual property. Obama has been challenging China to operate with a greater sense of international rules.
Donilon rejected suggestions that the nine-day mission in the Asia-Pacific was designed to thwart a rising China. The U.S. policy, Donilon said, was about rebalancing U.S. interests and focusing once more on the Asia-pacific region.
"This has nothing to do with isolating or containing anybody," he said.
____
Associated Press writer Alexa Olesen in Beijing contributed to this report.
Rehabilitating vacant lots improves urban health and safety, Penn study finds Public release date: 17-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karen Kreeger karen.kreeger@uphs.upenn.edu 215-349-5658 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
PHILADELPHIA Greening of vacant urban land may affect the health and safety of nearby residents, according to a study published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology this week. The team, led by senior author Charles C. Branas, PhD, associate professor of Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, found in a decade-long comparison of vacant lots and improved vacant lots, that greening was linked to significant reductions in gun assaults across most of Philadelphia and significant reductions in vandalism in one section of the city. Vacant lot greening was also associated with residents in certain sections of the city reporting significantly less stress and more exercise.
"Improving the places where people live, work and play, holds great promise for changing health and safety," says Branas. "Greening vacant lots is a low-cost, high-value approach, which may prevent certain crimes and encourage healthy activity for more people and for longer periods of time than many other approaches."
"Dr. Branas's study adds to the growing body of evidence that cleaned and greened lots are important elements in a revitalized community," said Mayor Michael A. Nutter. "The City's partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society enhances health and safety in addition to creating jobs and increasing property values; now we have scientific proof of the benefits of this collaboration."
"The study by Dr. Branas and his team is fantastic news for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society [PHS], which in partnership with the City of Philadelphia has reclaimed thousands of blighted vacant lots," said PHS President Drew Becher. "We have known that greening these lots has helped transform neighborhoods in various ways. The Penn findings reveal other significant, direct impacts of this program on the lives of residents."
A Decade of Greening
In 1999, PHS began a program to green vacant lots abandoned open spaces with no buildings in Philadelphia. This program involved removing trash and debris, grading the land, planting grass and trees to create a park-like setting, and installing low wooden post-and-rail fences around each lot to show that it was cared for and to deter illegal dumping. Several times a year, PHS returned to each greened lot to perform basic maintenance, such as mowing the grass, tending trees, or repairing fences.
Branas and his team analyzed the impact of this program for a decade, from 1999 to 2008, using a statistical design that considered various health and safety outcomes and numerous other factors occurring on and around vacant lots, before and after they were treated, as compared to vacant lots that were not greened over the same time period.
Across Philadelphia, nearly 4,500 vacant lots totaling over 7.8 million square feet were greened from 1999-2008. Untreated control lots were randomly selected and matched to treated lots by section of the city, within four of the five sections of Philadelphia. The Northeast section was excluded because only a handful of vacant lots were greened there. Vacant lots eligible to serve as matched controls included only those that had never been greened from 1999-2008, but that could have been chosen by the PHS for greening.
A master database of over 50,000 vacant lots in Philadelphia from 1999-2008 was assembled from Philadelphia Bureau of Revision of Taxes and Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections records. This database was separated into lots greened by PHS and lots that were not greened. The Philadelphia Police Department provided the dates and locations for several types of crimes and arrests from 1999-2008: aggravated assaults, aggravated assaults with guns, robberies, robberies with guns, narcotics sales and possession, burglaries, thefts, vandalism and criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and illegal dumping. The Philadelphia Health Management Corporation provided community-level health data from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey.
The Pluses of Greening
"This is one of the first rigorous studies to show that reducing physical decay in neighborhoods -through such efforts as cleaning up vacant lots - reduces public safety crimes, demonstrating that healthier places are safer places," says co-author John MacDonald, PhD, chair of the Department of Criminology at Penn. "Public policies that promote active living can also enhance personal safety."
Vacant lot greening was associated with significant reductions in gun assaults across all four sections of Philadelphia in the study and significant reductions in vandalism in one section of the city.
Greening was also associated with residents reporting significantly less stress and more exercise in certain sections of Philadelphia. Because newly greened vacant lots may serve as safe havens, residents may have felt less stress or may have seen greater outdoor opportunities for exercise in a cleaner, more attractive, and safer environment, say the authors. Even though these findings pertaining to stress and exercise only applied to certain sections of the city, they have potentially important implications for the future study of urban vacant lot greening as a tool to enhance health.
"Violent crime may have simply been discouraged in the presence of greened and tended vacant lots that signaled someone in the community cared and was watching over the space in question," says Branas. "The effect of greening may have also been more tangible, especially for gun assaults, where vacant lots may have been a haven, storage ground, or disposal point for illegal guns. Because the penalty of being caught with an illegal gun is high, criminals may hide their guns in abandoned vacant lots."
Surprisingly, acts of disorderly conduct a catch-all category encompassing various violations and nuisances increased after the greening of vacant lots. A greened lot may serve as a new opportunity for community gatherings, bringing large groups of people together and increasing the opportunity for crowd-based nuisance crimes such as disorderly conduct, say the researchers. Community interest in maintaining a newly greened lot may have also increased calls to police and arrests for disorderly conduct.
"The large number of vacant lots we studied and the design of our analysis make this study some of the strongest evidence to date that greening vacant urban land is a promising approach to improving health and safety," notes Branas. "As with all studies, it's not the final word, and we are now moving forward with a randomized trial of vacant lot greening to even more thoroughly investigate. Philadelphia, like many cities, still has tens of thousands of vacant and abandoned lots to support such a study."
###
Co-authors, all from Penn, are Rose A. Cheney, PhD, Department of Surgery; Vicky W. Tam, Cartographic Modeling Laboratory; Tara D. Jackson, PhD, Cartographic Modeling Laboratory; and Thomas R. Ten Have, PhD, MPH, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology.
This work was completed in part with funding from the US Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health.
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4 billion enterprise.
Penn's Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools and among the top 10 schools for primary care. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $507.6 million awarded in the 2010 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top 10 hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2010, Penn Medicine provided $788 million to benefit our community.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Rehabilitating vacant lots improves urban health and safety, Penn study finds Public release date: 17-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karen Kreeger karen.kreeger@uphs.upenn.edu 215-349-5658 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
PHILADELPHIA Greening of vacant urban land may affect the health and safety of nearby residents, according to a study published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology this week. The team, led by senior author Charles C. Branas, PhD, associate professor of Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, found in a decade-long comparison of vacant lots and improved vacant lots, that greening was linked to significant reductions in gun assaults across most of Philadelphia and significant reductions in vandalism in one section of the city. Vacant lot greening was also associated with residents in certain sections of the city reporting significantly less stress and more exercise.
"Improving the places where people live, work and play, holds great promise for changing health and safety," says Branas. "Greening vacant lots is a low-cost, high-value approach, which may prevent certain crimes and encourage healthy activity for more people and for longer periods of time than many other approaches."
"Dr. Branas's study adds to the growing body of evidence that cleaned and greened lots are important elements in a revitalized community," said Mayor Michael A. Nutter. "The City's partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society enhances health and safety in addition to creating jobs and increasing property values; now we have scientific proof of the benefits of this collaboration."
"The study by Dr. Branas and his team is fantastic news for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society [PHS], which in partnership with the City of Philadelphia has reclaimed thousands of blighted vacant lots," said PHS President Drew Becher. "We have known that greening these lots has helped transform neighborhoods in various ways. The Penn findings reveal other significant, direct impacts of this program on the lives of residents."
A Decade of Greening
In 1999, PHS began a program to green vacant lots abandoned open spaces with no buildings in Philadelphia. This program involved removing trash and debris, grading the land, planting grass and trees to create a park-like setting, and installing low wooden post-and-rail fences around each lot to show that it was cared for and to deter illegal dumping. Several times a year, PHS returned to each greened lot to perform basic maintenance, such as mowing the grass, tending trees, or repairing fences.
Branas and his team analyzed the impact of this program for a decade, from 1999 to 2008, using a statistical design that considered various health and safety outcomes and numerous other factors occurring on and around vacant lots, before and after they were treated, as compared to vacant lots that were not greened over the same time period.
Across Philadelphia, nearly 4,500 vacant lots totaling over 7.8 million square feet were greened from 1999-2008. Untreated control lots were randomly selected and matched to treated lots by section of the city, within four of the five sections of Philadelphia. The Northeast section was excluded because only a handful of vacant lots were greened there. Vacant lots eligible to serve as matched controls included only those that had never been greened from 1999-2008, but that could have been chosen by the PHS for greening.
A master database of over 50,000 vacant lots in Philadelphia from 1999-2008 was assembled from Philadelphia Bureau of Revision of Taxes and Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections records. This database was separated into lots greened by PHS and lots that were not greened. The Philadelphia Police Department provided the dates and locations for several types of crimes and arrests from 1999-2008: aggravated assaults, aggravated assaults with guns, robberies, robberies with guns, narcotics sales and possession, burglaries, thefts, vandalism and criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and illegal dumping. The Philadelphia Health Management Corporation provided community-level health data from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey.
The Pluses of Greening
"This is one of the first rigorous studies to show that reducing physical decay in neighborhoods -through such efforts as cleaning up vacant lots - reduces public safety crimes, demonstrating that healthier places are safer places," says co-author John MacDonald, PhD, chair of the Department of Criminology at Penn. "Public policies that promote active living can also enhance personal safety."
Vacant lot greening was associated with significant reductions in gun assaults across all four sections of Philadelphia in the study and significant reductions in vandalism in one section of the city.
Greening was also associated with residents reporting significantly less stress and more exercise in certain sections of Philadelphia. Because newly greened vacant lots may serve as safe havens, residents may have felt less stress or may have seen greater outdoor opportunities for exercise in a cleaner, more attractive, and safer environment, say the authors. Even though these findings pertaining to stress and exercise only applied to certain sections of the city, they have potentially important implications for the future study of urban vacant lot greening as a tool to enhance health.
"Violent crime may have simply been discouraged in the presence of greened and tended vacant lots that signaled someone in the community cared and was watching over the space in question," says Branas. "The effect of greening may have also been more tangible, especially for gun assaults, where vacant lots may have been a haven, storage ground, or disposal point for illegal guns. Because the penalty of being caught with an illegal gun is high, criminals may hide their guns in abandoned vacant lots."
Surprisingly, acts of disorderly conduct a catch-all category encompassing various violations and nuisances increased after the greening of vacant lots. A greened lot may serve as a new opportunity for community gatherings, bringing large groups of people together and increasing the opportunity for crowd-based nuisance crimes such as disorderly conduct, say the researchers. Community interest in maintaining a newly greened lot may have also increased calls to police and arrests for disorderly conduct.
"The large number of vacant lots we studied and the design of our analysis make this study some of the strongest evidence to date that greening vacant urban land is a promising approach to improving health and safety," notes Branas. "As with all studies, it's not the final word, and we are now moving forward with a randomized trial of vacant lot greening to even more thoroughly investigate. Philadelphia, like many cities, still has tens of thousands of vacant and abandoned lots to support such a study."
###
Co-authors, all from Penn, are Rose A. Cheney, PhD, Department of Surgery; Vicky W. Tam, Cartographic Modeling Laboratory; Tara D. Jackson, PhD, Cartographic Modeling Laboratory; and Thomas R. Ten Have, PhD, MPH, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology.
This work was completed in part with funding from the US Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health.
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4 billion enterprise.
Penn's Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools and among the top 10 schools for primary care. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $507.6 million awarded in the 2010 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top 10 hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2010, Penn Medicine provided $788 million to benefit our community.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 17-Nov-2011
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