Tag Archives: world health organization

Made in IBM Labs: Scientists Turn Data into Disease Detective to Predict Dengue Fever and Malaria Outbreaks

By Guest PostSeptember 30, 2013Technologyclimate change, data, disease detective, disease modeling, eclipse foundation, environmental factors, epidemiology, ibm labs, infectious diseases, james kaufman, johns hopkins, justin lessler, made in, malaria outbreaks, new analytic measures, open source framework, predict dengue fever, spatio, stem, temporal epidemiological modeler, world health organization

IBM teams up with Johns Hopkins University and UC San Francisco to help public health officials model, predict and track the possible spread of infectious diseases

SAN JOSE, Calif., – 30 Sep 2013: Scientists from IBM are collaborating with Johns Hopkins University and University of California, San Francisco to combat illness and infectious diseases in real-time with smarter data tools for public health. The focus is to help contain global outbreaks of dengue fever and malaria by applying the latest analytic models, computing technology and mathematical skills on an open-source framework.

Vector-borne diseases, like malaria and dengue fever, are infections transmitted to humans and other animals by blood-feeding insects, such as mosquitoes, ticks and fleas. (more…)

Hidden Dangers in the Air We Breathe

By Guest PostMay 10, 2013Environment, Healthacrolein, air quality, air we breathe, average american, berkeley lab, brett singer, california, cardiovascular systems, chronic exposure, daly, factories, fine particles, gas, health hazards, hidden dangers, indoor air pollutants, indoor air quality, max sherman, micrometers in diameter, phillip price, respiratory, title 24, united states, urban environment, us population, vehicles, world health organization, world war

Berkeley Lab researchers work on new building standards after discovering previously unknown indoor air pollutants.

For decades, no one worried much about the air quality inside people’s homes unless there was secondhand smoke or radon present. Then scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) made the discovery that the aggregate health consequences of poor indoor air quality are as significant as those from all traffic accidents or infectious diseases in the United States. One major source of indoor pollutants in the home is cooking.

The Berkeley Lab scientists are now working on turning those research findings into science-based solutions, including better standards for residential buildings and easier ways to test for the hazardous pollutants. These efforts are the result of a paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2012 that described a new method for estimating the chronic health impact of indoor air pollutants. That research uncovered two pollutants that previously had not been recognized as a cause for concern—fine particles and a gas called acrolein. (more…)

Blood Discovery

By Guest PostMay 3, 2012Sciencea, arteries, blood clot, England, heart disease, intravital microscope, jam a protein, jonathan m gibbins, junctional adhesion molecule, lawrence brass, local cardiologist, meghna naik, plaque lines, platelets, protein in blood, stroke, ulhas naik, university of delaware, university of reading, world health organization

UD researchers discover that JAM-A protein keeps blood clots in check

Cut your toe, and platelets — those disc-shaped cells circulating in your blood — rush to the scene, clumping together to plug the leak.

But when an unwanted clot forms in an artery, and an overaccumulation of platelets blocks blood flow, a heart attack or stroke occurs, too often with fatal results.

Heart disease and stroke rank as humankind’s top killers, according to the World Health Organization. Ulhas Naik, director of the Delaware Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Delaware, hopes to help change that grim statistic for the better. (more…)

Payment Innovation Cuts Depression Time in Half

By Guest PostApril 23, 2012Healthamerican, community health clinics, depression, depression outcomes, disease, incentive, jurgen unutzer, king county, mental disorder, mental health, payment, university of washington, washington state, world health organization

When 25 percent of the payments to community health clinics were based on quality of care, patients received better care and had better depression outcomes. The results of this initiative are published in the American Journal of Public Health.

University of Washington researchers examined records from almost 8,000 patients treated for depression in 29 community health clinics in the Washington State Mental Health Integration Program before and after the implementation of a pay-for-performance incentive. After the incentive was started, patients were seen more quickly and were more likely to receive consultation from a psychiatrist. They were also more likely to show improvements in their depression. (more…)

Guidelines Stress Caution When Combining Anti-Epileptic, HIV Drugs

By Guest PostJanuary 7, 2012Healthaeds, aids drugs, aids medication, american academy of neurology, anti hiv drugs, antiretrovirals, arvs, carbamazepine, cerebral malaria, drug interactions, drug resistant hiv, epilepsia, epilepsy, gretchen birbeck, guidelines, hiv, medical guideline, michigan state university, mood disorders, nation, neurological ailments, phenobarbital, phenytoin, seizure drugs, strain, sub sahara africa, toxic, world health organization, zambia

EAST LANSING, Mich. — New guidelines from the American Academy of Neurology will help physicians better choose seizure drugs for people on HIV/AIDS medication, avoiding deadly drug interactions and preventing critical anti-HIV drugs from becoming less effective, possibly leading to a more virulent strain of the disease.

Michigan State University’s Gretchen Birbeck – who spends several months each year in the sub-Sahara African nation of Zambia researching epilepsy, HIV /AIDS and cerebral malaria – is the lead author of the medical guideline, which was co-developed with the World Health Organization through the International League Against Epilepsy. (more…)

Jeopardy! Winnings Spur IBM and Scripps Research Institute Collaboration to Fight Against Malaria

By Guest PostNovember 18, 2011Science, Technologyafrica, alex l perryman, asia, clean water techniques, critical to human health, drug resistant strains, economic distress, go fight against malaria, hiv, human competitors, ibm, jeopardy game, malaria, mike pique, multi drug resistant aids, plasmodium falciparum, renewable energy materials, ruth huey, sargis dallakyan, scripps research institute, south america, stefano forli, subhash sinha, supercomputer of the people, watson computing system, world community grid, world health organization

*Project to use 2 million PCs to crunch numbers, compress 100 years of research into just one*

LA JOLLA, CA and ARMONK, NY – IBM’s Watson computing system broke new ground earlier this year when it defeated two celebrated human competitors on the Jeopardy! game show. Now, The Scripps Research Institute is hoping to do something equally novel but more critical to human health with part of the prize money from that tournament: Find a cure for drug-resistant malaria. And it’s asking for the public’s help.

To that end, Scripps Research and IBM are encouraging anyone in the world with a personal computer to join World Community Grid, a sort of “supercomputer of the people” that will crunch numbers and perform simulations for “GO Fight Against Malaria”—the project that Scripps Research and IBM have launched at https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org. (more…)

UA Public Health Students Blogging From Across Globe

By Guest PostJuly 22, 2011Cultureacross the globe, africa, blogging, city of maseru, deirdre demers, department of food safety and zoonoses, geneva, hiv prevention education program, internship experiences, jaclyn pierson, karen dreisbach, Kingdom of Lesotho, mph coursework, southern africa, students, summer internships, switzerland, unicef, university of arizona, world health organization, zuckerman college of public health

*Students are blogging about their internship experiences from destinations as far away as Switzerland and Africa.*

At the University of Arizona, summer internships matter.

Three graduate students from the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health are working as interns across the globe this summer. (more…)

‘Combining Therapies Appears Safe, May Benefit Patients with Advanced Liver Cancer’

By Guest PostJuly 9, 2011Healthadvanced primary liver cancer, bayer healthcare, cancer, chronic hepatitis c infection, cirrhosis, diarrhea, drugs, epidemics of obesity and diabetes, fatigue, hcc, hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatologists, inflammation, james caridi, liver cancer, metabolic syndrome, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, onyx pharmaceuticals, paul martin, roniel cabrera, side effects, skin reactions, sorafenib, transarterial chemoembolization, tumor feeding blood vessels, tumors, type of liver cancer, unexpected toxic effects, united states, university of florida, university of miami, viable treatment options, world health organization

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Few treatments exist for patients with advanced primary liver cancer, but University of Florida researchers have found a new way to broaden the range of options and potentially improve health outcomes by combining two treatments.

In the first study of its kind, the researchers combined sorafenib, the only Food and Drug Administration-approved pill for treating advanced liver cancer, with another routinely used therapy known as transarterial chemoembolization, which works by cutting off the blood supply to tumors. No unexpected toxic effects were seen, and the combo appears to have the potential to improve survival for certain groups of patients. (more…)