Research Findings

The report was produced to support the National Audit Office’s (NAO) Value for Money study of neonatal services in England. Therefore, the report aims to provide a compendium of relevant data to facilitate comparisons and benchmarking of neonatal services (organization, statistics, and so on) in England with the above nations. The report does not, however, consider the provision of neonatal services in England itself. Since the report is concerned with international comparisons, it does not analyze differences within countries.

Full document online as a PDF.   Summary is also available.

Canadian Policy Research Networks, CPRN Research Report - April 2008

Margaret MacAdam - Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

“…..a literature review examines articles and papers that study comprehensive models of integrated or coordinated care.  The author identified that some models of integrated health and social care can result in improved outcomes, client satisfaction and/or cost savings or cost-effectiveness.  MacAdam identifies four frameworks with common interventions that must be structured to support each other. 

These key elements are:  umbrella organizational structures to guide integration of strategic, managerial and service delivery levels; multidisciplinary case management for effective evaluation and planning of client needs; organized provider networks; and financial incentives to promote prevention, rehabilitation and the downward substitution of services, as well as to enable service integration and efficiency….”

Available online as PDF file.

Smoking related lung diseases such as COPD and lung cancer are major epidemics in women in both developed and developing nations.  This issue of the NET is intended to get that global discussion going—to focus on women’s lungs, smoking and all the other additive factors that create disability and death from lung disease in women.  Download the The International Network of Women Against Tobacco newest e-magazine.

New Report from the Institute for Health for Health Economic

This report was prepared in response to a request from the Alberta Mental Health Board to conduct a critical appraisal of the literature on the validity and reliability of various risk assessment instruments for predicting recidivism and lethality for male spousal violence offenders. Read the report.

New from Statistics Canada:

A new study published in Health Reports provides the first national picture of health care use by sexual orientation. It shows that the use of health care services differs depending on self-identified sexual preference.  The report is available online.

Final Report of Research Findings

Women's experiences with paid and unpaid work, and with the formal and informal economies, have shifted over the last 20 years. In British Columbia, women's employability is affected by government legislation, federal and provincial policy changes, and local practices. Through using a feminist action research (FAR) methodology, we examined the relationship between women's employability and health/well-being. We adopted a social model of health that recognizes the social, economic, political and cultural determinants of health. We explored the relationship between women's employability and health in four communities that represent British Columbia's social, economic, cultural/ethnic, and geographic diversities. In each community over the course of our 2-year project, we established and worked with Advisory Committees, hired and trained local researchers, conducted FAR (including a range of qualitative methods), and supported action and advocacy. Since the selected communities were diverse, the ways that the research unfolded varied between communities. Expected outcomes, such as the provision of written reports and resources and the establishment of a website for networking among the communities, were aimed at supporting the research participants and Advisory Committee members in their action efforts.   Read the report.

State of the Evidence 2008 is a comprehensive report on the environmental exposures linked to increased breast cancer risk, including natural and synthetic estrogens; xenoestrogens and other endocrine-disrupting compounds; carcinogenic chemicals and radiation.

This exhaustive catalog provides a much more complex picture of breast cancer causation than traditionally accepted, one in which timing; mixtures and dose of environmental exposures interact with genes and lifestyle factors.

The scientific evidence provides the basis to move forward with research and public policy changes that will help reduce our exposure to chemicals and radiation linked to increased breast cancer risk.

Chronic pain affects more than one-quarter of seniors living in households and close to 4 out of every 10 in institutions, and it can have a profound impact on their quality of life, according to a new study. 

Women were consistently more likely than men to report chronic pain, regardless of whether they were seniors or of working age (18 to 64), or whether they were institutionalized.

The study, available online, is based on data from two separate health surveys, examined the prevalence of chronic pain among seniors aged 65 and over living in private households and in long-term health care institutions.

12/03/2008

C.M. Borkhoff, G.A. Hawker, H.J. Kreder, and colleagues

In this prospective study by Borkhoff and colleagues, a standardized male and female patient, each trained to present an identical case history of moderate osteoarthritis, were assessed blindly by 38 family physicians and 33 orthopedic surgeons in Ontario. The authors found that total knee arthroplasty was recommended significantly more often to the male patient than to the female patient.  Read the complete article in the CMAJ.

12/03/2008

Final Report to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health

This report has shown that gender relations of power exist both within and outside the health sector, and exercise a pernicious influence on the health of people. It has drawn together the rapidly growing body of evidence that identifies and explains what gender inequality and inequity mean in terms of differential exposures and vulnerabilities for women versus men, and also how health care systems and health research reproduce these inequalities and inequities instead of resolving them.