Media, racism and public health psychology

A growing literature has established that racism contributes to ill-health of migrants, minority group members and indigenous peoples. Racial discrimination has been shown to act at personal, institutional and societal levels, negatively affecting physical health as evidenced by heart disease and other stress related conditions and generally negating wellbeing, signalled by psychological and psychiatric disorders including depression. In our highly mediatized world, mass communications in diverse forms are decisive for people’s knowledge and understandings of the world and their place in it. From critical studies we know that the media consistently marginalize, denigrate and neglect particular ethnic and cultural groups. Where media do focus on such groups much of the reporting is negative and stereotyping. Achievements are ignored or minimized while representations of those groups as problems for and threats to the dominant are highlighted. In this paper we consider the particular case of media representations of the indigenous Maori of Aotearoa New Zealand. We review extant studies to argue that detailed and systematic study is necessary for the development of critical, local media scholarship. Such scholarship is necessary if the current media impact on Maori health and wellbeing is to be mitigated. While such considerations may not have been traditional concerns of health psychology we, following George Albee (2003), argue for them as affirming the need for critical public health psychology

Open Problems in (Hyper)Graph Decomposition

Large networks are useful in a wide range of applications. Sometimes problem instances are composed of billions of entities. Decomposing and analyzing these structures helps us gain new insights about our surroundings. Even if the final application concerns a different problem (such as traversal, finding paths, trees, and flows), decomposing large graphs is often an important subproblem for complexity reduction or parallelization. This report is a summary of discussions that happened at Dagstuhl seminar 23331 on "Recent Trends in Graph Decomposition" and presents currently open problems and future directions in the area of (hyper)graph decomposition

Statin use is associated with fewer periodontal lesions: A retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Inflammatory processes are considered to participate in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Statins have been used successfully in the prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease. Chronic periodontitis has been suggested to contribute to CVD. The aim of this study was to examine the association of statin use and clinical markers of chronic periodontitis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Periodontal probing pocket depth (PPD) values were collected from dental records of 100 consecutive adult patients referred to a university dental clinic for treatment of advanced chronic periodontitis. A novel index, Periodontal Inflammatory Burden Index (PIBI), was derived from the PPD values to estimate systemic effects of periodontitis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Periodontitis patients taking statins had a 37% lower number of pathological periodontal pockets than those without statin medication (P = 0.00043). PIBI, which combines and unifies the data on PPD, was 40% smaller in statin using patients than in patients without statin (P = 0.00069). PIBI of subjects on simvastatin and atorvastatin both differed significantly from patients without statin and were on the same level. The subjects' number of teeth had no effect on the results</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients on statin medication exhibit fewer signs of periodontal inflammatory injury than subjects without the statin regimen. PIBI provides a tool for monitoring inflammatory load of chronic periodontitis. The apparent beneficial effects of statins may in part be mediated by their pleiotropic anti-inflammatory effect on periodontal tissue.</p

Tackling health inequalities: moving theory to action

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

The prevalence and effects of on-call stepdown on orthopaedic registrar training:the North West trainees' perspective

INTRODUCTION: Safe staffing levels are increasingly being threatened by gaps in rotas. When a gap occurs in junior grade on-call rotas the orthopaedic registrar needs to step down and undertake the role of both junior and middle-grade doctor. This increased responsibility could compromise the safety and wellbeing of patients and doctors. This study quantifies the prevalence and effects for trainees of stepdown while on call.MATERIALS AND METHODS: An anonymous online and paper survey of trainees was conducted. The primary outcomes were the prevalence of stepdown in trainees' experience, the effects of stepdown on trainees and patients, and the overall impact on training and morale.RESULTS: The response rate was 93% (n = 51). Of the total, 55% of trainees had experienced stepdown, which occurred a minimum of 84 times, statistically more frequently for expected absences rather than unexpected absences (P = 0.002). Of the trainees who stepped down, 64% felt pressure to do so from seniors and 79% from hospital management. Some 50% of trainees felt that step down was managed in an unsafe manner; 40% of trainees stated that stepdown impacted on their own personal safety and 50% of trainees lost a training opportunity. Overall, 57% of trainees considered that stepdown and rota gaps affected their morale negatively. In 85% of cases there were no issues that resulted in patient harm.CONCLUSION: The survey results suggest that stepdown is common and it does impact negatively upon registrar training, safety and morale. Patient safety overall seems to be well protected.</p

The use of MRI in the investigation of lateral meniscal tear post medial unicompartmental knee replacement

AbstractThe evaluation of lateral knee pain in patients with a medial unicompartmental knee replacement (UKR) is complex. The native lateral compartment structures are prone to the same injuries as patients with normal knees. Historical reports of lateral meniscal injury post medial UKR have argued MRI evaluation is obsolete due to artefact caused by the prosthesis. We report a case of lateral meniscal injury in a patient two years after successful medial UKR. We identified the offending pathology via utilization of MRI scanners adopting metal artefact reduction sequences (MARS). The MARS MRI protocol helps clinicians accurately and non-invasively evaluate soft tissue structures in knees with metal prostheses. It also allows surgeons to accurately counsel patients and provides a higher degree of certainty in treating the pathology