American journal of preventive medicine
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Healthcare reform plans refer to improved quality, but there is little quantification of potential health benefits of quality care. ⋯ Substantial improvements in population health are achievable through greater use of a small number of preventive services. Healthcare systems should maximize use of these services.
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Poison control centers and clinical toxicologists serve many roles within public health; however, the degree to which these entities collaborate is unknown. ⋯ Poison control centers have expanded their efforts to include outbreak identification, syndromic surveillance, terrorism preparedness, and daily public health responsibilities amenable to poison control center resources. Collaboration in these areas and others should be expanded.
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In December 2002, the medical toxicology sub-board, which consists of representatives from emergency medicine, preventive medicine, and pediatrics, released revised core content for medical toxicology, aiming to better meet the academic challenges imposed by the continually expanding knowledge base of medical toxicology. These challenges included the addition of relatively new areas of interest in medical toxicology, including population health, while simultaneously ensuring that a structural framework existed to accommodate future areas of interest. There is no evidence readily available to assess how well the educational curricula of existing fellowship programs are meeting these needs. ⋯ To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first published report describing such a curriculum redesign. Suggestions and potential resources proposed as enhancements for the public health-associated education of medical toxicology fellows are discussed. The authors also seek to initiate a discussion among programs about how to optimally meet the new challenges developed by the medical toxicology sub-board.
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The Healthy Eating Index-2005 (HEI-2005), a tool designed to evaluate concordance with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, has been used to monitor the quality of foods consumed by Americans. Because the HEI-2005 is not tied to individual requirements and is scored on a per 1000 kcal basis, it can be used to assess the overall quality of any mix of foods. ⋯ Because the HEI-2005 can be applied to both environmental- and individual-level data, it provides a useful metric for studies linking data across various levels of the socioecologic framework of dietary behavior. The present findings suggest that new dietary guidance could target not only individuals but also the architects of our food environment.