Public health reports
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Public health reports · Mar 2009
Resource allocation on the frontlines of public health preparedness and response: report of a summit on legal and ethical issues.
In the face of all-hazards preparedness challenges, local and state health department personnel have to date lacked a discrete set of legally and ethically informed public health principles to guide the distribution of scarce resources in crisis settings. To help address this gap, we convened a Summit of academic and practice experts to develop a set of principles for legally and ethically sound public health resource triage decision-making in emergencies. ⋯ The 10 Summit-derived principles represent an attempt to link law, ethics, and real-world public health emergency resource allocation practices, and can serve as a useful starting framework to guide further systematic approaches and future research on addressing public health resource scarcity in an all-hazards context.
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Public health reports · Jan 2009
Pyrethrin and pyrethroid illnesses in the Pacific northwest: a five-year review.
Pyrethrin and pyrethroid insecticides are commonly applied in homes and businesses and on some agricultural crops. This research used a two-state regional approach to analyze reports of acute pesticide poisonings due to pyrethrin and pyrethroid insecticides. ⋯ Although the majority of pyrethrin and pyrethroid poisoning cases were low in severity, adverse reactions have occurred, as transpired in Oregon in 2005. Regional analysis has the potential to improve the surveillance system and provide unique opportunities for targeting preventive interventions.
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Public health reports · Nov 2008
Emergency department patient acceptance of opt-in, universal, rapid HIV screening.
We assessed emergency department (ED) patient acceptance of opt-in, rapid human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and identified demographic characteristics and HIV testing-history factors associated with acceptance of screening. ⋯ In an opt-in, universal, ED HIV screening program, patient acceptance of screening varied by demography, which indicates that the impact of such screening programs will not be universal. Future research will need to determine methods of increasing uptake of ED HIV screening that transcend patient demographic characteristics, HIV testing history, and motivation for testing.