Featured series 
Tag: Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention
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Health
Infant weight gain linked to childhood obesity
As childhood obesity continues its 30-year advance from occasional curiosity to cultural epidemic, health care providers are struggling to find out why — and the reasons are many. Increasingly sedentary environments for both adults and children, as well as cheap and ubiquitous processed foods no doubt play a role, but researchers are finding more evidence…
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Health
Low-income women with diabetes at increased risk for postpartum depression
Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the University of Minnesota have found that living just above the poverty line and having diabetes increases by 50 percent a woman’s chance of developing postpartum depression — a serious illness that affects about one in 10 new mothers. “While previous studies have linked diabetes and depression in…
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Science & Tech
Value of direct-to-consumer drug advertising oversold, study finds
Direct-to-consumer advertising may not be giving big pharma such a big bang for their five billion bucks after all. Despite the billions spent on bringing drug marketing campaigns straight into patients’ living rooms, such strategies have a modest effect at best—and in some cases, no effect at all. “People tend to think that if direct-to-consumer…
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Health
NIH awards Harvard Medical School $117.5 million, five-year grant for patient-centered research
The National Institutes of Health today announced that Harvard Medical School (HMS) will receive $117.5 million over the next five years for the establishment of a Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) that will transform patient-oriented, laboratory-to-bedside research at HMS and its affiliated hospitals. Harvard University, HMS, and a number of the affiliated hospitals are…
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Health
Suboptimal sleep, TV watching correlate with overweight in infants and toddlers
Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are twice as likely to become overweight by age 3 than children who sleep longer. In addition, high levels of television viewing combined with less sleep elevate the risk, so that children who sleep less than 12 hours and who view two or more…
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Health
Nicotine vaccine to be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital
A novel approach to helping smokers kick the habit – a vaccine – will be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The nicotine vaccine NicVax is designed to keep nicotine from reaching the brain where it produces its rewarding effects. Earlier studies of the vaccine, which has not yet received FDA approval, have indicated that…
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Health
Warning labels on high-risk drugs inconsistently heeded by doctors
In a survey of approximately 930,000 ambulatory care patients, researchers from the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care) and colleagues found that 42 percent received prescriptions for drugs with Black Box Warnings (BBW), the Food and Drug Administration’s strongest label for high-risk medication. Additionally, physicians’ compliance…
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Health
Spread of common day care illnesses caused by misconceptions about illness transmission
A Harvard Medical School study found that only two-thirds of parents believed that contact transmission was important for the spread of colds, and fewer than half believed it was important in the spread of stomach flus. Perhaps more surprising, fewer than half stated that changing a diaper and eating food prepared by a person with…
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Health
Low-dose aspirin shown to reduce risk of first stroke in women
The Women’s Health Study is a large, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial funded by both the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Cancer Institute to evaluate the benefits and risks of low dose aspirin as well as vitamin E supplementation in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The trial included healthy women 45…
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Health
Older doctors less likely to follow current standards of care
The study included a review of previously published papers with a large sample size of doctors. These studies included measures of physician knowledge or quality of care as well as the time since the physician’s medical school graduation or the physician’s age. The majority of these studies showed a decline in performance with time. Co-author…
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Health
Hold that penicillin
“The threat of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria increased so dramatically from the 1970s to the mid-1990s that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled it a national public health crisis,” said Jonathan Finkelstein of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Boston. The CDC has called on doctors to…
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Health
Hospital length of stay may not affect a newborn’s health
Researcher Jeanne M. Madden and colleagues used seven-and-a-half years of data on 20,366 mother-infant pairs with normal vaginal deliveries within a large Massachusetts health maintenance organization to determine the effects of reductions by the HMO in the postpartum length of stay and a subsequent state law establishing a minimum stay. The investigators measured the effects…
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Science & Tech
Black, Latino children with asthma receive lesser standard of care
Led by Tracy Lieu, associate professor of ambulatory care and prevention at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School, the researchers interviewed parents of children with asthma who were insured by Medicaid programs. Of the children, 38 percent were black, 19 percent Latino, and 31 percent white. The researchers studied the effects of ethnicity…