Responsibilities of the USDA-Food and Nutrition Service in Nutrition Assistance Response to Natural Disasters.

USDA makes sure that nutritious USDA Foods are made available to States, Indian Tribal Organizations and Emergency Feeding Organizations to help feed survivors of natural disasters and other emergencies when needed.

Predictors of home care expenditures and death at home for cancer patients in an integrated comprehensive palliative home care pilot program.

Purpose: Empirical understanding of predictors for home care service use and death at home is important for healthcare planning. Few studies have examined these predictors in the context of the publicly funded Canadian home care system. This study examined predictors for home care use and home death in the context of a "gold standard" comprehensive palliative home care program pilot in Ontario where patients had equal access to home care services.

Resource utilisation and costs of palliative cancer care in an interdisciplinary health care model.

This paper presents a detailed description of health care resource utilisation and costs of a pilot interdisciplinary health care model of palliative home care in Ontario, Canada. The descriptive evaluation entailed examining the use of services and costs of the pilot program: patient demographics, length of stay broken down by disposition (discharged, alive, death), access to services/resources, use of family physician and specialist services, and drug use. There were 434 patients included in the pilot program.

Mapping health on the internet: a new tool for environmental justice and public health research.

This paper examines the prospects for integrating Internet platform GIS or 'web-GIS' into environmental justice and related public health research. Specifically, we document the development of a web-GIS created for investigating relationships between health, air quality and socioeconomic factors in Hamilton, Canada. After development of the web-GIS site, we assembled a focus group of public health professionals to test functionality and render opinions about the potential of the site and geographic information in their program implementation.

Inequalities in neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics: potential evidence-base for neighbourhood health planning.

Background: Population health planning aims to improve the health of the entire population and to reduce health inequities among population groups. Socioeconomic factors are increasingly being recognized as major determinants of many aspects of health and causes of health inequities. Knowledge of socioeconomic characteristics of neighbourhoods is necessary to identify their unique health needs and enhance identification of socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.

Hospitalization and emergency department visits among seniors receiving homecare: a pilot study.

Background: Despite the recent growth in home health services, data on clinical outcomes and acute health care utilization among older adults receiving homecare services are sparse. Obtaining such data is particularly relevant in Ontario where an increasing number of frail seniors receiving homecare are awaiting placement in long-term care facilities. In order to determine the feasibility of a large-scale study, we conducted a pilot study to assess utilization of acute health care services among seniors receiving homecare to determine associated clinical outcomes.

Service preferences among family caregivers of the terminally ill.

Objective: The ability of families to assume caregiving responsibilities is contingent on material, social, and professional support. Inadequate or inappropriate support to the terminally ill and their family caregivers can result in the misuse of resources and add burden to the family. In this report, we describe service preferences among informal caregivers of the terminally ill.

Evaluation of a HACCP pilot program for the food service industry.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and applicability of a HACCP-based program for use in restaurants.

Participants: A randomly selected sample of 16 intervention and 42 control full service, "stand-alone" restaurants with a minimum of 3 full-time food handling staff on duty per shift.

Setting: Six communities in Central West Ontario.

Angina and socio-economic status in Ontario: how do characteristics of the county you live in influence your chance of developing heart disease?

Objective: To assist in the development of community heart health programming and policy development, the Central West Health Planning Information Network (CWHPIN) was asked by its partners to collaborate in obtaining information that might clarify the relationships between socio-economic status (SES) and heart disease among residents of Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this component of the project was to explore, at the county level, how much of the variation in angina pectoris (angina) could be explained by SES variables.

Study Design: Linear regression modeling was used to identify key predictors of angina hospitalization rates in counties Ontario-wide.

Relationship between poverty and health among adolescents.

Although the effect of low socioeconomic status on the health of adolescents has been documented, the mechanism by which this occurs is not well understood. Furthermore, improving adolescent health through public health policy typically requires the presence of one or more modifiable risk factors which can be targeted for intervention. In spite of the well-documented negative associations between poverty and health, few modifiable risk factors have been identified.

Analysis of factors related to development, regulatory level and change in municipal no-smoking by-laws in Ontario.

Objectives: This study explored and measured the presence, content and growth of municipal no-smoking by-laws and examined factors related to differences in by-law breadth and comprehensiveness.

Methods: By-laws from each jurisdiction across Ontario were collected and scored relative to their breadth and restrictiveness using the Asbridge-O'Grady Index. Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance was used to compare the distributions of municipal characteristics among the regulatory level of municipal smoking legislation.

The effects of prehospital advanced life support drug treatment on patient improvement and in-hospital utilization.

Objective: There is little published evidence to support the benefits of prehospital drug administration by ambulance personnel in reducing subsequent hospital utilization by the medical patients receiving such drugs. The authors studied the outcome of patients treated by Ontario's Emergency Health Services "Symptom Relief Drug Program," which was developed to relieve patient symptoms in the field for specific medical emergencies.

Methods: A retrospective study spanning a three-year period from January 1996 to December 1998 was undertaken in a mid-sized southern Ontario community.

How reliable are selected scales from population-based health surveys? An analysis among seniors.

The objective of the study was to assess the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of selected scales from four national and provincial surveys used to study the health status of community-dwelling seniors. Items on physical impairment, psychological well-being, activities of daily living, chronic health problems, social support, and stressful life events were selected from these surveys and administered in a group of 1,054 seniors, aged 65 and over, living in Wellington County, Ontario. Each scale exhibited high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha > or = 0.

Using healthy life years (HeaLYs) to assess programming needs in a public health unit.

In December 1997, public health units in Ontario received revised mandatory program guidelines from the Ministry of Health in advance of the downloading of public health to municipalities. Public health units face difficult decisions in allocating municipal resources to meet the Province's mandated programs. To set priorities for resource allocation, it is critical to assess need across program areas and to use a common unit in doing so.

Trends and variations in perinatal mortality and low birthweight: the contribution of socio-economic factors.

Objective: To examine trends and regional variations in perinatal mortality and low birthweight (LBW) and regional variations in socio-economic risk factors.

Methods: Population-based study of Central West Region of Ontario with approximately 28,000 births annually during the period 1988-1995 using vital statistics records and Census data.

Results And Conclusions: There was no significant change in the perinatal mortality rate averaging 9.

Comparison of two human ovarian carcinoma cell lines (A2780/CP70 and MCAS) that are equally resistant to platinum, but differ at codon 118 of the ERCC1 gene.

ERCC1 is an essential gene within the nucleotide excision repair process. We studied two human ovarian carcinoma cell lines for cisplatin resistance, which differed with respect to ERCC1. The A2780/CP70 cell line has been extensively studied previously, and has the wild-type ERCC1 sequence.

Analysis of factors related to illegal tobacco sales to young people in Ontario.

Objective: To identify and to discuss factors influencing illegal merchant sales of tobacco to underage people in Ontario, Canada.

Design: Results were obtained through random retail compliance checks of tobacco merchants. A multivariate analysis specified the relationship between selected independent variables and the willingness of tobacco merchants to sell to minors.

Associations between stomach cancer incidence and drinking water contamination with atrazine and nitrate in Ontario (Canada) agroecosystems, 1987-1991.

Background: Nitrate and atrazine are two chemicals that are heavily used in certain sectors of agriculture. They are suspected to be associated with the development of certain types of tumours.

Methods: Existing data were obtained on the incidence of specific types of cancers, contamination of drinking water with atrazine and nitrate, and related agricultural practices for the 40 ecodistricts in the province of Ontario.

Public health inspectors in restaurants: what they do and why.

This report identifies strategies used by public health inspectors in the Central West Region of Ontario during restaurant inspections, based on and comparing the perceptions of inspectors, their managers, and restaurant operators. Factors influencing the choice of strategies are reviewed, putting into perspective the importance of manager and policy expectations relative to other influences experienced by inspectors in the field. The need to set pragmatic and reality-tested criteria and objectives for a HACCP-based inspection protocol is discussed.

Influence of companion animals on the physical and psychological health of older people: an analysis of a one-year longitudinal study.

Objective: To examine whether companion animals or attachment to a companion animal was associated with changes in physical and psychological health in older people and whether the relationships between physical and psychological health and human social networks were modified by the presence or absence of a companion animal.

Design: A 1-year longitudinal study with standardized telephone interview data collected at baseline and repeated at 1-year

Setting: Wellington County, Ontario, Canada

Participants: An age- and sex stratified random sample (baseline n = 1054; follow-up n = 995) of noninstitutionalized adults aged 65 and older (mean age = 73, SD +/- 6.3)

Measurements: Social Network Activity was measured using a family and non-family social support scale, participation in an organized social group, involvement in the affairs of the social group, the practice of confiding in others, feelings of loneliness, and the perceived presence of support in a crisis situation.

The measurement of cadmium in biological materials, using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry with Zeeman background correction.

Cadmium (Cd), a toxic heavy metal and probable carcinogen in humans, appears to have potential anti-cancer activity in pre-clinical systems. This observation led us to develop a method for measuring cellular Cd and DNA-bound Cd following micromolar exposures to cadmium dichloride. Cultured human ovarian cancer cell lines were used.

Using a breastfeeding prevalence survey to identify a population for targeted programs.

Often, efforts to improve overall population health require identifying and targeting programs to specific high-risk populations. Breastfeeding is an example. In order to determine initiation and duration rates among various groups in the City of Toronto, a random sample of 434 mothers with infants at four months of age was surveyed to determine the prevalence of breastfeeding and major impacts on its duration.