Assessing reverse 911®: a case study of the 2007 San Diego wildfires.

In October 2007, 250,000 residents of San Diego County were forced to evacuate as wildfires burned 62 miles(2) in 24 hours. In 2005, the Sheriff's Department invested in Reverse 911® to contact residents upon emergencies. The system was used during this wildfire, and by the following midday, had made 394,915 calls.

Use of paid child care health care consultants in early care and education settings: results of a national study comparing provision of health screening services among Head Start and non-Head Start centers.

Introduction: Child care health consultants (CCHCs) are health professionals who provide consultation and referral services to child care programs. The use of CCHCs has been recommended as an important component of high-quality child care. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential association between the use of paid CCHCs and child care center director reports of (a) center maintenance of health records and emergency procedures and (b) center facilitation of health screenings and assessments.

Factors influencing diagnostic sample submission by food animal veterinarians in Mississippi.

A focus group was organised to gather information and opinions from food animal veterinarians in Mississippi regarding sample submission to diagnostic laboratories. The research found that a range of factors influence the veterinarian's decision regarding whether samples will be submitted to a diagnostic laboratory, with the cost of diagnostics as the key influence. The veterinarians believed that the relationship they had with diagnostic laboratories was important in the protection of public health, but they thought that their role in disease surveillance was under-utilised.

Gasoline prices and traffic safety in Mississippi.

Problem: Limited literature suggests that gasoline prices have substantial effects on reducing fatal crashes. However, the literature focuses only on fatal crashes and does not examine the effects on all traffic crashes.

Methods: Mississippi traffic crash data from April 2004-December 2008 from the Mississippi Highway Patrol and regular-grade unleaded gasoline price data from the Energy Information Administration of the U.

Gasoline prices and their relationship to drunk-driving crashes.

This study investigates the relationship between changing gasoline prices and drunk-driving crashes. Specifically, we examine the effects of gasoline prices on drunk-driving crashes in Mississippi by several crash types and demographic groups at the monthly level from 2004 to 2008, a period experiencing great fluctuation in gasoline prices. An exploratory visualization by graphs shows that higher gasoline prices are generally associated with fewer drunk-driving crashes.

Correlating pharmaceutical data with a national health survey as a proxy for estimating rural population health.

Background: Chronic disease accounts for nearly three-quarters of US deaths, yet prevalence rates are not consistently reported at the state level and are not available at the sub-state level. This makes it difficult to assess trends in prevalence and impossible to measure sub-state differences. Such county-level differences could inform and direct the delivery of health services to those with the greatest need.

Underlying causes of the emerging nonmetropolitan mortality penalty.

The nonmetropolitan mortality penalty results in an estimated 40 201 excessive US deaths per year, deaths that would not occur if nonmetropolitan and metropolitan residents died at the same rate. We explored the underlying causes of the nonmetropolitan mortality penalty by examining variation in cause of death. Declines in heart disease and cancer death rates in metropolitan areas drive the nonmetropolitan mortality penalty.

The health of the Delta Region: a story of increasing disparities.

The Delta region of the U.S. has substantial disparities in health outcomes.

Preliminary evidence for an emerging nonmetropolitan mortality penalty in the United States.

We discovered an emerging non-metropolitan mortality penalty by contrasting 37 years of age-adjusted mortality rates for metropolitan versus nonmetropolitan US counties. During the 1980s, annual metropolitan-nonmetropolitan differences averaged 6.2 excess deaths per 100,000 nonmetropolitan population, or approximately 3600 excess deaths; however, by 2000 to 2004, the difference had increased more than 10 times to average 71.

Evaluating heart disease presciptions-filled as a proxy for heart disease prevalence rates.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Yet, prevalence rates are not reported at the county level.

Medicaid reimbursement and access to physicians: does lower reimbursement mean less access to care?

AIn 2002, Medicaid reimbursement rates were lowered. Stakeholders expressed concern that physicians would be less likely to accept Medicaid patients at the lower reimbursement rate and, consequently, Medicaid patients would have to drive farther for care. Results presented here tested those two propositions using claims data from the Mississippi Division of Medicaid.

Persistent clusters of mortality in the United States.

We explored how place shapes mortality by examining 35 consecutive years of US mortality data. Mapping age-adjusted county mortality rates showed both persistent temporal and spatial clustering of high and low mortality rates. Counties with high mortality rates and counties with low mortality rates both experienced younger population out-migration, had economic decline, and were predominantly rural.

Comorbidity of obesity and pain in a general population: results from the Southern Pain Prevalence Study.

Unlabelled: This cross-sectional study examines the relation between obesity and self-reported pain (moderate or severe pain occurring at least monthly) in a general population sample of adults in the southeastern United States (N = 3637). Results of the study suggest that obese adults (body mass index [BMI] >30) are more likely to experience pain than their normal-weight and underweight counterparts. Respondents classified as class I obese (BMI of 30 to 34.

Profiles of pain in Mississippi: results from the Southern Pain Prevalence Study.

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence, intensity, frequency, and origins of pain in Mississippi residents and explore the social and cultural aspects of pain and pain management by measuring the impacts of pain on everyday life as well as respondents' beliefs and attitudes toward pain.

Study Design: Cross-sectional survey of Mississippi adults.

Summary Of Background Data: Data from previous population surveys and clinical studies indicate that pain is a pervasive part of everyday life.

Rural-urban differences in the social climate surrounding environmental tobacco smoke: a report from the 2002 Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control.

Context: Although previous research has found smoking rates to be higher among residents of rural areas, few studies have investigated rural-urban differences in exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS).

Objective: This study contrasted the social climate surrounding ETS among Americans who resided in 5 levels of county urbanization.

Design: Data were collected via telephone interviews administered to a representative sample of 3,009 civilian, noninstitutionalized adults over age 18 in the United States.