Calculating the economic burden of fatal drowning in Australia.

Background: Aquatic activities provide physical and social benefits, while the risk of drowning generates countervailing social costs. Drawing on estimates of fatal drowning gathered by Royal Life Saving Society - Australia, this paper outlines a method for estimating the economic burden attributable to fatal drowning.

Methods: This study estimated the burden of fatal drowning by combining Value of a Statistical Life Year (VSLY), hospitalization, productivity and emergency services costs.

Understanding the full burden of drowning: a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of fatal and non-fatal drowning in Australia.

Objectives: The epidemiology of fatal drowning is increasingly understood. By contrast, there is relatively little population-level research on non-fatal drowning. This study compares data on fatal and non-fatal drowning in Australia, identifying differences in outcomes to guide identification of the best practice in minimising the lethality of exposure to drowning.

The association between school holidays and unintentional fatal drowning among children and adolescents aged 5-17 years.

Aim: Children aged 5-17 years in Australia have one of the lowest unintentional fatal drowning rates. One possible explanation is the protective effect of formal schooling, reducing leisure time for exposure to water hazards. We examine differences in frequency and circumstances of drowning deaths in this age group between school holidays and school days in Australia.

Using a retrospective cross-sectional study to analyse unintentional fatal drowning in Australia: ICD-10 coding-based methodologies verses actual deaths.

Objectives: Fatal drowning estimates using a single underlying cause of death (UCoD) may under-represent the number of drowning deaths. This study explores how data vary by International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 coding combinations and the use of multiple underlying causes of death using a national register of drowning deaths.

Design: An analysis of ICD-10 external cause codes of unintentional drowning deaths for the period 2007-2011 as extracted from an Australian total population unintentional drowning database developed by Royal Life Saving Society-Australia (the Database).

Approaches to identifying, measuring, and aggregating elements of value.

Background: Two general alternative approaches, cost-effectiveness analysis and the therapeutic added value approach, link the pricing and approval of drugs to value. Value as assessed by payers is a function of: benefit less cost, willingness to pay for benefit, and how they handle uncertainty.

Methods: This study uses international examples to explore the elements of value that can be included in the assessment of health technologies, approaches to scoring the elements of value and how they can be combined to make a decision.

Effect of fibula free flap harvest on the gait of head and neck cancer patients: preliminary results.

Objective: To determine the impact of fibula free flaps (FFFs) on gait.

Design: Prospective trial.

Setting: FFF patients who gave consent were enrolled.

Unbalanced ribosomal protein synthesis in a strain of Escherichia coli containing a cloned, truncated 16-S ribosomal RNA gene.

An Escherichia coli K12 strain, carrying the promotor and proximal portion of the 16-S rRNA gene from rrnB cloned in the high-copy-number plasmid psF2124, has been examined for abnormalities in ribosome biogenesis. Both ribosomal RNA accumulation and ribosome content are depressed in this strain as compared to the control strain carrying the plasmid vector alone. The rate of total protein synthesis, however, appears to be normal.

Location and characterisation of a new replication origin in the E. coli K12 chromosome.

A segment of DNA located in the region of the E. coli K12 chromosome previously identified by the Rac phenotype can function as a self-replicating plasmid. Evidence is presented that this plasmid, the oriJ plasmid, contains the origin of replication of a defective prophage postulated to be located in this chromosomal region by Low (1973).