A new source of data for public health surveillance: Facebook likes.

Background: Investigation into personal health has become focused on conditions at an increasingly local level, while response rates have declined and complicated the process of collecting data at an individual level. Simultaneously, social media data have exploded in availability and have been shown to correlate with the prevalence of certain health conditions.

Objective: Facebook likes may be a source of digital data that can complement traditional public health surveillance systems and provide data at a local level.

A bibliometric analysis of U.S.-based research on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Background: Since Alan Pritchard defined bibliometrics as "the application of statistical methods to media of communication" in 1969, bibliometric analyses have become widespread. To date, however, bibliometrics has not been used to analyze publications related to the U.S.

Obesity prevention: the impact of local health departments.

Objective: To examine the association between bodyweight status and provision of population-based prevention services.

Data Sources: The National Association of City and County Health Officials 2005 Profile survey data, linked with two cross-sections of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey in 2004 and 2005.

Study Design: Multilevel logistic regressions were used to examine the association between provision of obesity-prevention services and the change in risk of being obese or morbidly obese among BRFSS respondents.

The role of geographic scale in testing the income inequality hypothesis as an explanation of health disparities.

This study re-examined the role of geographic scale in measuring income inequality and testing the income inequality hypothesis (IIH) as an explanation of health disparities. We merged Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) 2000 data with income inequality indices constructed at different geographic scales to test the association between income inequality and four different health indicators, i.e.

Evaluation of variance estimators for the concentration and health achievement indices: a Monte Carlo simulation.

Although the concentration index (CI) and the health achievement index (HAI) have been extensively used, previous studies have relied on bootstrapping to compute the variance of the HAI, whereas competing variance estimators exist for the CI. This paper provides methods of statistical inference for the HAI and compares the available variance estimators for both the CI and the HAI using Monte Carlo simulation. Results for both the CI and the HAI suggest that analytical methods and bootstrapping are well behaved.

Examining the role of gender in career advancement at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the past decade, efforts to promote gender parity in the healing and public health professions have met with only partial success. We provide a critical update regarding the status of women in the public health profession by exploring gender-related differences in promotion rates at the nation's leading public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Using personnel data drawn from CDC, we found that the gender gap in promotion has diminished across time and that this reduction can be attributed to changes in individual characteristics (e.

Economic perspective on strategic human capital management and planning for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An organization's workforce--or human capital--is its most valuable asset. The 2002 President's Management Agenda emphasizes the importance of strategic human capital management by requiring all federal agencies to improve performance by enhancing personnel and compensation systems. In response to these directives, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) drafted its strategic human capital management plan to ensure that it is aligned strategically to support the agency's mission and its health protection goals.

Perspectives on public health workforce research.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office of Workforce and Career Development is committed to developing a competent, sustainable, and diverse public health workforce through evidence-based training, career and leadership development, and strategic workforce planning to improve population health outcomes. This article reviews the previous efforts in identifying priorities of public health workforce research, which are summarized as eight major research themes. We outline a strategic framework for public health workforce research that includes six functional areas (ie, definition and standards, data, methodology, evaluation, policy, and dissemination and translation).

Breath acidification in adolescent runners exposed to atmospheric pollution: a prospective, repeated measures observational study.

Background: Vigorous outdoors exercise during an episode of air pollution might cause airway inflammation. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of vigorous outdoor exercise during peak smog season on breath pH, a biomarker of airway inflammation, in adolescent athletes.

Methods: We measured breath pH both pre- and post-exercise on ten days during peak smog season in 16 high school athletes engaged in daily long-distance running in a downwind suburb of Atlanta.

Mental health symptoms following war and repression in eastern Afghanistan.

Context: Decades of armed conflict, suppression, and displacement resulted in a high prevalence of mental health symptoms throughout Afghanistan. Its Eastern province of Nangarhar is part of the region that originated the Taliban movement. This may have had a distinct impact on the living circumstances and mental health condition of the province's population.

Mental health, social functioning, and disability in postwar Afghanistan.

Context: More than 2 decades of conflict have led to widespread human suffering and population displacement in Afghanistan. In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other collaborating partners performed a national population-based mental health survey in Afghanistan.

Objective: To provide national estimates of mental health status of the disabled (any restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity in the manner considered normal for a human being) and nondisabled Afghan population aged at least 15 years.