Health care expenditures among working-age adults with physical disabilities: variations by disability spans.

Background: Data on health care costs for working-age adults with physical disabilities are sparse and the dynamic nature of disability is not captured.

Objectives: To assess the effect of 3 types of disability status (persistent disability, temporary disability, and no disability) on health care expenditures, out-of-pocket (OOP) spending, and financial burden.

Methods: Data from Medical Expenditure Panel Survey panel 12 (2007-2008) were used.

Vision insurance, eye care visits, and vision impairment among working-age adults in the United States.

Objectives: To compare rates of eye care visits and vision impairment among working-age adults with vision insurance vs without, among the total sample of Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey respondents and among a subsample of respondents who had diagnoses of glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), and/or cataract.

Design: Using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey 2008 vision module data, we examined the likelihood of an eye care visit within the past year and of self reported visual impairment among 27 152 adults aged 40 to 65 years and among a subset of 3158 persons (11.6%) with glaucoma, ARMD, and/or cataract.

"PDSA-ADHD": a newly reported syndrome.

We present a satirical case report of a new syndrome, called "plan do study act-attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," or PDSA-ADHD. This syndrome is associated with the implementation of multiple simultaneous plan-do-study-act cycles as a quality improvement approach in a health care setting. This case represents a clinical warning sign of quality improvement impairment and suggests a new variant of organizational attention deficit disorder.

Cancer screening delivery in persistent poverty rural counties.

Background: Rural populations are diagnosed with cancer at different rate and stages than nonrural populations, and race/ethnicity as well as the area-level income exacerbates the differences. The purpose of this analysis was to explore cancer screening rates across persistent poverty rural counties, with emphasis on nonwhite populations.

Methods: The 2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System was used, combined with data from the Area Resource File (analytic n = 309 937 unweighted, 196 344 347 weighted).

Rural-urban differences in the location of influenza vaccine administration.

Background: Influenza vaccination rates remain lower than Healthy People 2010 goals. The lower rates are prevalent in rural areas despite an expansion of services to nontraditional settings. Little is known about disparities in influenza vaccination rates and location of receipt among rural residents.

Obesity among working age adults: the role of county-level persistent poverty in rural disparities.

Little research has investigated the relationship between county-level poverty and obesity rates. We examined the factors related to obesity among residents of Rural Persistent Poverty counties, finding that these counties had a larger proportion of obese residents (34.5%) than Other Rural (28.

Personal and contextual factors that contribute to a higher out-of-pocket to total income ratio.

Introduction: This analysis sought to define the out-of-pocket healthcare spending to total income ratio for rural residents, as well as to explore the impact of county-level factors that may contribute to urban-rural differences.

Methods: Three years of pooled data were utilized from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (2003-2005). The dependent variable was the ratio of total out-of-pocket healthcare spending to total income, at the household level.