Welfare programs that target workforce participation may negatively affect mortality.

During the 1990s reforms to the US welfare system introduced new time limits on people's eligibility to receive public assistance. These limits were developed to encourage welfare recipients to seek employment. Little is known about how such social policy programs may have affected participants' health.

Do emergency medical system response times matter for health outcomes?

The introduction of technology aimed at reducing the response times of emergency medical services has been one of the principal innovations in crisis care over the last several decades. These substantial investments have typically been justified by an assumed link between shorter response times and improved health outcomes. However, current medical research does not generally show a relationship between response time and mortality.

The effect of class size in grades K-3 on adult earnings, employment, and disability status: evidence from a multi-center randomized controlled trial.

Background: Early education interventions have been forwarded as a means for reducing social disparities in income and health in adulthood. We explore whether a successful early education intervention, which occurred between 1985 and 1989, improved the employment rates, earnings and health of blacks relative to whites through 2008.

Methods: We used data from Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio), a four-year multi-center randomized controlled trial of reduced class sizes in Tennessee involving 11,601 students.

Association between prescription co-payment amount and compliance with adjuvant hormonal therapy in women with early-stage breast cancer.

Purpose: Noncompliance with adjuvant hormonal therapy among women with breast cancer is common. Little is known about the impact of financial factors, such as co-payments, on noncompliance.

Patients And Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study by using the pharmacy and medical claims database at Medco Health Solutions.

Racial differences in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival and treatment.

Objectives: To determine whether there are prehospital differences between blacks and whites experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and to ascertain which factors are responsible for any such differences.

Methods: Cohort study of 3869 adult patients (353 blacks and 3516 whites) in the Illinois Prehospital Database with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest as a primary or secondary indication for emergency medical service (EMS) dispatch between 1 January 1996 and 31 December 2004.

Results: Return of spontaneous circulation was lower for black patients (19.

The effect of small class sizes on mortality through age 29 years: evidence from a multicenter randomized controlled trial.

Limiting the number of students per classroom in the early years has been shown to improve educational outcomes. Improved education is, in turn, hypothesized to improve health. The authors examined whether smaller class sizes affect mortality through age 29 years and whether cognitive factors play a role.