Occupational medicine residency graduate survey: assessment of training programs and core competencies.

Objective: This study provides insight into Occupational Medicine (OM) residency graduates and how residency programs are meeting their education goals.

Methods: A survey of graduates from nine OM residency program was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of OM residency training in the United States and Canada.

Results: Eighty percent of the OM residency graduates were currently practicing OM.

Louisa May Alcott: her mysterious illness.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), famous in her own time and immortalized in ours as a major figure of the "American Renaissance," died at the age of 55 after intermittent suffering over 20 years. Her illnesses evoked intense interest in her time and in ours. Alcott tracked her signs and symptoms (in letters and journal entries), which included headaches and vertigo, rheumatism, musculo-skeletal pain, and skin rashes; in her final years she recorded severe dyspepsia with symptoms of obstruction, and headaches compatible with severe hypertension.

Occupational medicine physicians in the United States: demographics and core competencies.

Objective: We assessed the demographic profile and opinions of current occupational medicine (OM) physicians on the importance of specific core competencies.

Methods: A random sample of 1500 OM physicians listed in the membership directory of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) were asked to complete a voluntary survey.

Results: Six hundred and ten OM physicians completed the survey.

Asthma, atopy, and lung function among racially diverse, poor inner-urban Minneapolis schoolchildren.

As part of an assessment of schoolchildren's environmental exposures and health, a probability sample of 136 children from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds was drawn from grades 2-5 of two inner-urban Minneapolis schools (Whittier, Lyndale). Questionnaires were administered to a parent/guardian; blood samples for IgE and lung function tests were obtained. Overall adjusted rates for lifetime asthma (15.

A proposed curvilinearity index for quantifying airflow obstruction.

Background: Though forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV(1)) is the primary indicator of airway obstruction, curvilinearity in the expiratory flow-volume curve is used to support the quantitative assessment of obstruction via FEV(1). Currently there is no available index to quantify a pathological contour of curvilinearity.

Study Purpose: We propose a "curvature" index (k(max)) and compare FEV(1) values to the index with a sequential sample of spirometry data.

Children's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke: using diverse exposure metrics to document ethnic/racial differences.

Four metrics were used to assess exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) for a probability sample (n = 152) of elementary school-age children in two economically disadvantaged neighborhoods: a) caregiver responses to a baseline questionnaire (BQ) about smoking status and behavior; b) 48-hr time-activity (T-A) data on location and time spent by children in the presence of tobacco smoke; c) total urinary cotinine as a marker for nicotine uptake; and d) urinary NNAL [4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol] + NNAL-Gluc [4-(methylnitrosamino)-1- (3-pyridyl)-1-(O-beta-D-glucopyranuronosyl)butane] as a marker for uptake of the tobacco-specific lung carcinogen 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK). Consistent differences in ETS exposure by ethnicity and race were observed. Although data were insufficient to determine differences for NNAL + NNAL-Gluc, BQ responses, T-A data, and cotinine levels all indicated that average ETS exposure was highest for African-American children, moderately high for those designated "other" (white, Southeast Asian, Native American), moderately low for Hispanic children, and lowest for Somali immigrant children.

Recruitment, retention, and compliance results from a probability study of children's environmental health in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

The School Health Initiative: Environment, Learning, and Disease (SHIELD) study used a probability sample of children (second through fifth grades) from two low-income and racially mixed neighborhoods of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to assess childhood environmental health. Children were eligible to participate in SHIELD regardless of whether they or their families spoke a foreign language, their household had a telephone, or they were enrolled in a special education program. The overall enrollment rate in year 1 was 57%, with a substantial disparity between children from English-speaking (42%) versus non-English-speaking (71%) families.

Occupational health in the Philippines.

The practice of occupational health and safety (OHS) in the Philippines is shaped by both success and failures. Government initiatives have achieved specific goals, particularly in providing better access by local industries to technical services and manpower development. However, the ability to sustain these achievements has been constrained by lack of adequate resources, both financial and human.