Increases in heroin overdose deaths - 28 States, 2010 to 2012.

Nationally, death rates from prescription opioid pain reliever (OPR) overdoses quadrupled during 1999-2010, whereas rates from heroin overdoses increased by <50%. Individual states and cities have reported substantial increases in deaths from heroin overdose since 2010. CDC analyzed recent mortality data from 28 states to determine the scope of the heroin overdose death increase and to determine whether increases were associated with changes in OPR overdose death rates since 2010.

Maternal drug use and its effect on neonates: a population-based study in Washington State.

Objective: To estimate the effect of maternal illicit and prescription drug use on neonates in Washington State between 2000 and 2008.

Methods: We used state-linked birth certificate and hospital discharge (mother and neonate) data to calculate prenatal drug exposure and neonatal abstinence syndrome rates, and compared state neonatal abstinence syndrome rates with national-level data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample. We identified the drugs of exposure, examined predictors of drug exposure and neonatal abstinence syndrome, and assessed perinatal outcomes among drug-exposed and neonatal abstinence syndrome-diagnosed neonates compared with unexposed neonates.

Associations between adolescent drinking and driving involvement and self-reported risk and protective factors in students in public schools in Washington State.

Objective: This study examines associations between self-reported drinking and driving or being a passenger of a drinking driver and risk and protective factors in a general population of adolescents.

Method: We used a two-staged sampling procedure to survey 2,955 students in Washington State public schools in Grades 9-12. Students were asked if they were a passenger of, or had been, a drinking driver in the previous month.

High prevalence of cobalamin deficiency in Guatemalan schoolchildren: associations with low plasma holotranscobalamin II and elevated serum methylmalonic acid and plasma homocysteine concentrations.

Background: Studies conducted in Guatemala, Mexico, and Venezuela have found high prevalences of low plasma cobalamin (vitamin B-12) concentrations in infants and children. It is not known whether these low cobalamin concentrations are accompanied by altered metabolic functions.

Objective: We sought to assess the prevalence of cobalamin deficiency in Guatemalan children by using sensitive and specific markers of deficiency.