Developing a fall prevention intervention economic model.

Purpose: Model-based economic evaluations require conceptualization of the model structure. Our objectives were to identify important health states, events, and patient attributes to be included in a model-based cost-effectiveness analysis of fall prevention interventions, to develop a model structure to examine cost-effectiveness of fall prevention interventions, and to assess the face validity of the model structure.

Methods: An expert panel comprising clinicians, health service researchers, health economists, a patient partner, and policy makers completed two rounds of online surveys to gain consensus on health states, events, and patient attributes important for fall prevention interventions.

Factors associated with screening positive for high falls risk in fragility fracture patients: a cross-sectional study.

Background: We sought to report the prevalence of fragility fracture patients who were screened at high falls risk using a large provincial database, and to determine the characteristics associated with being screened at high falls risk.

Methods: The study population included fragility fracture patients 50+ years of age who were screened at 35 hospital fracture clinics in Ontario over a 3.5 year period.

Correlations between arsenic in Maine groundwater and microbial populations as determined by fluorescence in situ hybridization.

Arsenic is known to cause serious health effects when consumed in drinking water. In the state of Maine, approximately half of the population relies on private groundwater wells for their drinking water. Of those wells, as many as 13% may contain arsenic levels above the current EPA maximum contaminant level of 10 microgl(-1).