Measuring medication: do interviews agree with medical record and pharmacy data?

Background: Medication measurement is crucial in assessing quality for chronic conditions yet agreement of alternate data sources remains uncertain.

Objectives: To evaluate medication agreement between interviews, medical records, and pharmacy data; to assess data source contribution to attributing medication exposure; and to describe the impact of combining data sources on models that predict medication use.

Research Design: Prospective cohort study.

Implementation of a cross-cultural evidence-based medicine curriculum.

While principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM) are increasingly prevalent in medical education curricula in Europe and North America, medical educators elsewhere face formidable barriers to its implementation. We sought to determine the feasibility of implementing a learner-centered, case-based EBM curriculum among academic physicians in Kazan, Russia, facilitated by residents participating in an international health elective. This article reports that implementation of an EBM curriculum is feasible during a resident international health elective and that mutually beneficial educational exchanges represent an opportunity for teaching the tenets of EBM abroad.

An outbreak of El Tor cholera associated with a tribal funeral in Irian Jaya, Indonesia.

An outbreak of El Tor biotype cholera occurring in a rural village in Irian Jaya, Indonesia was evaluated for risk factors associated with death from cholera. Among those dying in the village during the epidemic, a significant association between membership in one of the five tribal groups in the village complex was associated with an elevated risk of suffering a cholera death (odds ratio = 5.9).