Bad roads
killing more people than poor health: Study
New
York: Whenever you read about news related to traffic accidents and deaths on
Indian roads, realise that bad roads put more people at risk in some countries
than three leading causes of death worldwide - cancer, heart disease and
stroke.
While
global death rates per 100,000 population are higher from chronic
health-related causes than from traffic accidents, the latter does claim more
victims in some countries - especially in developing nations.
Namibia
and Chad are among the African nations that have the highest traffic fatality
rates per 100,000 population, reveal researchers at University of Michigan's
transportation research institute.
Using
data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), researchers Michael Sivak and
Brandon Schoettle compared fatality from road crashes with mortality from
cancer, heart disease and stroke.
They
realised that several countries in Africa and Middle East fare worse when it
comes to traffic fatality rates.
When
it comes to the greatest number of deaths from road crashes as a percentage of
fatalities from all causes of death, several countries in the Middle East are
at the top.
“The
United Arab Emirates (16 percent) and Qatar (14 percent) are by far the worst,
leading a total of 12 nations from that part of the world among the top 20
countries,” explained Sivak.
The
results indicate that road safety is a greatly under-appreciated component of
public health in many parts of the world, added Schoettle.
Another
10 of the top 25 nations with the worst road crash death rates are evenly split
among the Middle East and Latin America.
By
comparison, the US and Canada are both below 2 percent and several European
nations are under 1 percent in terms of road deaths.
Overall,
traffic deaths account for about 2 percent of all fatalities from all causes
worldwide, noted the study.
22.02.2014
Talk to
premature babies to boost growth: Study
Washington:
Premature babies benefit from being exposed to adult talk as early as possible,
shows a new research.
A
study led by a team at the Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and the
Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, both of the US, has been
published in the February 2014 online edition of Pediatrics, the official
journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It
indicates that premature babies benefit from being exposed to adult talk as
early as possible, reported Science Daily.
The
research, entitled "Adult Talk in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit)
with Pre-term Infants and Developmental Outcomes", was led by Betty Vohr,
MD, director of Women and Infants' Neonatal Follow-Up Programme and professor
of pediatrics, along with her colleagues.
The
aim of the study was to test the association of the amount of talking that a
baby was exposed to at what would have been the 32nd and 36th weeks gestation
if a baby had been born full term, using the Bayley scales of infant and
toddler development, 3rd Edition (Bayley - III) cognitive and language scores.
It
was hypothesised that pre-term infants exposed to higher word counts would have
higher cognitive and language scores at seven and 18 months corrected age.
At
32nd and 36th week, staff recorded the NICU environment for 16 hours with a
Language Environment Analysis (LENA) microprocessor. The adult word count,
child vocalisations and "conversation turns" (words of mother or
vocalisations of infant within five seconds) between mother and infant are
recorded and analysed by computer.
The
results showed the hypothesis to be true.
"Our
study demonstrates the powerful impact of parents visiting and talking to their
infants in the NICU on their developmental outcomes," Vohr said.
Historically,
many premature infants are at increased risk of language delay. The study now
identifies an easy-to-implement and cost-effective intervention to improve
outcomes - come talk and sing to your baby!
22.02.2014
Never
discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow
Plato
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