Cultural Competence

CHICAGO — In a study released Saturday that included data from more than 3 million children and adolescents from diverse geographic regions of the United States, researchers found that the prevalence of both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes increased significantly between 2001 and 2009. The study was published in the May 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on child health. This issue was released early to coincide with the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — For the first time since the Great Recession, births are trending upwards in 2014, according to the April edition of the U.S. Fertility Forecast from Demographic Intelligence released Wednesday. Driven by improvements in the economic climate, births will rise in 2014 from a fifteen-year low of 3.9 million in 2013. The Total Fertility Rate in the U.S. is also predicted to rise from a 25-year low of 1.9 children per woman in 2013 to 2 in 2014 (it was 2.1 per children per woman in 2007). Births among better-educated and older women are driving the rebound.

ATLANTA — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reported that vaccinations will prevent more than 21 million and hospitalizations and 732,000 deaths among children born in the last two decades. These figures are especially timely considering the recent measles outbreak: 129 people in the United States contracted measles this year in 13 outbreaks, as of April 18.

ATLANTA — Evidence-based interventions at the local and national levels provide promising strategies for reducing racial and ethnic health disparities related to HIV infection rates, immunization coverage, motor vehicle injuries and deaths, and smoking, according to a new report by the CDC's Office of Minority Health and Health Equity released Thursday.

BALTIMORE — Cases of diabetes and pre-diabetes in the United States have nearly doubled since 1988, suggests new research released Tuesday from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with obesity apparently to blame for the surge. The researchers also found that the burden of the disease has not hit all groups equally, with alarming increases in diabetes in blacks, Hispanics and the elderly.

WASHINGTON — According to new survey data recently released by the National Consumers League, one-third of adult Americans still believe that vaccines may be linked to autism in children. According to the survey, 33% of parents of children under the age of 18 and 29% of all adults continue to believe “vaccinations can cause autism.” Scientific studies have clarified that use of vaccines is not linked to autism in children, the NCL noted. 

WASHINGTON — Eileen Breslin, dean and professor of the School of Nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, has been elected to serve a two-year term as president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Breslin assumed the presidency at AACN’s 2014 Spring Business Meeting held March 24 in Washington, D.C.

ATLANTA — The highest prevalence of influenza happens among those professions that are exposed to the general public, such as real estate and rental and leasing (10.5% in this profession were at risk of flu, according to a recent study published Friday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) and accommodation and food services (10.2%). As many as 11% of workers in the food preparation and serving related sectors were at risk of flu and 8.3% of those employed in community and social services.