In a study that seems counter-intuitive, immunization rates of U.S. children were found higher among children of mothers with less than 12 years of education and lower incomes.
"Children with Hispanic mothers and children residing in households with income below the poverty line were most likely to have received the required immunizations at or before 18 months from birth," said study co-author Patrick Rivers of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
"This finding is surprising because we would expect mothers with higher levels of education to be more knowledgeable about the importance of vaccines."
Parents of 11,860 children ages 19 to 35 months answered questions about income, marital status and race/ethnicity and noted whether their children had completed the recommended childhood vaccinations by 18 months of age. Researchers verified the parents' responses.
Researchers discovered that 52.9 percent of non-Hispanic white children in the sample did not have up-to-date immunizations, compared with 22.7 percent of Hispanic children and 16.1 percent of non-Hispanic black children.
The analysis showed that children living with single mothers were less likely to have completed the required immunizations, according to the study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
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Utilization of cancer treatments with limited evidence of benefit may depend on the therapy's hospital availability.
For example, patients with pancreatic cancer were almost twice as likely to receive radiotherapy when the treating hospital had radiotherapy available compared to patients who were treated at centers where radiotherapy was not available, even though there is controversy regarding efficacy of the treatment.
In contrast, availability of radiotherapy had no impact on its utilization in patients diagnosed and treated for rectal cancer for which radiation has been shown to have significant benefits, according to study leader Dr. Sandra L. Wong of the University of Michigan.
The authors found that availability did predict treatment patterns, but only in a cancer for which radiotherapy use has not been definitively established as standard clinical care.
The findings, published online ahead of publication in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Cancer, suggest that adjuvant radiotherapy for pancreatic cancer is either being over-utilized at hospitals with radiation facilities or under-utilized at centers without them.
In the context of a controversial treatment for this type of cancer, patients are either being placed at unnecessary risk or "missing opportunities for better modality cancer treatment," the authors say.
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Higher body mass index and weight gain in adulthood correlates strongly with increased risk of death from prostate cancer.
However, no such association was found between BMI or weight gain and the development of the cancer, according to Margaret E. Wright of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.
The researchers followed 287,760 men ages 50 to 71 as part of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study to examine the individual impact of BMI and adult weight change on the incidence, severity and outcome of prostate cancer.
The researchers found that higher BMI and weight gain since the age of 18 were associated with significantly higher risk of death from prostate cancer. As BMI increased, so did the relative risk of death.
Neither overweight nor obesity, however, was associated with developing prostate cancer, according to the study published online ahead of publication in the Feb. 15 issue of Cancer.
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A U.S. study suggests that girls as young as 9 who are overweight are at increased risk for short-term and long-term cardiovascular problems.
More than 2,300 girls ages 9 and 10 were enrolled in the study and followed for more than 10 years. Researchers measured participants' height, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol annually through age 18, and obtained self-reported measures at ages 21 to 23.
Importantly, those who were overweight were more likely to have elevated blood pressure and cholesterol levels compared to girls who were not overweight.
In addition, girls who were overweight during childhood were 11 to 30 times more likely than non-overweight girls to be obese in young adulthood, ages 21 to 23, according to the study published in the Journal of Pediatrics.
