Research Activities

June 1997, No. 205

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Contents

About Research Activities

Feature Story

Health insurance plans vary dramatically in their coverage of new technologies

Departments

Family Health
   Broad exposure to other children and being poor are linked to increased risk for childhood middle-ear effusion
   Asthma occurs most often among young black males who are more likely to seek care at the hospital than a doctor's office

Health Care Delivery
   Various strategies would reduce but not eliminate risk of catastrophic nursing home costs
   Stroke prevention screening for the general population would not be cost effective
   Excess health care system capacity, as well as physician behavior, may be responsible for inappropriate practice variations

Research on Heart Disease
   Likelihood of heart attack in symptomatic patients who visit the ER is twice as great for men as for women
   Heart attack studies document patients' reluctance to go to the hospital and undertreatment of some severely ill patients
   Non-insulin-dependent diabetics frequently have heart disease, but high blood sugar is not the culprit

Outcomes/Effectiveness Research
   Researchers continue to question value of annual prostate cancer screening for men over 50

Health Care Marketplace
   Hospital mergers are driven primarily by local merger opportunities

Dental Research
   Higher dental prices often denote higher quality of care
Consistency of dentists' treatment recommendations for restoring teeth is questioned
   Use of dental services by the elderly grows, especially among city-dwelling blacks covered by Medicare

Mental Health
   Depression and coexisting illnesses should be treated together to reduce costs and improve outcomes
   Primary care physicians are more likely to recognize depression in women and more educated patients

HIV/AIDS Research
   Primary care physicians fail to identify half of patients at risk for HIV infection
   Many health care providers do not test TB patients for HIV infection as recommended

Special Populations
   Homeless individuals living in congested urban areas are at high risk for TB infection

AHCPR News and Notes
   From the Administrator
   AHCPR to collaborate with AMA and AAHP to develop a national guideline clearinghouse
   AHCPR updates CONQUEST database

Announcements
   AHCPR urges investigators to include children in their research and announces special emphases for small project grants
   AHCPR announces new funding opportunities
   AHCPR funds new grants
   Final reports now available from NTIS

Research Briefs
   Artificial neural networks improve the accuracy of cancer survival prediction
   Accuracy of homeless adults' self-reports
   Predicting Clostridium difficile stool cytotoxin results in hospitalized patients with diarrhea
   What makes patients think that their pharmacists' services are of value
   Race and residence variation in living arrangements among unmarried older adults
   A longitudinal examination of functional recovery among older people with subcapital hip fractures

AHCPR Publication No. 97-0055
Current as of June 1997

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Internet Citation:

Research Activities newsletter. June 1997, No. 205. AHCPR Publication No. 97-0055. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/jun97/

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