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Congress Introduces Bill To Ensure Continuous Domestic Supplies Of Common Medical Isotope
SNM and a coalition of eight other organizations have issued a white paper urging Congress to take steps to maintain adequate supplies of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), a radioactive substance that is the basis for a common medical isotope used in more than 80 percent of all nuclear medicine procedures.
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Promising Results With Aleglitazar, A New Treatment Drug For Type 2 Diabetes (SYNCHRONY Study)
The results from the phase II SYNCHRONY study are published in an article Online First and in a future edition of The Lancet. At the same time, the findings are presented at the American Diabetes Association meeting in New Orleans, USA. They suggest that aleglitazar, a treatment for type 2 diabetes, might be safe and effective and may perhaps be introduced into phase III trials.
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New York Times Editorial Lauds Appointment Of White House Adviser On Violence Against Women
"Domestic violence is a serious law enforcement and public health problem affecting as many as one in four women in this country," but "Washington has devoted too little attention to reducing domestic violence and sexual assaults generally," a New York Times editorial states. The editorial continues, "We welcome President Obama"s decision to create a new post, White House adviser on violence against women, and his appointment" of former National Network To End Domestic Violence Executive Director Lynn Rosenthal, "a seasoned advocate for victims to fill it." According to the editorial, Rosenthal will report to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, "whose keen interest in the issue dates from his days in the Senate and his key role in enacting the 1994 Violence Against Women Act." The "challenge" facing Rosenthal and the Obama administration "will be to improve the carrying out of existing laws intended to protect women, starting with better coordination of the activities of all the government bureaucracies involved," including the Department of Justice, HHS and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the editorial states. It notes that a national survey of domestic violence shelters released in May found "a significant increase in the number of women seeking assistance since last fall, a rise largely attributable to the stresses of the economic crisis and rising unemployment." The editorial recommends that states create more emergency shelters, establish more transitional housing for "people fleeing violent situations" and "do more to help these victims rebuild their lives." Rosenthal "will need to tackle bureaucratic and legal hurdles and find more money to help states, localities and charitable groups address those needs," the editorial states. In addition, Rosenthal must "help end the scandal of the thousands of rape kits sitting untested in crime labs and police storage facilities across the country, allowing countless criminals to escape punishment." The editorial concludes, "All of this will require strong and creative leadership" from Rosenthal, Biden and Obama (New York Times, 7/1).
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Group Health Research Editor Shares Toolkit To Boost Health Literacy

The doctor"s mouth opens, and "medicalese" pours forth: words like "pyrosis" and "myocardial infarction." The patient"s eyes glaze over. If only the doctor said "heartburn" or "heart attack," the patient could learn what caused the chest pain. This failure to communicate is all too familiar. In 2005, Jessica Ridpath noticed it happening when health care researchers asked people to consider taking part in studies. "Informed consent means people understand what they"re agreeing to," said Ridpath. "But most consent forms are too complex for the reading abilities of the people they"re supposed to inform." A slam poet and language lover, Ridpath is the research communications coordinator at Group Health Center for Health Studies. She just published her first article in the July/August American Journal of Health Promotion. Ridpath worried that unreadable consent forms were hindering informed decision making - and raising risks for participants and research institutions alike. So four years ago she created the Project to Review and Improve Study Materials, or PRISM. Her article describes how PRISM evolved. First it was a short-term internal training initiative to boost consent form readability. Since then, PRISM has expanded into an enduring suite of hands-on res. It includes a customizable training workshop and an editing service. Its centerpiece is a Toolkit that illustrates strategies for communicating clearly in written materials for study participants, such as informed consent documents, study invitations, letters, and information sheets. The Toolkit is based on plain language - a communication style centered on the audience"s needs and abilities. Researchers can see how to use plain language in study materials through the Toolkit"s many concrete examples, including an alternative word list. Here"s a brief excerpt: Instead of: Try this: Abdomen: Stomach, tummy, belly Abrasion: Scrape, scratch Absorb: Take in fluids, soak up Abstain from: Don"t, don"t use, don"t have, go without Accomplish: Carry out, do Accrue: Add, build up, collect, gather You can download a free PDF of the Toolkit at http://www.centerforhealthstudies.org/capabilities/ readability/readability_home.html. PRISM swiftly drew interest from U.S. researchers and other health care professionals. They downloaded the Toolkit 2,000 times in its first year on CHS" Web site. Ridpath and colleagues have presented PRISM res at more than 10 professional conferences nationwide. She has led training workshops for external and non-research audiences, including Public Health - Seattle & King County. Her training of Group Health patient education writers sparked an organization-wide plain language initiative, resulting in revisions to dozens of patient letters, brochures, and consent forms. Efforts to give health information a plain language makeover have been gaining steam across health care since the Institute of Medicine"s Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion in 2004. This report concluded traditional health information is too complex for roughly 93 million Americans - half the adult population - to understand. Since then, the American Medical Association and federal government have also focused on health literacy. Many plain language res aimed at improving health literacy have sprung up online. Most focus on specific populations or illnesses. The PRISM Toolkit fills a gap in the range of tools already available: practical guidance addressing special challenges that researchers face when communicating with study participants. "The Toolkit is unique for its emphasis on research," said article co-author Sarah M. Greene, MPH, a research associate at Group Health Center for Health Studies. "But it can also be extended for use in health care and education." PRISM may help meet the Healthy People 2020 objectives: For the first time, they"ll include health literacy targets and measures. "Centering research materials on patients is simply the right thing to do," said co-author Cheryl J. Wiese, MA, manager of the Survey Research Program at Group Health Center for Health Studies. "Anecdotally, we think using plain language has helped us recruit study participants." As part of the PRISM editing service, Ridpath tracks readability improvements to study consent forms and other participant materials. To date, her readability editing has dropped reading level by an average of at least 2 grades, with most research materials now between 6th- and 8th-grade reading levels. And these scores don"t account for additional improvements from designing and reorganizing the documents. Rebecca Hughes Group Health Cooperative Center for Health Studies


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