Category Archives: Accidents & Violence

Twice as Many Pediatric Firearms Deaths in States With Lax Gun Laws

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Jordan Stephen Taylor MD POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW PEDIATRIC SURGERY Stanford

Dr. Taylor

Jordan Stephen Taylor MD
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW
PEDIATRIC SURGERY
Stanford

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Firearms are the second leading cause of death in pediatric patients (ages 1-19). Firearms cause more deaths in this population that cancer or heart disease combined. Our study examined the relationship between state firearm legislation (using the Brady Scorecard and Child Access Prevention (CAP) score) and pediatric firearm mortality. We also examined other state-level factors such as poverty levels, unemployment rate, and high school completion rates. There were several significant findings:

  1. Overall pediatric firearm mortality was inversely correlated with the stringency of state firearm legislation. States with the most stringent firearm legislation had pediatric firearm rates half that of states with more lenient firearm legislation (2.56 deaths per 100,00 children vs 5.00 deaths per 100,000 children. This correlation remained significant even after accounting for other state-level socioeconomic factors.
  2. Pediatric firearm suicide rates were significantly lower in states that had laws specifically designed to prevent children from accessing firearms, including laws that mandate safe storage practices or locks. States with strong CAP laws had rates of pediatric firearm suicides that were four times less than states without such laws. This correlation, as well, remained significant even after accounting for socioeconomic factors.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Pediatric firearm death is a major public health issue. There is a clear discrepancy in where these deaths are occurring. We found that state’s with more lenient laws are having their children die at an alarmingly greater rates. While federal legislation on firearms remains controversial and gridlocked, we found that state legislation could play an important role in preventing pediatric firearm deaths, particularly through passage of child access prevention laws. 

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work? 

Response: Research like this is important to demonstrate to lawmakers and the public that gun legislation can save lives. Currently, only 27 states in the US have any form of Child Access Protection laws. Passing Child Access Prevention laws in the remaining 23 states would be a great starting point for using research like this.

We have no disclosures. 

Citation:

Abstract Title: Strict firearm legislation is associated with lower firearm-related fatalities among children and teens in the United States

Jordan Taylor, MD; Sriram Madhavan, MS; Stephanie Chao, MD
Stanford, CA

Nov 4, 2018 @ 9:12 pm

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Really Scary! Pediatric Pedestrian Fatalities 10x Higher on Halloween

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
"Halloween Parade 2014" by GoToVan is licensed under CC BY 2.0Dr. John A. Staples, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
University of British Columbia

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: At this time last year, my co-author Candace Yip and I noticed an impressive number of advertisements for Halloween-themed parties at bars taped to lamp-posts. We wondered if the combination of dark costumes, dark evenings, alcohol and trick-or-treaters made the streets more dangerous for pedestrians.

To see if our hunch was correct, we examined 42 years of data on all fatal vehicle crashes in the United States between 1975 and 2016. We compared the number of pedestrian fatalities between 5 p.m. and midnight on Halloween with the number during the same hours on control days one week earlier and one week later. We found that 14 pedestrian deaths occurred on the average Halloween, while only 10 pedestrian deaths occurred on the average control evening. This corresponded to a 43% increase in the relative risk of pedestrian fatality on Halloween.

Among children aged 4 to 8 years of age, the risk of death was ten times higher on Halloween evening compared to control evenings. Risks were highest around 6pm, which is prime trick-or-treating time. Absolute risks were small and declined throughout the four decades of the study, but the relative risk increase on Halloween persisted throughout the entire study interval.  Continue reading →

Adolescent Gun Injuries Peak at Ages 15-17

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“Me holding USP gun” by Nghị Trần is licensed under CC BY 2.0Faiz Gani, PhD
Postdoctoral research fellow
Department of Surgery
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: Firearm related injuries are a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, yet, due to combination of factors, limited data exist that evaluate these injuries, particularly among younger patients (patients younger than 18 years).

The objective of this study was to describe emergency department utilization for firearm related injuries and to quantitate the financial burden associated with these injuries.

In our study of over 75,000 emergency department visits, we observed that each year, over 8,300 children and adolescents present to the emergency department for the treatment / management of a gunshot injury. Within this sub-population of patients, we observed that these injuries are most frequent among patients aged 15-17 years and while these injuries decreased over time initially, were observed to increase again towards the end of the time period studied.

In addition to describing the clinical burden of these injuries, we also sought to describe the financial burden associated with these injuries. For patients discharged from the emergency department, the average (median) charge associated with their care was $2,445, while for patients admitted as inpatients for further care, the average (median) charge was $44,966.

Collectively these injuries resulted in $2.5 billion in emergency department and hospital charges over the time period studied. This translates to an annual financial burden of approximately $270 million. Continue reading →

Should You Get a Ticket For Driving Stoned?

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Prof. Mark A. R. Kleiman PhD Affiliated Faculty, NYU Wagner; Professor of Public Policy NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management

Prof. Kleiman

Prof. Mark A. R. Kleiman PhD
Affiliated Faculty, NYU Wagner; Professor of Public Policy
NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: As state after state legalizes the sale of cannabis, the question of cannabis-impaired driving is getting more attention. There is evidence that the practice has become more common, both because cannabis use – and especially heavy, frequent use – has increased and because a distressingly large fraction of cannabis users believe, falsely, that stoned driving is safe.

The natural response to the problem is to treat cannabis on a par with alcohol: fairly severe criminal penalties for impaired driving, with impairment defined by a specific level of the drug in the body. The paper argues that this would be a mistake, for four independent reasons:

– While cannabis makes driving riskier, it does so by about a factor of two, with no strongly observed dependency on dosage. Alcohol, by contrast, has a steep dose-effect curve. At the legal limit of 0.08% blood alcohol content by weight, the relative risk of drunk driving is at least eight; at 0.15%, which is fairly common, the relative risk has been estimated at 30-50. So there is no justification for punishing stoned driving as severely as we punish drunk driving.

– The lack of evidence of a strong dose-effect relationship suggests that a legal standard based on the content of cannabinoids in blood may not be appropriate.

– Even if a blood standard were valid, the lack of a breath test would make enforcing that standard nearly impossible as a practical matter.

– The long and unpredictable course of cannabis metabolism means that frequent users will be at risk of failing a drug test even when they are neither subjectively intoxicated nor objectively impaired. Worse, they would have no way of judging in advance whether or not driving would be legal. The result would be a re-criminalization of cannabis use through the back door.  Continue reading →

USPSTF Recommends Primary Care Screening for Domestic Violence in Women

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

John W. Epling, Jr., M.D., M.S.Ed Professor of Family and Community Medicine Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Roanoke, VA USPSTF Task Force Member

Dr. Epling

John W. Epling, Jr., M.D., M.S.Ed
Professor of Family and Community Medicine
Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine
Roanoke, VA
USPSTF Task Force Member

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Intimate partner violence, often known as domestic violence, can have devastating consequences to one’s health and wellbeing. It can lead to mental illness, substance abuse, unintended pregnancy, and even death. This is a serious public health issue in America: one in three men—and even more women—experience it in their lifetimes. Because this is such an important topic, and the last time we made a recommendation on it was in 2013, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reviewed the most recent evidence to determine how clinicians can help prevent the negative health effects of intimate partner violence.

Continue reading →

Mom’s Voice Makes a Better Smoke Alarm

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Gary Smith, MD, DrPH Director, Center for Injury Research and Policy Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus, OH

Dr. Smith

Gary A. Smith, MD, DrPH
Director, Center for Injury Research and Policy
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Columbus, OH

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: When residential fires happen at night while people are sleeping, deaths are more likely to occur. Smoke alarms are important for preventing these deaths, yet many young children don’t wake up to traditional high-pitch tone alarms. Children sleep longer and deeper than adults and require louder sounds to awaken than adults. For these reasons, children are less likely to awaken and escape a nighttime home fire.  Continue reading →

Most Eye Trauma Occurs in Elderly After a Fall

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Syed Mahmood Ali Shah, M.D. Associate Professor of Ophthalmology University of Pittsburgh School of MedicineSyed Mahmood Ali Shah, M.D.
Associate Professor of Ophthalmology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Eye trauma is a significant cause of morbidity throughout the world. In the United States, the incidence of individuals hospitalized with eye trauma from 2001 through 2014 increased. Most of these individuals were above the age of 65 and suffered a fall. This is a worrisome trend in light of an increased awareness and continued and concentrated effort to reduce falls. This is a critical point: We need to improve our existing strategies to reduce falls.

The second at-risk group is children and adolescents. Previous studies have shown that effective widespread implementation of injury prevention efforts can lower trauma rates. While we did observe a small decrease in eye trauma as a primary admitting diagnosis, the fact that it was more common in children and adolescents (for whom eye trauma carries devastating consequences and can significantly reduce quality of life) highlights the significance of continued efforts to prevent eye trauma.  Continue reading →

More Liquor Stores, More Crime

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Pamela Trangenstein, PhD While she was a predoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) 

Dr. Trangenstein

Pamela Trangenstein, PhD
While  a predoctoral fellow at
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) 

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: Research repeatedly shows that alcohol outlet density (the number of businesses that sell alcohol in an area) is associated with violent crime, but studies disagree about whether alcohol outlets that are on premise (e.g., bars, restaurants) or off premise (e.g., liquor stores, beer and wine stores) have a stronger association with violent crime.

We used advanced methods that consider both the number of alcohol outlets and their locations to better understand how the association between alcohol outlets and violent crime differs by type of outlet.

We found that alcohol outlets that allow off-premise sales like liquor stores had a stronger association with homicide, aggravated assault, and robbery than on-premise outlets like bars and restaurants. We also found that disadvantaged neighborhoods had higher access to the types of alcohol outlets associated with the most harms: off-premise outlets.  Continue reading →

CDC: Homicide Rates At Least 10 Times Higher For Young Adult Blacks Than Whites

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Kameron Sheats PhD Licensed Psychologist; Behavioral Scientist Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Sheats

Dr. Kameron Sheats PhD
Licensed Psychologist; Behavioral Scientist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: This study updates literature on racial disparities in violence between black and white youth using data capturing different severity levels in violent outcomes such as homicide versus assault. This study also seeks to increase the understanding of the impact of these disparities by examining associations between disparities in childhood adversity (e.g., child abuse and neglect, exposure to violence, household challenges) and adult health conditions.

Continue reading →

Steep Increase in Adversity-Related Hospital Admissions for Teenage Girls

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr Ruth Blackburn PhD  UKRI Innovation Fellow UCL Institute of Health Informatics

Dr Ruth Blackburn PhD 
UKRI Innovation Fellow
UCL Institute of Health Informatics 

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: In England one child in every classroom is admitted to hospital with an adversity related injury (i.e. violence, intentional self-injury, or drug or alcohol misuse) between the ages of 10 and 19 years. These young people are more likely than their classmates to be re-admitted to hospital or to die within 10 years.

We investigated how the rate of hospital admissions with an adversity related injury has changed over time among young people aged 10-24 years, using administrative data for National Health Service hospitals in England.

We found that between 2012 and 2016, rates of admission with an adversity related injury (including intentional self-injury) increased steeply for girls, with the biggest increase (6% per year) among 15-19 year olds. During the same time period, rates of admission with an adversity related injury decreased in boys aged 15-24 years (4-5% per year) but increased slightly for 10-14 year olds (3% per year).  Continue reading →

Active Shooter Incidents Involving Semi-automatic Rifles More Deadly

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Adil Haider, MD, MPH, FACS Kessler Director for the Center for Surgery and Public Health Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Deputy Editor of JAMA Surgery

Dr. Haider

Adil Haider, MD, MPH, FACS
Kessler Director for the Center for Surgery and Public Health
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Deputy Editor of JAMA Surgery

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Firearm-related mortality is a public health issue. However, in the US, due in part to lack of funding, there is not enough research to inform the debate about firearms.

The question our group sought to answer was to understand if the presence of a semi-automatic weapon increased the number of victims killed or hurt during an active shooter incident. We chose to focus on these incidents given the availability of an FBI database detailing these active shooter incidents based on a strict definition and the similarities between such incidents that make a comparison valid.

Continue reading →

40% of High School Drivers Text While Driving

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:,
Motao Zhu, MD, MS, PhD Principal Investigator Center for Injury Research and Policy The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital​ Columbus, OHMotao Zhu, MD, MS, PhD
Principal Investigator
Center for Injury Research and Policy
The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital​
Columbus, OH

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: We know that texting while driving occurs frequently among teen drivers. This study looks at the differences of texting while driving among teens between states. 

Motor vehicle crashes continue to be the leading cause of death among teenagers in the United States. In 2016, over 2,000 teens in the US aged 14-18 years died in motor vehicle crashes and nearly 260,000 were seriously injured in traffic-related incidents. Teen motor vehicle crashes are preventable, and proven strategies can improve the safety of young drivers on the road. Among distracted driving, texting while driving may be especially risky because it involves at least three types of driver distraction: visual, physical, and cognitive. Texting while driving is banned for all drivers in 47 states and the District of Columbia, yet this study shows it still occurs regularly among teen drivers.

Overall (nationally), about 40% of high school student drivers text while driving at least once/month. The rate varies among states. The lowest is 26% (Maryland) and highest is 64% (South Dakota). Texting while driving among high school student drivers is highest in Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

These results were not surprising. There are state level factors to explain them. The top 5 highest texting while driving among high school student drivers (Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska) are rural states with a high percent of high school student drivers and students can get their learners permit by age 15. Continue reading →

Who Is More Likely To Be Shot by Police?

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“Me holding USP gun” by Nghị Trần is licensed under CC BY 2.0Brianna Mills, PhD
Research Scientist
Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center
University of Washington

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: We know that substance use, mental disorders, and arrest are markers of increased risk of firearm injury. However, many studies of firearm injury are limited in scope – looking only at one type of injury (assault-related, for example) and one type of data (often hospital records). Police shootings, although occurring with increasing frequency, have also received relatively less attention in research than other types of firearm injuries.

We combined data from a variety of sources, including both hospital and arrest records, so we could present a more complete picture of firearm injuries in Seattle, including contacts with law enforcement and healthcare in the two years prior to injury. We subdivided substance use, mental disorder, and arrests into more specific categories to present a more nuanced look at how each category may indicate increased risk of a specific type of firearm injury (assault-related, self-inflicted, unintentional, and police intervention).

We found that when you consider both arrest records and hospital records together a distinct pattern of prior contact emerges for people who were shot by police – they have arrest histories similar to people shot during an assault and hospital histories similar to people with self-inflicted firearm injuries. A majority of people shot during an assault or by police were either arrested or hospitalized in the two years prior to their injury. Compared to our control group, people shot by police were 22 times more likely to have a conduct disorder, 11 times more likely to have been diagnosed with a marijuana use disorder, and 7 times more likely to have a felony arrest, psychosis diagnosis, or depression/anxiety diagnosis.  Continue reading →

Following Maria in Puerto Rico Over 1100 Deaths

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada

Dr. Santos-Lozada

Dr. Alexis R. Santos-Lozada
Director, Graduate Program in Applied Demography
Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology
Research Affiliate, Population Research Institute
College of Liberal Arts
Penn State University

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: Dr. Howard and I have been working on the topic of deaths attributable to Hurricane Maria since November, and provided rapid-response estimates by the end of November about the humanitarian crisis experienced by Puerto Ricans following the Hurricane.

Our main findings are that there are approximately 1,139 deaths in excess of historical patterns between September, October and November in Puerto Rico.

Continue reading →

Alarming Increase in Violent and Unintentional Injuries Since 2014

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Angela Sauaia, MD, PhD Professor of Public Health and Surgery University of Colorado Denver Statistical Editor, Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Statistical Consultant, Department of Surgery Denver Health Medical Cente

Dr. Sauaia

Dr. Angela Sauaia, MD, PhD
Professor of Public Health and Surgery
University of Colorado Denver
Statistical Editor, Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery
Statistical Consultant, Department of Surgery
Denver Health Medical Center 

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: As injury researchers we monitor national trends in injury.

The CDC WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) is one of the few available open sources of injury data we can use. During the 1980’s and 1990’s, we saw much improvement in deaths due to most injury mechanisms, such as car accidents fatalities. Our study shows, however, that recent trends seem to be eroding these promising survival gains.

Both violent and unintentional injuries alike seem to be increasing, especially since 2014. We are unclear about the causes of this recent increase in trauma-related deaths, but it is an alarming trend.

Continue reading →

Most Young People Not Against Guns in the Home

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“GUNS” by Jessica Spengler is licensed under CC BY 2.0Kendrin R. Sonneville, ScD, RD
Assistant Professor
Department of Nutritional Sciences
University of Michigan School of Public Health

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: The results from this come out of MyVoice, a text message cohort of youth ages 14-24 representing every state in the country (http://hearmyvoicenow.org/). Each week we ask the youth in our cohort a series of open-ended to questions, with the goal of gathering the real-time opinions and experiences of youth across the U.S. This study reports the results of questions we asked MyVoice paritpatns between 07/2017 and 01/2018 about guns and gun control. 

(1) What are your thoughts about having guns in your home?

(2) Do you think gun control laws would affect mass shootings? Why?

(3) Who, if anyone, should NOT be allowed to own guns?

We found that about one-third of youth in our diverse sample were “against” guns in the home, and the remaining two-thirds were either “pro” or “conditionally pro” guns in the home, stating that gun ownership is acceptable under certain conditions, such as proper storage, or kept away from children. Youth in our sample largely believed that gun control laws could decrease mass shootings, but one-third felt that gun control laws would not be enough to impact mass shootings. Continue reading →

Self-Driving Cars Can’t Eliminate All Accidents So How Safe is Safe Enough?

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“Subaru cars waiting for ride” by JackeOb is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0Dr. Peng Liu, Assistant Professor
Department of Industrial Engineering
College of Management and Economics
Tianjin University, China

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: Self-driving vehicles promise to considerably reduce traffic crashes. However, they cannot eliminate all crashes.

On March 18, 2018, a female pedestrian was killed after being struck by an autonomous Uber vehicle in the self-driving mode in Arizona, USA. This fatal crash triggered a widespread public debate over the safety of self-driving vehicles. So, how safe is safe enough for self-driving vehicles?

Our findings show that our participants implicitly think self-driving vehicles should be four to five times as safe as the current human-driven vehicles. 

Continue reading →

Why Does Driving Make Us Sleepy?

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“Driving...” by Stig Nygaard is licensed under CC BY 2.0Prof. Stephen R Robinson PhD
Discipline Leader, Psychology
School of Health and Biomedical Sciences
RMIT University
Australia

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Around the world, driver drowsiness and fatigue are estimated to contribute to 250,000 deaths on the road per year. Current research in this area has focused on detecting when drivers become drowsy, by examining their eye movements or steering patterns, and then alerting the driver with a warning tone or vibration of the steering wheel. Rather than this reactive approach, we are interested in helping to prevent drivers from becoming drowsy in the first place.

Continue reading →

Positive Hopes and Dreams May Protect Urban Youth From Violence

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Alison J. Culyba, MD, PhD, MPH Instructor in the Craig-Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Dr. Culyba

Alison J. Culyba, MD, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Homicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents, and disproportionately affects minority youth in under-resourced urban communities.

Most research on youth violence focuses on risk factors, such as weapon carrying and substance abuse. We know much less about factors that protect youth from violence. Future orientation, defined as hopes and plans for the future, is linked to many important positive outcomes for youth, including doing well in school and avoiding illicit substances. However, there has been very little research to examine whether future orientation may also protect youth from violence.

To study links between future orientation and violence perpetration, we surveyed over 850 male youth in lower resource neighborhoods in Pittsburgh as part of a community-based sexual violence prevention study. We found that youth with positive future orientation were significantly less likely to report threatening someone with a weapon or injuring someone with a weapon in the past nine months.

Continue reading →

Over 2 Millions Pediatric ER Visits For Bike Accidents Annually

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“Bikes” by Britta Frahm is licensed under CC BY 2.0Lara McKenzie, PhD
Principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Polic
Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Bicycling is a great way for families to get outside and be active together, but certain precautions need to be taken to keep everyone safer. This study looked at bicycle-related injuries among children age 5-17 years treated in hospital emergency departments in the United States from 2006 through 2015 and found that, despite a decrease in the rate of injuries over the 10-year study period, there were still more than 2.2 million injuries. This averages 608 cases per day or 25 every hour.

The majority of injuries involved children 10 to 14 years of age (46%) and boys (72%). The most commonly injured body region was the upper extremities (36%), followed by the lower extremities (25%), face (15%), and head and neck (15%). The most common types of injury were bruises and scrapes (29%) and cuts (23%). Overall, traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) represented 11% of total injuries and were most common among patients 10-14 years of age (44%). About 4% of patients were hospitalized.

Injuries most frequently occurred in the street (48%) or at home (37%). Helmet use at the time of injury was associated with a lower likelihood of head and neck injuries and hospitalizations, but there was no significant change in the rate of injury among helmet users over the study period. Motor vehicle involvement increased the odds of bicycle-related TBIs and injury-related hospitalizations.  Continue reading →

Driving Skills May Be Harder to Master with ASD

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“Driving” by Martin Alvarez Espinar is licensed under CC BY 2.0Kristina Elise Patrick, Ph.D
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Columbus, OH 43205

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? 

Response: Many families of young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are concerned that they may have difficulty acquiring driver’s licenses and driving safely because of symptoms of ASD. However, the ability to drive opens the door to a variety of social, occupational, and educational experiences. We aimed to assess differences in simulated driving behaviors of young adults with ASD and those with typical development and to evaluate whether differences depended on level of driving experience and complexity of the driving task.

On average, young adults with ASD had more difficulty regulating their speed and position within their lane compared with typically developing individuals even on a very basic rural route. After completing the basic route, drivers were required to engage in more complex tasks such as changing the radio or engaging in conversation while driving, driving through a construction zone, and following behind a truck. On complex driving tasks, drivers with ASD who had acquired licensure drove similarly to typically developing drivers who had acquired licensure. However, novice drivers with ASD had more difficulty than typically developing drivers regulating their speed and position within the lane.

Continue reading →

Parents More Willing To Lets Kids Watch ‘Justified’ Violence on TV

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“Crime Scene _MG_4847” by thierry ehrmann is licensed under CC BY 2.0Daniel Romer, PhD
Research Director Annenberg Public Policy Center and
Director of its Adolescent Communication Institute (ACI)
University of Pennsylvania

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: We have been studying the steady increase in gun violence that has been occurring in popular PG-13 movies since the new rating was adopted in 1984.  It has recently even surpassed the amount of gun violence in R-rated movies.  Since these movies are open to the public at any age, we are concerned that they promote the use of guns and potentially socialize youth to believe that using guns to defend oneself is an appropriate way to handle threats and other conflicts.

We knew that the rating requires the omission of graphic consequences, such as blood and suffering, that can make the violence more acceptable.  But we also wondered whether the motivation for the violence might make a difference as well.  Many of the characters in PG-13 movies are seen as heroic (e.g., Bruce Willis and Liam Neeson).  Could that also be a factor that makes such films more acceptable to parents despite their concerns about their children seeing so much violence in the movies.  So, we conducted this experiment to see if parents are less upset by justified violence in PG-13 style movies.  Continue reading →

How Much US Life is Lost to Police Violence?

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
“police” by istolethetv is licensed under CC BY 2.0Anthony L. Bui, MPH
M.D. Candidate, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Matthew M. Coates, MPH
Associate, Harvard Medical School, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine
Ellicott C. Matthay, MPH
Ph.D. Candidate, Division of Epidemiology, University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Protests after recent deaths from encounters with law enforcement, the Black Lives Matter movement, and activism over social media platforms have raised the profile of the problem of police violence. Several studies have suggested that the public health community has a duty to address these deaths as a public health problem. These studies have also pointed out that although there is a lack of officially reported statistics on police violence, other journalistic and crowd-sourced efforts such as “The Counted” from The Guardian, FatalEncounters.org, U.S. Police Shootings Database, KilledbyPolice.net, and Mapping Police Violence have relatively complete documentation of deaths from police violence.

To help frame the issue as a public health problem, we calculated years of life lost (YLLs) attributed to deaths from encounters with law enforcement. YLLs are, a metric that measures premature deaths, by age, gender, and race/ethnicity. To do this, we followed established methods, subtracting the age of each death from a corresponding standard life expectancy. For example, if an individual who died at age 25 had a life expectancy of 75, their YLL would be 50.  Continue reading →

Should Kids With Traumatic Injuries Be Screened For Mental Health Issues?

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr-Julie-Leonard

Dr. Leonard

Dr. Julie Leonard MD MPH
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Columbus, OH

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: We looked at children with unintentional injuries who were hospitalized to see if there was an increase in their mental health needs. We saw an average 63% increase in mental health diagnoses and a 155% increase in medications prescribed to treat a mental illness.

Continue reading →

One Blood Type Is a Risk For Bleeding Out After Trauma

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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Wataru Takayama
Tokyo Medical and Dental University
Department of Emergency and Disaster Medicine
Tokyo, Japan

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: ABO blood type is a potential risk of various diseases and various conditions. Furthermore, ABO blood type has a profound influence on hemostasis. Hemorrhage is the leading cause of death in patients with trauma, we assessed the association between the difference in blood types and the outcomes of death.

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?

Response: Blood type O was the independent risk factor for all-cause in-hospital mortality and death due to exsanguination, TBI, and other causes after adjusting for potential confounders. This is the first study to report the association between ABO blood types and mortality in patients with severe trauma.

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