Author Interviews, End of Life Care, Health Care Systems, JAMA / 08.04.2019
Majority of Surveyed Hospitals Prohibit Physician Participation in End of Life Option Act
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_48423" align="alignleft" width="143"] Dr. Cain[/caption]
Cindy L. Cain, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL 35233
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The End of Life Option Act permits terminally ill Californians to request a prescription for medications that would hasten death, providing they meet all requirements of the law and follow the steps outlined by their health care provider.
However, the law also allows health care providers and organizations to opt out of participating. Until now, we did not know how common it was for entire health care organizations to opt out.
In this study, we found that 61% of the surveyed hospitals prohibited physician participation in the End of Life Option Act. Thirty-nine percent of hospitals did allow participation in the law; these participating hospitals were less likely to be religiously affiliated and more likely to be nonprofit.
Dr. Cain[/caption]
Cindy L. Cain, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL 35233
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The End of Life Option Act permits terminally ill Californians to request a prescription for medications that would hasten death, providing they meet all requirements of the law and follow the steps outlined by their health care provider.
However, the law also allows health care providers and organizations to opt out of participating. Until now, we did not know how common it was for entire health care organizations to opt out.
In this study, we found that 61% of the surveyed hospitals prohibited physician participation in the End of Life Option Act. Thirty-nine percent of hospitals did allow participation in the law; these participating hospitals were less likely to be religiously affiliated and more likely to be nonprofit.
Dr. Zhong[/caption]
Victor Wenze Zhong, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral fellow
Department of Preventive Medicine
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University
Chicago, IL 60611
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Dietary cholesterol is a common nutrient in human diet. Eggs, specially egg yolks, are the single richest source of dietary cholesterol among all commonly consumed foods. The associations between dietary cholesterol consumption and cardiovascular disease and mortality remain controversial despite decades of research. Eating less than 300 mg of dietary cholesterol per day was the guideline recommendation before 2015. However, the most recent 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans no longer include a daily consumption limit for dietary cholesterol and recommend weekly egg consumption as part of the healthy US-style eating pattern. Whether these recommendations are appropriate have been intensely debated.
Joanne B. Newbury, PhD
ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow
King’s College London
Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience
London, United Kingdom
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Urban living is one of the most well-established risk factors for adult psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. However, less is known about the role of the urban environment in subclinical psychotic experiences in childhood and adolescence, such as hearing voices and extreme paranoia. These early psychotic experiences are a developmental risk factor for adult psychotic disorders and a range of other serious mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.
It is therefore important that we understand what factors might contribute to the development of early psychotic experiences so that we might be able to intervene and prevent their onset and progression.
In a cohort of over 2000 UK-born children (The Environmental Risk Longitudinal Twin Study), we have previously shown that subclinical psychotic experiences are also around twice as common among children and teenagers raised in urban versus rural settings. We have also shown that this appears to be partly explained by social features in urban neighbourhoods such as higher crime levels and lower levels of social cohesion.
However, no studies have examined the potential link between air pollution and psychotic experiences. This is despite air pollution being a major health problem worldwide (particularly in cities), and despite emerging evidence linking air pollution to the brain. 
