PLoS medicine
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Coronary artery disease is a major cause of death worldwide. Two very different approaches have been proposed as a way of reducing these deaths. The "high risk" approach uses tools such as risk factor scoring and carotid ultrasound to try and identify those at highest risk, and then treats them aggressively. The "population" approach aims to shift the distribution of risk factors across a population in a beneficial direction with the goal of reducing heart disease in the whole population.
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A human-rights-based policy on mental health is urgently needed, argue Yamin and Rosenthal. Around half a billion people suffer from a mental or behavioral disorder, yet only a small minority receive even the most basic treatment
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Among trauma patients who survive to reach hospital, exsanguination is a common cause of death. Could anti fibrinolytics reduce the death rate? Only a large randomized controlled trial can answer the question
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The ability to detect disease outbreaks early is important in order to minimize morbidity and mortality through timely implementation of disease prevention and control measures. Many national, state, and local health departments are launching disease surveillance systems with daily analyses of hospital emergency department visits, ambulance dispatch calls, or pharmacy sales for which population-at-risk information is unavailable or irrelevant. ⋯ If such results hold up over longer study times and in other locations, the space-time permutation scan statistic will be an important tool for local and national health departments that are setting up early disease detection surveillance systems.