Articles: pandemics.
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Health communication · Jan 2013
From press release to news: mapping the framing of the 2009 H1N1 A influenza pandemic.
Pandemics challenge conventional assumptions about health promotion, message development, community engagement, and the role of news media. To understand the use of press releases in news coverage of pandemics, this study traces the development of framing devices from a government public health agency's press releases to news stories about the 2009 H1N1 A influenza pandemic. ⋯ A content analysis shows that the evolution of information from press release to news is marked by significant changes in media frames, including the expansion and diversification in dominant frames and emotion appeals, stronger thematic framing, more sources of information, conversion of loss frames into gain frames, and amplification of positive tone favoring the public health agency's position. Contrary to previous research that suggests that government information subsidies passed almost unchanged through media gatekeepers, the news coverage of the pandemic reflects journalists' selectivity in disseminating the government press releases and in mediating the information flow and frames from the press releases.
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Multicenter Study
Acute kidney injury among critically ill patients with pandemic H1N1 influenza A in Canada: cohort study.
Canada's pandemic H1N1 influenza A (pH1N1) outbreak led to a high burden of critical illness. Our objective was to describe the incidence of AKI (acute kidney injury) in these patients and risk factors for AKI, renal replacement therapy (RRT), and mortality. ⋯ The incidence of AKI and RRT utilization were high among Canadian patients with critical illness due to pH1N1.
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There is conflicting data as to whether obesity is an independent risk factor for mortality in severe pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza (A(H1N1)pdm09). It is postulated that excess inflammation and cytokine production in obese patients following severe influenza infection leads to viral pneumonitis and/or acute respiratory distress syndrome. ⋯ Among patients admitted to ICU during the first wave of A(H1N1)pdm09, obese and morbidly obese patients with severe infection were more likely to develop pneumonitis compared to non-obese patients, but mortality rates were not increased. CRP is not an accurate marker of pneumonitis.