Racial and ethnic disparities in awareness of heart disease risk in women

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Public release date: 6-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, June 6, 2012Awareness of the risks of heart disease and signs of a heart attack vary greatly among women of different racial and ethnic groups and ages. New data that clearly identify these disparities in heart health awareness are presented in an article in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh.

In a pooled analysis from two American Heart Association surveys, Black and Hispanic women were 66% less likely than white women to be aware that heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, report Heidi Mochari-Greenberger, MPH, PhD, Lori Mosca, MD, MPH, PhD, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center (New York, NY), and Kerri Miller, MA, Harris Interactive (Amherst, NH). Women younger than 55 years of age were also less well-informed about heart disease risk. Overall among women, awareness was low of the most common signs of heart attack, which tend to differ from those in men, according to the article "Racial/Ethnic and Age Differences in Women's Awareness of Heart Disease."

"Clearly, education that is targeted to racial/ethnic minority and younger women about heart disease risk is needed, as well as education of all women about the signs and symptoms of a heart attack," says Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women's Health, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health (Richmond, VA), and President of the Academy of Women's Health.

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About the Journal

Journal of Women's Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. The Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women's healthcare issues. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh. Journal of Women's Health is the Official Journal of the Academy of Women's Health.

About the Society

Academy of Women's Health (http://academyofwomenshealth.org) is an interdisciplinary, international association of physicians, nurses, and other health professionals who work across the broad field of women's health, providing its members with up-to-date advances and options in clinical care that will enable the best outcomes for their women patients. The Academy's focus includes the dissemination of translational research and evidence-based practices for disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment for women across the lifespan.

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Racial and ethnic disparities in awareness of heart disease risk in women

P. G. Wodehouse, futurist

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The name P.G. Wodehouse normally does not spring to mind when talking about futurists. Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke and Alvin Toffler certainly, but Pelham Grenville quite definitely not!

Wodehouse is someone one would associate with Bertie Wooster and the inimitable dolichocephalic, fish-eating Jeeves. Some may conjure up visions of the muddle-headed Lord Emsworth and his magnificent beast the Empress of Blandings.

But the die-hard Wodehouse fan will also tell you about Rupert Psmith and his other schoolboy stories. Though often ignored and somewhat hard to find, many unusual nuggets lurk in these innocuous tales.

It is to one of these that I would draw attention. Titled An International Affair, it was published in The Captain in 1905, and can be found in the Project Gutenberg free eBooks collection called The Politeness of Princess and Other Stories'.

The story is rather prescient it reads like the classic tale of the neighborhood mom-and-pop store facing the giant retailer. You could easily substitute the latter today with Walmart or Carrefour.

Oliver Ring, the American owner of Ring's Come-one Come-all Up-to-date Stores, happens to be passing through the lazy English countryside town of Wrykyn, home to the boy's school bearing the same name. The shop windows in Wrykyn resemble those in every other country town in England, having no initiative and none of that quality that would arrest the pedestrian's progress.

In America, Mr Ring reflected, they did these things better, and then it dawned upon him that this was the perfect place for setting up one of his mega stores.

We are told that of Mr Ring's Come-one Come-all Up-to-date Stores are well known all over the world, with offices in Broadway, New York and others in Chicago, St. Louis and St. Paul within America. Overseas offices exist in London, Paris and Berlin which basically amounts to saying everywhere in the world.

In Mr. Wodehouse's words, The peculiar advantage of Ring's Stores is that you can get anything you happen to want there, from a motor to a macaroon, and rather cheaper than you could get it anywhere else.

Of course, what he was describing was the early twentieth century, when one can only guess where these multitudes of products are produced. Not China, perhaps.

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P. G. Wodehouse, futurist

The Curious Life Of Futurist Author Ray Bradbury

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Ray Bradbury has died at the age of 91. He wrote such classics as The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451. Futuristic tales from a man who never used a computer, or even drove a car.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Some sad news this morning, the world has lost a literary giant. Author Ray Bradbury died last night, after a long illness. He was 91 years old. He wrote such classics as "The Martian Chronicles" and "Fahrenheit 451" - futuristic tales from a man who never used a computer or even drove a car. NPR's Arnie Seipel has more on Bradbury and his curious life.

ARNIE SEIPEL, BYLINE: Ray Bradbury grew up during the Great Depression. He said it was a time when people couldn't imagine the future and Bradbury's active imagination made him stand out. He once told WHYY's FRESH AIR about exaggerating basic childhood fears, like monsters at the top of the stairs.

RAY BRADBURY: As soon as I looked up, there it was, and it was horrible. And I would scream and fall back down the stairs. And my mother and father would get up and sigh and say, oh my God, here we go again.

SEIPEL: He dove into books as a child. Wild tales from authors Jules VerneBradbury dove into books as a child. Wild tales from authors Jules Verne and H.G. Wells captivated Bradbury - and made him dream of becoming a great author. So he started writing, churning out a short story every week during his teens. After his family moved to Southern California, he would escape to the basement of the UCLA library. There, he'd focus on his craft.

BRADBURY: For 10 cents a half-hour you could rent a typewriter. And I thought, my gosh, this is terrific! I can be here for a couple hours a day. It'll cost me 30, 40 cents, and get my work done.

SEIPEL: Bradbury made his mark in the literary world with "The Martian Chronicles," a collection of short stories released in 1950. During the height of the Red Scare, he set off a warning flare about censorship with his signature work, "Fahrenheit 451" - and he did so in a controversial new magazine: Playboy. The story was later printed as a novel, and in 1966 director Francois Truffaut introduced movie audiences to this bizarre society Bradbury created: one in which firemen burned books to keep the masses completely ignorant but couldn't extinguish their curiosity.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FAHRENHEIT 451")

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The Curious Life Of Futurist Author Ray Bradbury

Freedom House Blasts Hungary, Ukraine for Poor Democracy

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Washington-based Freedom House think tank warned on Wednesday of rising antidemocratic tendencies in Hungary and Ukraine that have the potential to take root elsewhere in the region.

Negative developments in Hungary and Ukraine are at the forefront of an antidemocratic trend in Central and Eastern Europe that raises serious questions about the durability of the European Unions young democracies, Freedom House said in the Nations in Transit 2012 report.

According to the report, Ukraine, which saw a brief democratic opening after the Orange Revolution in 2004, has suffered significant decline in an alarmingly short period of time.

Under the Yanukovych government, Ukraines Nations in Transit ratings worsened in five categories year on year, with a steep decline in judicial framework and independence and an overall democracy score that is rapidly approaching its preOrange Revolution level, the report said.

Freedom House warned that the negative trend in Ukraine, along with a steep decline of the overall democracy score in a number of EU aspirants in the Balkans, may jeopardize the prospects for widening the circle of democratic states in Europe.

The details of the report will be released later on Wednesday at the Legatum Institute in London, and on June 7 in Brussels in cooperation with the German Marshall Fund.

Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world, and advocates for democracy and human rights.

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Freedom House Blasts Hungary, Ukraine for Poor Democracy

Salem student wins Freedom Festival Speech contest

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SALEM -- Salem Hills High senior Emily Hedelius won first place in the Freedom Festival Speech contest sponsored by the Freedom Festival. Her speech, entitled "Called to Service," pays homage to sacrifices and acts of service that many early revolutionists made for our country. This service, she says, is required to repair the apathetic and entitled nature of many of America's youth.

With first place, Hedelius also won a prize of a $750 scholarship and will give her speech in front of an estimated 3,000 people at the Patriotic Fireside at UVU's UCCU Center at 7 p.m. July 1.

Hedelius first posted her speech on YouTube according to contest rules. Then on May 5, the six finalists performed their speeches in front of a panel of judges. After some time deliberating, Hedelius was informed that she ranked in first place.

"The United States was founded on principles of selfless service for the greater good, even if it meant that one's own life was in jeopardy," said Hedelius in the award-winning speech.

One of the heroes she spoke of was Sgt. Richard Kirkland, who was a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. After a battle on Marye's Heights, there were 8,000 wounded Union soldiers suffering on the battlefield. Kirkland requested permission to help the dying men, and though he was denied, he bravely chose to go anyway at the risk of his own life. He later earned the nickname, "The Angel of Marye's Heights" by both the Confederate and Union soldiers.

"I picked the topic, because I've always loved the story of Sgt. Richard Kirkland, and I saw the quote by Abraham Lincoln in Mr. Welton's classroom. I took those two and wrote a speech about it," Hedelius said.

Hedelius's speech also highlighted the efforts of Clara Barton, the wartime nurse who founded the American Red Cross in the 1800s and Betsy Ross, who sewed the first American flag in 1776 despite personal struggles that could have prevented her from serving. These acts of service for the nation impacted Hedelius greatly.

"Since I have learned about how much people have sacrificed for our flag, it troubles me to see how people now are so unwilling to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance," she said.

Hedelius goes on to express her anguish about the resistance against the recent bill to have the Pledge recited every day in Utah schools. Hedelius was shocked at the response that people might feel offended by the Pledge; she sees it as an opportunity to restore patriotism among the youth, many of whom she claims had fallen into a "pit of ingratitude and apathy."

Service, Hedelius believes, is the best way to for American citizens to "repair damages" and "regain grounds lost from apathy."

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Salem student wins Freedom Festival Speech contest

Eugenics compensation bill passed by house

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RALEIGH, NC (AP) -- North Carolina moved closer to becoming the first U.S. state to compensate victims of a forced sterilization program when the state House approved legislation Tuesday to compensate living survivors $50,000 each.

North Carolina laws enforced from 1929 to 1974 allowed more than 7,600 people to undergo surgeries that left them unable to reproduce. Some chose to be sterilized as a form of birth control. Others were ordered to undergo surgeries by a state panel that found them mentally feeble, promiscuous, too poor to raise children, or otherwise inferior for parenthood. Up to 2,000 may be alive. The state has verified 132 victims, of whom 118 are still living.

House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, took the unusual step of giving up control of the legislative debate to argue in favor of the legislation. He said as a conservative he feels it's necessary to compensate people who were harmed by the power of the state.

"We had elected officials and leaders who had the audacity to know what the great race was," Tillis said. "There are people living today, all around this community, who have had this done to them and we have a chance to put it at rest."

The bill approved by the House 86-31 would set aside $11 million to pay $50,000 to victims of forced sterilization who were alive when the current legislative session opened last month.

"We owe it to them. Not in a legal sense, but a moral sense," said House Majority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake. "This was a sad program that lasted for several decades and has as its genesis a philosophy that is very alien to the American spirit."

The legislation was resisted by a handful of lawmakers who said compensation now meant taking from today's taxpayers to try to rectify the deeds of their ancestors.

"We're punishing people who had nothing to do with this," said Rep. G.L. Pridgen, R-Robeson.

Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, tried and failed to reduce the compensation from $50,000 to $20,000, citing another tight state budget this year more than four years after the recession began.

"You know what kind of situation our budget is in," Blust said. "This still is enough money that the state says you were wronged."

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Eugenics compensation bill passed by house

Eugenics bill passed by House

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Published:Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Updated:Wednesday, June 6, 2012 12:06

According to a news release by the North Carolina Department of Administration, the Eugenics compensation bill was passed in the North Carolina House of Representatives yesterday evening.

The bill includes Gov. Bev Perdues call to pay a $50,000 lump sum compensation to living victims, as well as funding the continuation of the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, which provides services to victims.

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Eugenics bill passed by House

FIABCI award for Setia Eco Gardens

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(From left) Tan Sri Liew Kee Sin, Alexander Romanenko, Laszlo Gonczi and Vyacheslav Semenenko.

ONCE again, property developer SP Setia Bhd Group has added another International Real Estate Federation prize under its belt.

At the FIABCI Prix d'Excellence Awards 2012 held in St Petersburg in Russia recently, the group's Eco Greens Gallery in Setia Eco Gardens, Johor, emerged the winner in the Specialised Project (Purpose-Built) category.

SP Setia has clinched the international recognition four times, making it the only developer in Malaysia to have achieved such a feat.

A total of 14 developers from seven countries took part in the event this year.

Previous FIABCI awards went to the group's Setia Eco Park in Shah Alam for Best Master Plan (2007) and Best Residential (Low-Rise) Development (2011) and Setia Eco Gardens for Best Master Plan (2009).

As for the Setia Eco Gardens, it is the second FIABCI award for the eco-themed development in Johor.

SP Setia chief executive officer and president Tan Sri Liew Kee Sin said the award has marked another milestone for Setia Eco Gardens, which has shown its commitment to sustain an eco-themed development.

"Located in Iskandar Malaysia, Setia Eco Gardens is a sustainable residential development and the Eco Greens Gallery is known as a landmark building with a leisure park and green wall," said Liew.

The gallery, built on a green lung spreading 11 hectares, provide residents of Setia Eco Gardens the luxury of living amid a healthy natural environment.

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FIABCI award for Setia Eco Gardens

Beaches take a hammering

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Big seas have snatched tonnes of sand from Illawarra beaches and dramatically reshaped parts of the region's coastline.

Newly eroded sand cliffs line the beaches at Woonona, Towradgi and Wollongong City - the result of huge waves and a king tide measuring 2.2m.

Authorities strung safety tape over the walkways to Towradgi Beach yesterday morning to stop the unsuspecting meeting an unannounced 1.5m vertical drop carved into the other end overnight.

At Austinmer, the tide inundated the beach car park, but stopped short of crossing Lawrence Hargrave Dr as some had speculated.

Jackie Metzner, office manager at Lawrence Hargrave Dr trading securities business Tibra Capital, helped safeguard the building with sandbags on Tuesday afternoon as the power supply surged on and off.

"Everyone was on tenterhooks - we had never seen the swells the way they were," Ms Metzner said. "The water was still lapping up against the [beach side] footpath until about midday today.

"We're glad [the sandbags] weren't tested."

Woonona Beach remained inundated yesterday morning.

Resident Michael Barnett believes inappropriate vegetation planted to prevent sand blowing onto the road has made the beach particularly vulnerable to erosion.

The plant, he said, dropped leaf litter and nourished itself, growing in height and creeping towards the water line.

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Beaches take a hammering

How could I NOT post this Venus transit picture? | Bad Astronomy

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I wasnt going to post another Venus Transit shot, because my mousing arm still hurts from putting together the gallery for this morning.

But holy geez, I saw this, and cmon!

I mean, seriously. Wow. [Click to cythereanate.]

This image of Venus as it entered the Suns disk was taken by the NASA/JAXA (Japanese space agency) spacecraft Hinode on June 5. The detail is breathtaking. The ring around Venus is due to scattering and refraction light from the Sun passes through the upper part of the Venusian atmosphere and gets bent toward us. You can also see some texture on the Suns surface (really packets of hot gas rising and cool gas sinking) and some nice prominences off the Suns limb material lifted against the Suns massive gravity by its equally ridiculously strong magnetic field.

Thats a whole planet there, folks, nearly the same size as Earth, roughly 40 million kilometers (25 million miles) from Earth, back lit by a star 110 million km (70 million miles) farther away yet and well over 100 times bigger than Venus!

And we knew about it, predicted it, aimed our machines at it, and observed it so we can learn more and see more beauty. The things we humans do when inspired by the Universe. Amazing.

Image credit: JAXA/NASA/Lockheed Martin

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How could I NOT post this Venus transit picture? | Bad Astronomy

Sic Transit, Glorious | Bad Astronomy

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This is what Ive been waiting for: the stunning video views of NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory of the Venus transit. Sit down, set this video to high-def, tune out everything else for 3 minutes 7 seconds, and soak in the clockwork glory of our solar system.

OK, you can breathe now. NASA has provided high-resolution versions for download, too.

SDO orbits the Earth about 40,000 kilometers (24,000 miles) above the surface of the Earth, with a nearly-continuous view of the Sun so it had the best seat in the Universe for the transit. One of its most important tasks is to observe the Sun in ultraviolet, where our stars magnetic activity is most obvious. The views in the video show the Sun different parts of the ultraviolet spectrum, colored to make them easier to see: magenta is at 1700 Angstroms (a unit of length astronomers like; 100 million Angstroms would comfortably fit across your fingernail), red is 304 Angstroms, and gold is 171 Angstroms. The orange segment is from the light we can see, about 3000 7000 Angstroms.

The Suns ethereal outer atmosphere, its corona, glows at at 171 and 304 Angstroms. In visible light the transit lasted about 7 hours, but in the UV it took longer since the silhouette of Venus can be seen against the softly luminous corona.

SDO was commanded to take images faster than usual, to provide as much coverage of the transit as possible, so the passage of the planet across the Sun is smooth and I know, but it fits other-worldly.

And I cant help but think about a sad milestone today: one of Americas one of the worlds greatest writers, Ray Bradbury, has died. Among his many works was "The Long Rain", a short story which took place on Venus. It had a huge impact on me when I first read it as a kid, and it still makes me think about human nature, space exploration, and what happens when we mix the two.

Bradbury was more than a writer, he was a poet, and his works inspired generations of people to look beyond the borders of our world while still considering our humanity. We all must go someday, and for him to do so on the eve of the last transit of Venus to be seen for over a century is, somehow, fitting.

Ray Bradbury knew that no matter where we are, whether we are looking down into the water of another world, or looking up into the skies, what we are always seeing is a reflection of ourselves.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Credit: NASA/SDO

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Sic Transit, Glorious | Bad Astronomy

The June 2012 Transit of Venus Gallery | Bad Astronomy

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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.

The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.

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The June 2012 Transit of Venus Gallery | Bad Astronomy

What is Astronomy? Definition & History

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Mankind has long gazed toward the heavens, searching to put meaning and order to the universe around him. Although the movement of constellations patterns imprinted on the night sky were the easiest to track, other celestial events such as eclipses and the motion of planets were also charted and predicted.

Definition of astronomy: Astronomy is the study of the sun, moon, stars, planets, comets, gas, galaxies, gas, dust and other non-Earthly bodies and phenomena. In curriculum for K-4 students, NASA defines astronomy as simple the study of stars, planets and space. Astronomy and astrology were historically associated, but astrology is not a science and is no longer recognized as having anything to do with astronomy. Below we discuss the history of astronomy and related fields of study.

Historically, astronomy has focused on observations of heavenly bodies. It is a close cousin to astrophysics. Succinctly put, astrophysics involves the study of the physics of astronomy and concentrates on the behavior, properties, and motion of objects out there. However, modern astronomy includes many elements of the motions and characteristics of these bodies, and the two terms are often used interchangeably today.

Modern astronomers tend to fall into two fields: the theoretical and the observational.

Observational astronomers in the observational field focus on direct study of stars, planets, galaxies, and so forth.

Theoretical astronomers model and analyze how systems may have evolved.

Unlike most other fields of science, astronomers are unable to observe a system entirely from birth to death; the life of worlds, stars, and galaxies span millions to billions of years. As such, astronomers must rely on snapshots of bodies in various stages of evolution to determine how they formed, evolved, and died. Thus, theoretical and observational astronomy tend to blend together, as theoretical scientists use the information actually collected to create simulations, while the observations serve to confirm the models or to indicate the need for tweaking them.

Astronomy is broken down into a number of subfields, allowing scientists to specialize in particular objects and phenomena.

Planetary astronomers, for instance, focus on the growth, evolution, and death of planets, while solar astronomers spend their time analyzing a single starour sun. Stellar astronomers turn their eyes to the stars, including the black holes, nebulae, white dwarfs, and supernova that survive stellar deaths.

Galactic astronomers study our galaxy, the Milky Way, while extragalactic astronomers peer outside of it to determine how these collections of stars form, change, and die.

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What is Astronomy? Definition & History

Research at Stanford may lead to computers that understand humans

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After decades of trial and error, artificial intelligence applications that aim to understand human language are slowly starting to lose some of their brittleness. Now, a simple mathematical model developed by two psychologists at Stanford University could lead to further improvements, helping transform computers that display the mere veneer of intelligence into machines that truly understand ...

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Research at Stanford may lead to computers that understand humans

The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs Named #1 World's Best Service

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The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs Named #1 World's Best Service in TRAVEL + LEISURE MAGAZINE'S WORLD'S BEST AWARDS 2012

Kauri Cliffs receives a perfect 100.00 point score - a first in the 17 year history of the awards

Matauri Bay, Northland, New Zealand, June 2, 2012 Travel + Leisure Magazine readers have chosen The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs as # 1 in the World in the World's Best Awards 2012 - World's Best Service.

And for the first time in Travel + Leisure's World's Best Awards' history, Kauri Cliffs is one of only three resorts*, all in far-flung destinations, to ever receive the unprecedented 100.00 point perfect service score.

Rankings are based on reader votes collected in the Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards 2012 Survey**

The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs, a 6000 acre oceanfront hideaway on New Zealand''s North Island, is the only New Zealand property to be honoured in the World's Best Awards 2012 in any category.

Owned and developed by Julian Robertson and family and managed by Julian "Jay" Robertson III , The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs is sister property to The Farm at Cape Kidnappers (Hawke's Bay, New Zealand) and Matakauri Lodge (Queenstown, New Zealand). All are members of the exclusive Relais & Chateaux collection.

A Travel + Leisure reader's survey voter commented on the Kauri Cliff's service experience by saying, "the staff predicted our every need".

Staff ratio at The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs is 1:1

Managing Director Jay Robertson commented on the latest award, Kauri Cliffs has received many accolades over the past decade for its sheer beauty and world-class accommodation, but to make history at Travel + Leisure Magazine by attaining a perfect service score for the first time in the award's 17 year history may be the most gratifying award we have ever received. We have a wonderful team at Kauri Cliffs, many who have been with us since the lodge opened, and for them to be recognised by Travel + Leisure's readers as the best in the world is one of our greatest achievements. The award really belongs to this passionate and dedicated team of professionals who constantly deliver and ensure each and every guest at Kauri Cliffs is treated with the utmost care , Robertson said.

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The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs Named #1 World's Best Service