More than a quarter of young adults in the UK do not drink alcohol – in data

Young adults in the UK are more likely to be teetotallers than their older counterparts, according to figures released this week. More than a quarter of 16- to 24-year-olds do not drink, compared with just over a fifth of the broader adult population.

Last year, just under 21% of people surveyed in England, Scotland and Wales said they did not drink alcohol, equivalent to around 10.6 million adults aged 16 or over. That’s two percentage points higher than in 2005, when the ONS first collected data on alcohol consumption.

But the proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds who say they do not drink has accelerated at almost four times that pace. Ten years ago, 19% of young adults said they did not drink alcohol, compared with 27% last year.

Conversely, teetotalism among those aged 65 and over is falling: in 2005, almost 30% of people in that age category said they did not drink; last year, it was 25%.

But while people in the youngest age group (16-24) are increasingly likely to be teetotal, drinkers in this age category were also more likely to binge drink – defined as men who exceed eight units of alcohol on their heaviest drinking day, and women who exceed six units.

When teetotallers are excluded, women aged between 16 and 24 were more likely than any other group to have binged in the week prior to the survey: 41% admitting to doing so, compared with 34% of men of the same age.

More generally, the proportion of adults who say they drink alcohol is at its lowest level since 2005. In 2016, just under 57% of Britons surveyed said they had drunk alcohol in the previous week, compared to almost two thirds (64.2%) in 2005.

In its commentary, the ONS noted that drinking behaviour is likely to be impacted by characteristics such as culture and ethnicity: the wider survey found that teetotalism is lower among white respondents (15.7%) than all other ethnic groups (56%).

alcohol use in the UK – in data

More than a quarter of young adults in the UK do not drink alcohol – in data

NHS data loss scandal has prompted five inquiries, ministers say

The NHS’s loss of more than half a million pieces of confidential medical correspondence is so serious that it has triggered five separate investigations, ministers have admitted.

The disclosure has prompted claims that the scale of the loss of 515,000 test results and doctors’ letters was hidden in “a huge cover-up”. It raises fresh questions for the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who has publicly championed openness in the NHS.

The National Audit Office (NAO) and Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) are currently looking into the incident, which the Guardian revealed last month, according to parliamentary questions that the health minister Nicola Blackwood answered on Friday.

Their investigations follow three other inquiries already undertaken by the Department of Health (DH), NHS England and NHS Shared Business Services (SBS), Blackwood said.

SBS is the private firm, co-owned by the DH, which mislaid the highly sensitive correspondence between 2011 and 2016 by putting items in a warehouse and forgetting to send them on to 7,700 GP surgeries across England despite their importance for patients’ health and treatment.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have intensified their claims that the DH has been highly evasive about the scandal after Blackwood said the DH would not publish the results of any of the three investigations already completed.

“It is totally incredible that the secretary of state failed for so long to identify this catalogue of errors, and it beggars belief that Jeremy Hunt is refusing to publish the advice which he received,” said Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary. “This is a major scandal, and Jeremy Hunt needs to come clean with the public.”

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, criticised the DH for “really disturbing” secrecy. “The fact that five separate investigations have been launched shows that the government and NHS England both knew that this was a monumental blunder,” he said. “But Jeremy Hunt’s attempt to downplay the severity of it, when all this was happening, smacks of a huge cover-up.”

The Guardian’s disclosure forced Hunt to answer an urgent question in the Commons on 27 February, when he downplayed the seriousness of the incident. But the DH’s own permanent secretary, Chris Wormald, confirmed to MPs on the public accounts committee on the same day that doctors were still examining whether more than 500 patients may have come to harm as a result.

Medical investigators are also looking into the possibility that the incident contributed to some patient deaths.

Hunt’s behaviour is under scrutiny after he admitted to MPs that he was first told about the data loss on 23 March 2016, but did not acknowledge it publicly until 21 July. Even then he only did so in a 138-word statement on the last day of parliamentary business, and mentioned neither the huge number of documents involved or the possibility that patients may have been harmed.

The DH’s refusal to publish the results of any of the three inquiries means that Hunt is avoiding scrutiny of what he knew and when, and what he did or did not do as a result of the documents being mislaid..

In the parliamentary questions Blackwood defended the decision not publish. “Given that this national incident is currently subject to an investigation by both the NAO and the ICO, it is not appropriate to publish related documents until these investigations have concluded,” she said.

NHS data loss scandal has prompted five inquiries, ministers say

NHS accused of covering up huge data loss that put thousands at risk

Thousands of patients are feared to have been harmed after the NHS lost more than half a million pieces of confidential medical correspondence, including test results and treatment plans.

In one of the biggest losses of sensitive clinical information in the NHS’s 69-year history, more than 500,000 pieces of patient data sent between GPs and hospitals went undelivered over the five years from 2011 to 2016.

The mislaid documents, which range from screening results to blood tests to diagnoses, failed to reach their intended recipients because the company meant to ensure their delivery mistakenly stored them in a warehouse.

NHS England has quietly launched an inquiry to discover how many patients have been affected. So far 2,500 cases that require further investigation to discover potential for harm have been identified. The NHS is spending millions of pounds paying doctors to assess the scale of the medical impact.

It is also undertaking a clinical review of patients who have died since the loss of documents was discovered in March 2016 to examine whether delays in material reaching GPs played any part in any patient’s death.

The correspondence included the results of blood and urine tests, and of biopsies and screening tests for diseases including cancer. It also included letters containing details of patients’ visits to hospital, including to oncology clinics and information about what they had been diagnosed with after visiting A&E. Other paperwork that went astray included summaries of the care patients had received while in hospital. Some involved material related to cases of child protection.

In total, 708,000 pieces of correspondence were undelivered. However, 200,000 of these were not clinically relevant as they were temporary change of address forms.

NHS England secretly assembled a 50-strong team of administrators, based in Leeds, to clear up the mess created by NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), who mislaid the documents. The private company, co-owned by the Department of Health and the French firm Sopra Steria, was working as a kind of internal postal service within the NHS in England until March last year.

The clear-up team is being led by Jill Matthews, the managing director of the primary-care support services arm of NHS England.

Documents detailing the team’s work, seen by the Guardian, reveal it has finally returned the lost material to 7,700 GP surgeries, and assessed how many potential incidents of harm may have occurred at each practice. They show that GP surgeries up and down England have been affected, with some facing a few dozen cases of potential harm arose from missing correspondence.

GPs have so far been paid £2.2m to examine returned correspondence and cross-check it with other material in patients’ medical records, although the internal documents show that some have said that they are too busy to do so and others have asked surgery administrators to do it.

The British Medical Association warned that some patients might have taken extra drugs unnecessarily or had the diagnosis of their illness delayed because of the blunder.

“This is a very serious incident, it should never have happened and it’s an example of what happens when the NHS tries to cut costs by inviting private companies to do work which they don’t do properly, the private company in this case being NHS Shared Business Services,” said Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA’s GPs committee and a family doctor in Yorkshire.

He added: “Undoubtedly, there will be cases where patients have been seen by their home GP without [the GP having] the information from previous consultations or tests being their file – so they may not know whether antibiotics have been prescribed to a patient or whether tests and investigations have been done.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is being pushed to reveal what he knew of the paperwork, including items relating to child safety, that went astray. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

“That might mean repeat prescriptions, which would be unnecessary, as they have been taken before. And it might mean delay in diagnosis. If that happened it’s at best an inconvenience to the patient, and at worst there’s a risk of patient harm.”

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “This is an absolute scandal. For a company partly owned by the Department of Health and a private company to fail to deliver half a million NHS letters, many of which contain information critical to patient care, is astonishing.

“Patient safety will have been put seriously at risk as a result of this staggering incompetence. The news is heartbreaking for the families involved and it will be scarcely believable for these hospitals and GPs who are doing their best to deliver services despite the neglect of the government.”

He said that Hunt’s statement to MPs last July was “perfunctory, complacent and evasive, failing to reveal any of the catastrophic detail of how 500,000 pieces of correspondence including test and screening results and pathways following hospital treatment, had failed to be delivered and were in fact languishing unopened in a warehouse”.

Ashworth added: “Instead, Mr Hunt gliby told parliament that ‘some correspondence in the mail redirection service has not reached the intended recipients’. For a secretary of state who supposedly has transparency as his watchword this looks like he has tried to hide the scandal from patients and the public. It’s totally unacceptable.”

Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “This looks, to me, like a cover-up. Jeremy Hunt has serious questions to answer, especially his deliberately evasive statement to parliament. Jeremy Hunt often talks about an NHS more open about patient safety failings since the Mid Staffs scandal. His deeds don’t match his words.

“This is a staggering loss of personal and private data, this colossal loss of vital material that may have been absolutely crucial to a patient’s treatment. I worry that while all this correspondence, including test results, has gathered dust, patients had been put at risk. People could have died as a result of this.”

An NHS England spokeswoman said: “Some correspondence forwarded to SBS between 2011-2016 was not redirected or forwarded by them to GP surgeries or linked to the medical record when the sender sent correspondence to the wrong GP or the patient changed practice.

“A team including clinical experts has reviewed that old correspondence and it has now all been delivered wherever possible to the correct practice. SBS have expressed regret for this situation.”

The Department of Health refused to comment.

NHS accused of covering up huge data loss that put thousands at risk

Misleading data mars the debate on alcoholism | Letters

The recent focus given by the MPs Liam Byrne and Jonathan Ashworth to the plight of children and families of alcoholics has shed a welcome light on an important question – how best do we support individuals and families affected by substance misuse?

However, the use of exaggerated numbers to support the cause is misleading and unhelpful. Recent reports, including the Guardian’s (16 February) claimed 2.5 million children live with an alcoholic parent. Yet according to the references provided this is in fact untrue by a factor of more than three. The reference by an all-party parliamentary group on the children of alcoholics to a report by the Children’s Commissioner leads to data on hazardous drinking, not alcohol dependency. These are very different things – and it clearly states there are 700,000 children of dependent drinkers, not 2.5 million.

The reference also cites a report written in 2012 that relies on a study published in 2009 that no doubt used even older data. It ignores the fact that over the past 13 years alcohol consumption per head in the UK has fallen, harmful and binge drinking is down, and young people drink less than ever. UK society is becoming ever more moderate and abstemious. It would be far better to have a debate that is honest and balanced, not out of date, inaccurate or misleading.
Dave Roberts
Director general, Alcohol Information Partnership

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Misleading data mars the debate on alcoholism | Letters

The GP practice sharing data to transform care for homeless people

Steve Benson* is happy. He’s just come out of a a 10-minute consultation with a GP he has never met, yet she was able to instantly pinpoint the help he needed. Thanks to the data sharing system being pioneered at BrisDoc, Bristol’s homeless health service, he didn’t have to go over his story yet again.

For this 45-year-old, whose home is a tiny tent in Bristol’s city centre, this successful session is a big deal. Benson lost his house, job and children when the traumas of his army past sent him careering into alcohol and drug addiction. He needs urgent help for a range of complex conditions but, like many rough sleepers, rehashing his story could be enough to trigger further self-destruction.

“You get so sick of retelling your story. But this time the GP could see my notes, and she used the entire time with me to chat about my mental state,” says Benson. “I really found that helpful. Now we’re talking about counselling.”

Benson and the other homeless patients at the Compass Centre, near Bristol’s main bus station, are seeing the benefits of an ambitious data-sharing scheme that was introduced in October 2016 and is being developed at BrisDoc. The aim of the scheme is to pool all available information from medical, psychiatric, social agencies and prisons to enable doctors to work effectively with patients.

Bristol has the second highest number of rough sleepers in the UK, after Westminster. The number of people sleeping rough in Bristol is 74 according to the most recent count. Nationally, the number of rough sleepers has increased by 51% over the past two years, from 2,744 to 4,134.

If BrisDoc gets the data sharing right with this complex group of patients, the GPs involved believe the model could be applied across the NHS. “The pioneering work being done by the BrisDoc homeless health service shows the benefits that integrated care can bring,” says Dr Shaun O’Hanlon, chief medical officer at Emis Health.

Building the existing data platform has been made possible by combining information from two main systems – the Emis data-sharing platform used by 106 GP practices in Bristol (covering about one million patients) and Connecting Care, a local electronic patient record allowing health and social care professionals in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset to access outline NHS patient information.

Before October, that information would have taken hours to collect on the phone, faxing and rifling through papers. Now GPs can see whether a person has been admitted to hospital (and to which ward), how many times they have been to A&E, and whether there are any missed or imminent outpatient appointments.

Dr Mike Taylor, lead GP, is passionate about developing service-specific auto-populating templates for each patient depending on which part of the system they end up in.“In this siloed world, this is something of a miracle,” he says. “The vision is to have a complete, up-to-date picture of our patients. Up to now we have been dealing with an old jigsaw, with pieces missing and no clear image on the front to help us put together the pieces.”

A marker of a civilised society is how we deal with those down on their luck

Mike Taylor

Taylor gives the example of police or paramedics being called to a street dweller wandering drunk through rush hour traffic. A glance at the data platform can indicate whether this person is known to mental health teams, which would lead to a referral there and avoid unnecessary sectioning or a night in police cells.

“These are not feckless joy riders,” he insists, although he admits he’s always on the alert for a physical attack. “Every time you go deep with a homeless person you find out that they have been abused senseless and cannot cope with their pain. A marker of a civilised society is how we deal with those who are down on their luck.”

Adult and child protection data is the most recent addition to the platform. Now Taylor is pressing for more complete information on mental health, dental treatment, prison and housing history, as well as end-of-life plans for each patient. He also wants ambulance, police and triage teams to have access.

For David Ingerslev, rough sleeping service manager for St Mungo’s, the electronic platform has been transformative. “Before its introduction, I have seen support workers spend a day trying to trace a client, only to find out that they are in hospital,” he says. “Now that link can be made in five minutes.”

*Not his real name

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The GP practice sharing data to transform care for homeless people

How long do you get with your GP? Doctors" consultation times – in data

The doctor will see you now. But for how long? This week the president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard, said GP consultations in the UK are too short for people with complex health needs.

The average consultaton time in the UK is 10.6 minutes. This figure comes from a 2015 survey by the Commonwealth Fund on behalf of the Health Foundation, which surveyed 12,049 doctors in 11 countries. It was the second-lowest: only Germany had shorter consultation periods, at 10.3 minutes. But in Germany 80% of patients get less than 15 minutes with their GP, compared with 92% in the UK.

There is no standard time in the UK: it’s up to GPs to set the duration of appointments. But Stokes-Lampard told the BBC: “We’ve got a crazy situation whereby GPs are ridiculously overworked, there are too few of us and the whole situation is on the brink.”

Methodology: the survey of 12,049 GPs and primary care physicians in 11 countries, including 1,001 GPs in the UK, was carried out between 2 March and 8 June 2015.

GP consultation times – in data

How long do you get with your GP? Doctors" consultation times – in data

Another NHS crisis looms – an inability to analyse data

Public institutions such as the National Health Service increasingly want—and are expected—to base their actions on nationally agreed standards, rather than anecdote. The collection and analysis of data, when done responsibly and in a trusted manner, has the potential to improve treatment and improve the social and economic value of healthcare.

However, the goal of using data to improve the NHS and social care is hampered by a talent gap – a lack of personnel with data analytical skills – that stands in the way of uncovering the rich insights that reside in the NHS’ own data.The NHS is not unique among institutions that are struggling to identify, hire and retain people with data science skills and the ability to apply these.

Take two examples. The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) conducts forty annual audits comparing hospital and physician outcomes, and the implementation of National Institute of Clinical Excellence standards across England and Wales. But, as HQIP Director Dr. Danny Keenan admits, although they have the expertise to do the analysis, “we are woefully inadequate at translating such analysis into improvements. What’s the takeaway for the hospital or community provider Board or the medical director? They cannot understand what they have to do.”

Dr. Geraldine Strathdee chairs the National Mental Health Intelligence Network, based at Public Health England. Together with partners, this launched the Fingertips Mental Health data dashboard of common mental health conditions in every locality. Strathdee points out there is a tremendous need for such benchmarking data: to design services based on local need, build community assets, and improve NHS services.

Without it, NHS resourcing is just based on historical allocations, guesswork or the “loudest voice”. An example is psychosis: “you can spend sixty percent of your budget on poorly treated psychosis with people ending up in hospital beds, homeless or in prison, and less than ten per cent ever get employment,” says Strathdee. The data dictates investment in early intervention psychosis teams, which dramatically improves outcomes. Fifty per cent of patients get back to education, training or employment. However, there is a shortage of people able to draw these insights. “We have a major capability level problem everywhere,” says Strathdee.

Over the past twenty years, the NHS has amassed increasing amounts of data. There is an almost universal consensus that, when used ethically and responsibly, with respect for the confidentiality of all patients (especially of vulnerable populations such as immigrants), better use of data could bring about more high quality, accessible and effective services. But this requires more than just technology. The NHS needs data analytical talent, which comes from a variety of disciplines.

This includes the ability to ask the questions and identify patterns in both structured and unstructured records. For example, Leeds Teaching Hospitals analyse approximately one million unstructured case files per month. They have identified thirty distinct areas for improvement by using natural language processing to identify wasteful procedures such as unnecessary diagnostic tests and treatments.

Data analysis also requires people who know how to apply diverse statistical methods to determine future outcomes. EPSRC has funded five research centres around the UK that will apply mathematics and statistics to prediction models in order to help clinicians tackle health challenges such as cancer, heart disease and antimicrobial resistance.

Improving public institutions with data also requires strong communications, design and visualisation skills. Digital designers are needed who know how to turn raw data into dashboards and other feedback mechanisms, to support managers’ decisions. And none of this is possible without the legal and ethical training that allows for the development of policies, platforms and procedures that enable data to be shared and algorithms to be used responsibly and effectively.

So the NHS needs to be able to tap into a wide range of data analytic know-how, from computer scientists, statisticians, economists, ethicists and social scientists. It is impractical and expensive to meet all of these needs through more hiring. But there are other ways that the NHS can match its demand for data expertise to the supply of knowledgeable talent both within and outside the organization.

For example, to make better use of sensitive administrative data to measure what works, the NHS should expand efforts already underway to construct an NHS Data Lab, modelled on the Ministry of Justice’s Data Lab. The MoJ’s Data Lab is a secure facility that accepts requests from anyone wishing to test the effectiveness of a program by using the government’s administrative data. It has conducted over 173 analyses over the past three years.

The NHS should also create a variety of online knowledge networks for those inside and outside the NHS, especially in universities, who possess the skills and willingness to help with data analytical questions. For example, last week the Rockefeller Foundation launched the Zilient platform to connect resilience practitioners, and the GovLab and Justice Management Institute launched DataJustice. Both are designed to connect networks of professionals for mutual learning.

NHS Improvement and the Health Foundation created an online network for improvement practitioners called the Q Network. Now NHS England is taking steps to create a Population Health Analytics Network, bringing academics, commercial and charitable organizations together to accelerate learning. But it can do more and expand the agility and scale of such groups, using new technology.

Such networking platforms help to catalogue relevant skills and make them more searchable. For example, the World Bank’s SkillFinder tracks expertise across three dimensions: technical expertise, geography, and business processes. In New York City, the Mayor’s Office Volunteer Language Bank tracks only a single skill—translation—to match the supply of multilingual civil servants to the demand for translation services.

Whether the NHS wants to know how to spot the most high-risk patients or where to allocate beds during a particularly cold winter, it can use online networks to find the talent hiding in plain sight, inside and outside the health and social care system. Regardless of the platform the NHS adopts, it needs to convene the different bodies already undertaking data analytical work, to compare research agendas, share learning, and identify gaps in its needs for data science skills.

Beth Simone Noveck is the Florence Rogatz Visiting Clinical Professor of Law at the Yale Law School and the Jerry M. Hultin Global Network Professor of Engineering at New York University, where she directs the Governance Lab. With support from NHS England, the GovLab published a report this week on “Smarter Health: Boosting Analytical Capacity at NHS England” which is available here.

Another NHS crisis looms – an inability to analyse data

Data inconclusive linking death and air pollution, says Indian minister

India’s environment minister has been accused of playing down the health risks of the country’s extremely polluted air by claiming, contrary to research, that there is no conclusive data available linking “death exclusively with air pollution”.

The environmental group Greenpeace released a report in January citing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) research that estimated nearly 1.2 million Indians die each year due to high concentrations of airborne pollutants such as dust, mould spores, arsenic, lead, nickel and the carcinogen chromium.

It found that no cities in northern India, and only a handful of regions in the rest of the country, met international air quality standards, with pollution rates particularly high in the capital, Delhi, and the neighbouring state Uttar Pradesh.

Asked about the report in India’s upper house, the environment minister, Anil Madhav Dave, said on Tuesday: “There is no conclusive data available in the country to establish direct correlation-ship of death exclusively with air pollution.”

He said the health effects of air pollution were a “synergistic manifestation of factors which include food habits, occupational habits, socio-economic status, medical history, immunity, heredity etc of the individuals”.

“Air pollution could be one of the triggering factors for respiratory associated ailments and diseases,” he added.

Sunil Dahiya, a campaigner with Greenpeace India, said the remarks were contrary to the findings of the GBD survey, a comprehensive global research program that monitors the causes of illness and death in every country in the world.

The 2015 edition of the survey estimated that 3,283 Indians died each day due to outdoor air pollution, making for around nearly 1.2 million deaths annually. Dahiya said the air pollution estimate controlled for “all imaginable risk factors, from obesity, to smoking and insufficient consumption of fresh fruit … and many other risks”.

“The number of deaths attributed to air pollution in the study are only due to air pollution,” he said.

Researchers have argued that the frequent inhalation of tiny pollutants in particular may increase the likelihood of blood clots, damage the body’s ability to oxygenate blood and inflame tissue in the nervous system.

India has been slower than its neighbour, China, to address the problem of toxic air, which in Delhi is attributed to a range of sources including road dust, vehicle exhaust fumes, open fires, industrial emissions and the burning of crop residues in neighbouring states.

But India has taken steps in the past two years to grow its network of air-quality monitors, push cleaner fuels, upgrade vehicle emissions standards and has mandated – but not yet fully rolled out – new technology to limit emissions from coal-fired power stations.

While acknowledging the problem, Indian government bodies have been sensitive about accepting international findings on the issue, rejecting a 2014 World Health Organisation study that declared Delhi the world’s most polluted city.

It has also repeatedly had run-ins with Greenpeace, temporarily freezing the NGO’s funding and accusing it of being one of several groups conspiring to stymie India’s economic growth.

Polash Mukherjee, a researcher with the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said different groups came up with different estimates of the number of deaths caused by air pollution because of varying methodologies or interpretations. “But what is undeniable is that there is an effect on the health of people,” he said.

The burden of harm from air pollution falls mainly on the poor, the elderly and children. A report from Unicef in October estimated that poor air quality contributed to the deaths of 600,000 children around the world each year.

Data inconclusive linking death and air pollution, says Indian minister

The Curse Of Financially Polluted GMO Study Data – 672 Research Papers Reviewed

Even among those of us that haven’t done their research into GMO food products, there is an uncertainly about not only what they actually are, but no one seems to know about the safely of these inventions either. For that’s what they are; inventions. Not natural, but man made.

Research on genetically modified products needs to be paid for. While it’s ideal that the producers of such products should bear the cost of the research into their own products, there is a big question mark hanging over the conclusions of this type of research. For example, when a company wants to sell product, wouldn’t they want favorable results into the research of their patented money makers?

The Review Into Conflicts Of Interest In GMO Studies

In this study, the authors were looking for the extent of conflicts of interest (COI) in employment statuses only. The parameters used to assign to each piece of research were: “favorable’, ‘neutral’ or ‘unfavorable’ to the financial interests of at least one GM crop company.”

The goal of this study was to measure the extent of COIs in the field of research of GMO products and to “test the hypothesis that study outcomes for the efficacy or durability of Bt crops are more frequently favorable to the interests of GM crop companies in the presence than in the absence of COI’s.”

The authors received no funding for this research task, they were just keen to know how much shenanigans is going on inside the research field of GM products.

If every other form of COI was accounted for, the results would very likely be much higher because of the way this industry is cross linked every which way via being consultants, members of advisory boards or co-holders of patents or intrinsic or intellectual COIs.

“Like Sanchez and Diels et al. we found that COI’s were widespread in the articles considered. Only about 7% of the articles contained a declaration of COI, but about one fifth of the 672 articles had at least one author from a GM crop company.”

Let me do the maths for you; that’s 134 research papers that had a COI, merely based on their employment status!

The authors of this review study propose that the GMO companies still pay for the research into their own products, but, that there should be a pool of monies mainly funded by the companies but also contributed to by governments and NGO’s that could fund research that is independent of financial stakeholders influence.

This would add a layer of confidence to the supposed scientific research surrounding GMO’s that we could all rely on. As it stands, the whole system stinks of money, with not even a whiff of duty of care.

More Conflict Of Interest

The pharmaceutical company, Merck, bought and does deliveries of Dr Paul Offit’s book, “What Every Parent Should Know About Vaccines,” to American doctors. This is another incidence where a conclusion of conflict of interest could possibly be drawn.

Do you know who Paul Offit is? He is an American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and an ‘expert on vaccines’ working for the CDC, of course! In addition, he’s also the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine. Surely CDC employees are not able to sell their own products to the industry they are charged with protecting us from? Yes they are, and yes they do.

Even CDC Employees Are Fed Up

Even the order followers at the CDC have had enough and are asking questions of their employer as to unethical behavior.

The ethics complaint by a group of 12 senior CDC scientists calling themselves ‘Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research’ or (CDC SPIDER)

It remains to be seen what the response to the CDC ethical complaint will be, if any.

Who Can We Trust?

As you’ve just read, the there is a ton of conflict of interest surrounding GMO studies. If we can’t trust the scientific community to stand for what is right, instead of standing for money, who and what CAN we trust?

Remember Grandma? Remember her pottering around in her garden, seemingly haphazardly tending her garden, then bringing you inside for a delicious bowl of veggie soup?

Do you ever remember her talking to you about what fabulous fruits and veggies she was growing at the moment? If you don’t remember this, then I’m very sorry, you missed out. However, some of us got the jump on living a natural and healthy life with a Grandma, just like I described. THAT’S who you can trust!

Grandma’s lessons of how to live naturally ring especially true today. Eat clean, organic whole foods. Avoid toxins and toxic environments. Avoid man made food products. Grow your own food. Nature and Grandma know best!

References

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167777

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/301432-the-cdc-is-being-being-influenced-by-corporate-and-political

http://yournewswire.com/deadstream-media-ignoring-gmo-studies/

The Curse Of Financially Polluted GMO Study Data – 672 Research Papers Reviewed

Healthcare and Trump"s travel ban: data shows success of doctors trained abroad

American patients treated by internationally educated doctors have slightly better outcomes than those treated by their American-educated counterparts, a new study has found, as Donald Trump’s ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries is expected to stop some immigrant physicians from coming to the United States.

But that is not because American medical schools are falling short, the authors of the report in the British Medical Journal said.

“We’re not saying medical school in the US is not doing a good job, it’s only about selection,” said Yusuke Tsugawa, a research associate at Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health and lead author of the study. Self-selection, to be more specific.

“They are highly motivated,” Tsugawa said of doctors educated outside the US. “They are not random doctors from their home country, they are the best doctors.”

Trump’s executive order banned people from entering the US from seven countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen – for 120 days following the order. The order also stopped the Syrian refugee resettlement program indefinitely.

Researchers looked at 1.2m hospital admissions of patients on Medicare, the American public health insurance program for the elderly, who were treated by more than 44,000 physicians. The rate at which patients died or were readmitted was used to measure patient “outcomes”.

Despite the study’s findings that internationally educated doctors were slightly more likely to treat a sicker population – people with more chronic diseases, as well as more likely to be from racial minorities and more likely to be low-income – outcomes were slightly better than among their American-educated peers. That held when comparing doctors in the same hospitals. Patients treated by both international and US graduates were about the same age on average, approximately 80 years old.

“Our findings indicate that current standards of selecting international medical graduates for practice in the US are functioning well for at least one important dimension: inpatient outcomes,” researchers wrote.

By the numbers, researchers found that when patients were treated by internationally educated doctors, they died at a rate of 11.2%, versus 11.6% for US-educated physicians, in comparisons of doctors working in the same hospitals.

Readmissions showed the same trend. Patients returned to the hospital within 30 days at a rate of 15.4% for internationally educated doctors, and 15.5% for US educated doctors, when comparing doctors in the same hospital.

Tsugawa said he and his colleagues undertook the study because other research showed there “was a bias against foreign medical graduates, both from colleagues and patients, so they are thinking quality of care might be worse than US medical graduates.

“Given that 25% of the doctors in the US – or in the UK as well – are foreign medical graduates, we want to make sure they are providingquality medical care,” he said. Tsugawa said he expected to focus on the race of doctors in his next study.

“To do the residency program in the US, the bar is really high; only 50% of the candidates can get the slot in the residency program,” said Tsugawa. “There are multiple ways they are highly selected, and highly motivated, and that is the reason they have better outcomes.

“Those who come to the US are the brightest and the best,” he said.

About one quarter of physicians working in the US were educated abroad, multiple studies show. But many workforce experts believe that even if the immigration status of hundreds weren’t suddenly in question, there still would not be enough doctors coming to the US to make up shortages faced by ageing and rural Americans.

For example, the largely rural Alaska already needs an additional 60 doctors per year, the Atlantic reports. And a 2015 New England Journal of Medicine article argued that programs that brought 8,000 doctors to the US each year would fall far short of the primary care needs of the country’s ageing population.

Research from 2013 showed that 299 doctors from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, or Syria applied to train in the US as residents that year, with an acceptance rate of just 40%, a New England Journal of Medicine article reported.

Syria is also one of the top exporters of physicians to the US in another program that places doctors in high-need rural and inner-city areas, the J-1 visa program. In 2014, 165 Syrian doctors moved to the US under the program, according to the same article. If the ban continues beyond 120 days the number of doctors – and therefore patients – affected could escalate very quickly.

“Physicians with J-1 waivers are filling clinical jobs in areas of need,” the NEJM authors wrote. “An executive order that has not taken into account the widespread ramifications may lead to further shortages of physicians in areas that are already in dire need.”

Healthcare and Trump"s travel ban: data shows success of doctors trained abroad

The dirtiest things in your home – in data

Teaching children to wash their hands properly could help stop the spread of infection and thereby limit the use of antibiotics, UK medicines watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) advised this week.

Bacteria are, of course, all around. Many of them are essential and harmless, but there are also those that can cause us to become ill.

In 2014 the Global Hygiene Council, which is funded by the health, hygiene and home products company Reckitt Benckiser, measured the level of bacterial contamination on eight surfaces in 20 family homes in the UK, testing them for bacteria including enterobacteriaceae, E.coli and Staphylococcus aureus (a group of bacteria that includes MRSA).

The eight household items were then ranked based on how many of them were found to be clean. By this measure, kitchen cloths and sponges were the worst offenders – none of the sponges in any of the 20 UK households were acceptably clean (and yes, the sponges tested were worse than the toilet brush handle).

Bacteria graphic

The dirtiest things in your home – in data

Diesel cars are 10 times more toxic than trucks and buses, data shows

Modern diesel cars produce 10 times more toxic air pollution than heavy trucks and buses, new European data has revealed.

The stark difference in emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) is due to the much stricter testing applied to large vehicles in the EU, according to the researchers behind a new report. They say the same strict measures must be applied to cars.

NOx pollution is responsible for tens of thousands of early deaths across Europe, with the UK suffering a particularly high toll. Much of the pollution is produced by diesel cars, which on the road emit about six times more than allowed in the official lab-based tests. Following the Volkswagen “dieselgate” scandal, the car tests are due to be toughened, but campaigners say the reforms do not go far enough.

The new report from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a research group that played a key role in exposing Volkswagen’s cheating, compared the emissions from trucks and buses in realistic driving conditions with those of cars.

It found that heavy-duty vehicles tested in Germany and Finland emitted about 210mg NOx per kilometre driven, less than half the 500mg/km pumped out by modern diesel cars that meet the highest “Euro 6” standard. However, the buses and trucks have larger engines and burn more diesel per kilometre, meaning that cars produce 10 times more NOx per litre of fuel.

The ICCT analysis showed that manufacturers were able to ensure that heavy duty vehicles kept below pollution limits when on the road, but that emissions from cars soar once in the real world.

Official EU tests for cars are currently limited to laboratory measurements of prototype vehicles. “In contrast, for measurement of NOx emissions from trucks and buses, mobile testing devices became mandatory in 2013. As a consequence, randomly selected vehicles can be tested under real-world driving conditions,” said Peter Mock, managing director of ICCT in Europe.

Changes to the car testing regime in the EU are due to start in September, with mobile devices, called portable emissions measurement systems (PEMS), attached to vehicles as they drive on real roads.

But Mock warned: “Manufacturers will still be allowed to carefully select special prototype cars for emissions testing. Instead, it would be much better to measure the emissions of ordinary mass-production vehicles, obtained from customers who have had been driving them in an ordinary way.”

Such a system is used in the US where the dieselgate scandal first emerged. It will also be put forward for discussion by the European commission on 17 January in Brussels, but the ICCT said it faces resistance from some vehicle manufacturers and EU member states.

In December, the European commission started legal action against the UK and six other EU states for failing to act against car emissions cheating in the wake of the dieselgate scandal. But later the same month, a draft European parliament inquiry found the European commission itself guilty of maladministration for failing to act quickly enough on evidence that defeat devices were being used to game emissions tests.

Evidence that some diesel cars emitted up to four times more NOx pollution than a bus was revealed in 2015. Catherine Bearder, a Liberal Democrat MEP and a lead negotiator on the EU’s air quality law, said “It is disgraceful that car manufacturers have failed to reduce deadly emissions when the technology to do so is affordable and readily available. The dramatic reduction in NOx emissions from heavier vehicles is a result of far stricter EU tests, in place since 2011, that reflect real-world driving conditions. If buses and trucks can comply with these limits, there’s no reason cars can’t as well.”

Diesel cars are 10 times more toxic than trucks and buses, data shows

Council cuts hitting women"s contraceptive services, data shows

Clinics offering women contraception are closing or reducing their opening hours in the wake of heavy Whitehall cuts to local councils’ public health budgets, new research has revealed.

One and a half million women of reproductive age live in parts of England where councils have restricted contraception services or are considering doing so, according to data obtained under freedom of information by the Advisory Group on Contraception.

The findings have prompted warnings from sexual health experts that paring back such services could lead to an increase in unintended pregnancies and abortions. One in four councils have already reduced their contraception service or may do so, the new findings show.

“Councils are between a rock and a hard place when faced with cuts to public health budgets, but it’s a false economy to restrict women’s access to contraception,” said Natika Halil, the chief executive of the Family Planning Association, which is a member of the AGC.

She cited research showing that every pound spent on contraception saved £11 in averted health costs, for example from women going on to have a baby or a termination.

“Making it harder for women to choose the right contraception for them will mean more unplanned pregnancies and more abortions,” she said.

Four sites offering contraception services have closed or will close during 2016-17 in Dorset, several clinics have stopped operating in Wandsworth in south London, while a clinic operating at Leighton hospital in Crewe, Cheshire was shut down last year.

Responses from 140 of England’s 152 councils to the freedom of information requests showed that a lunchtime school drop-in service in south Gloucestershire has been ended, a sexual health worker in Wokingham in Berkshire lost their job when a condom distribution service was brought in-house by the council and a young people’s service in Bexley, south London, ceased being a standalone service but is now being provided in a local GP’s surgery.

Dr Anne Connolly, a GP in Bradford who sits on the AGC, said: “It’s hugely concerning to see that, in many parts of the country, contraceptive services are being cut, meaning that women can’t access the most reliable types of contraception. Without close scrutiny, I’m worried this trend will only continue and that women will bear the consequences.”

Among the 140 councils which responded, 20 (14%) confirmed that at least one site had shut in 2015-16 or would do so this year, while another 18 (13%) said that clinics could be closed this year. The AGC is made up of health charities such as the FPA, doctors, the Local Government Association and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, which represents specialists.

Councils in England have been obliged by law since the coalition government’s NHS shakeup in 2013 to provide open access to sexual health services, including for contraception.

NHS England commissions some contraceptive services under its contract with GPs. The AGC also found that fewer councils now have contracts with local family doctors to provide the long-acting forms of contraception that women are now often encouraged to use.

However, councils have had to reduce the public health services they offer since the Treasury cut £200m from their budgets for this year and it intends to take another £600m by 2020-21, just under 10% of the planned total.

Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, has warned several times that cuts to public health will inevitably lead to higher long-term costs for the NHS. Last year, he said he was “crystal clear that any further cuts in public health and social care would impose extra costs on the NHS over and above the minimum funding requirement [the £8bn extra by 2020-21 that then chancellor George Osborne promised last year to give the NHS]”.

The Department of Health said councils were best at deciding what public health services they provided for their residents.

“Local areas are best placed to decide how to provide the sexual health services their communities need. Good progress is being made, for example teenage pregnancy is down 30% in England since 2011, the lowest for 40 years”, a spokesman said.

“Over the next five years, we will invest more than £16bn in local government public health services, in addition to what the NHS will continue to spend on vaccinations, screening and other preventative interventions.”

Council cuts hitting women"s contraceptive services, data shows

What could Facebook target next? Our mental health data | Emily Reynolds

It used to be that the eyes were considered the window to the soul. In 2016, you might have better luck checking someone’s social media. The tiny details we share about our lives have blurred the lines between “online” and “real life” – our Facebook accounts even get “memorialised” when we die.

According to a study published this week in Lancet Psychiatry, these seemingly innocuous tidbits can actually lead to quite a comprehensive picture of who we are, at least in terms of our mental health. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Stanford Business School argue that data from Facebook – the photos we upload, the statuses we share, the frequency and content of the messages we send to friends – is “more reliable” than offline self-reported information, which is often considered to be inadequate or incomplete when it comes to understanding how mental illness is affecting someone.

Status updates in particular, they say, can provide a “wealth of information” about users’ mental health. A language analysis algorithm can pick up symptoms of mental illness, and could even flag early warning signs for conditions such as depression or schizophrenia. Yet more algorithms, these analysing pictures for “emotional facial expressions” could provide insights into offline behaviours. The next question is: what can we – and what can Facebook – do with that data?

Of course, a lot of the information the company has on us all is superficial at best – sure, it might be slightly uncanny to have advertisements served to us that perfectly reflect our taste in music or the TV shows we’ve discussed online, but it doesn’t really say anything very essential about who we are as people. Data about mental or physical health, however, cannot be treated so flippantly, either by those of us who are thoughtlessly supplying it or by the people collecting it. Discrimination against those with mental health problems is still rife; a recent NatCen British Social Attitudes survey, for example, found that 44% of people would be “uncomfortable” working with someone who’d experienced symptoms of psychosis. In legislative terms, this isn’t supposed to impact chance of employment or employment rights. In reality, there is a persistent and pervasive culture of distrust around those with mental health problems.

What if an algorithmic branding of ‘ill’ was shared with the world without our knowledge or consent?

Understandably, many people choose not to share the status of their mental health with colleagues or friends. But such privacy may be a luxury when “emotional facial expressions” can be neatly scanned and categorised by an algorithm, or when our heartfelt statuses are simply part of an input-output exchange. What if employers were able to use the same technology to scan our private posts, monitoring what we say and how we say it to avoid taking a risk on someone they may see as a “liability”? What if the data wasn’t secure, and an algorithmic branding of “ill” was shared with the world without our knowledge or consent?

As the study suggests, the internet can be a vital tool in how people express themselves about their mental illness, from the grandiose horrors of a serious breakdown to the minutiae of living day-to-day with a chronic illness. We can also foster genuine connections with others who might be experiencing the same things. And the potential benefits of the findings are clear – not least in the way we could be able to reach people such as refugees, the homeless or the elderly who are often shut out of traditional mental health services. We may even be able to find new therapeutic routes or platforms with which to help people.

What we can’t do, however, is continue to proceed the way that we are. The ethics of this particular study aren’t questionable; everybody involved in the study consented to their data being used, after all. But if it were to be used more broadly? The team suggests that detection of poor mental health could be a way for social networks to provide on-site support for users – in which case we may have a problem. For one thing, on a practical level, vulnerable users may not fully understand what their participation in such a scheme would mean, nor know the impact it could have on them. We need strict legislation about the ethics of gathering such sensitive data, and even stricter punishments should it be inadvertently or purposefully shared.

And, as we must never forget, Facebook makes money from our data. Slotting us into neat little boxes may be OK when it comes to things such as gender or age – what does that say about us, really? – but the idea of being neatly categorised as “mentally ill” or “mentally well” simply because of the things we choose to share online is both unethical and potentially dangerous. At best, of course, we could receive help that is currently unavailable to us. At worst? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

What could Facebook target next? Our mental health data | Emily Reynolds

300 million children live in areas with extreme air pollution, data reveals

Three hundred million of the world’s children live in areas with extreme air pollution, where toxic fumes are more than six times international guidelines, according to new research by Unicef.

The study, using satellite data, is the fist to make a global estimate of exposure and indicates that almost 90% of the world’s children – two billion – live in places where outdoor air pollution exceeds World Health Organisation (WHO) limits.

Unicef warned the levels of global air pollution contributed to 600,000 child deaths a year – more than are caused by malaria and HIV/Aids combined. Children are far more vulnerable to air pollution, Unicef warned, pointing to enduring damage to health and the development of children’s brain and urging nations attending a global climate summit next month to cut fossil fuel burning rapidly.

“The magnitude of the danger air pollution poses is enormous,” said Anthony Lake, Unicef’s executive director. “No society can afford to ignore air pollution. We protect our children when we protect the quality of our air. Both are central to our future.”

Deaths of under-fives linked to air pollution

Air pollution is world’s single biggest environmental health risk, according to the WHO, and is getting worse, with levels of toxic air rising 8% in the last five years. Over three million people a year die as a result of outdoor air pollution – six every minute on average – and this is set to double by 2050 as fast growing cities expand. Indoor air pollution, mainly from wood or dung stoves, causes another three million deaths a year.

Children are especially at risk, the Unicef report says, because they breathe more rapidly than adults and the cell layer in their lungs is more permeable to pollutant particles. The tiny particles can also cross the blood-brain barrier, which is less resistant in children, permanently harming cognitive development and their future prospects. Even the unborn are affected, as the particles inhaled by pregnant women can cross the placental barrier, injuring fetuses.

Prof Jos Lelieveld, at the Max Planck Institute in Mainz, Germany, said the report was excellent: “Air pollution is typically a problem in developing countries, where infants have little resistance due to poor nutrition and where health care is insufficient.”

The Unicef study combined particle pollution data from a range of satellites with ground-level monitors to estimate the number of children in polluted areas. Of the 300 million exposed to levels of pollution six times over WHO limits, 220 million live in south Asia, where India hosts many of the world’s most polluted cities.

Another 70 million children living with very toxic air live in east Asia, mainly in China. But more children are exposed to air pollution levels above the WHO limit in Africa – 520 million – than in east Asia.

The air pollution crisis is worst in low and middle income nations, where 98% of cities do not meet WHO guidelines, but over half the cities in rich countries also fail to meet the guidelines. In Europe, 120 million children live in areas where outdoor air pollution exceeds international limits, and 20 million suffer levels over double the limit.

Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, said: “In the UK, we know that children’s health is being put at risk every day by unsafe levels of pollution in many of our towns and cities. At least 3,000 schools are located within illegal levels of pollution. Yet very few of these schools have monitors around them. It’s time for the government to enact a new clean air act to tackle this modern pollution problem and protect all our health.”

In the report, Unicef urges all countries to cut air pollution by reducing fossil fuel burning in power plants and vehicles, which also helps tackle climate change. This double benefit has led to significant action in China in recent years. Tackling air pollution is also cost-effective: the World Bank estimates that the welfare losses from air pollution are more than $ 5tn a year.

Unicef also recommends minimising children’s exposure by ensuring sources of pollution such as busy roads and factories are not sited near schools and playgrounds and by the roll-out of cleaner cooking stoves.

300 million children live in areas with extreme air pollution, data reveals

Staggering New Data Shows Serious Depression Epidemic in America

This month, Mental Health America (MHA) shared some staggering new numbers related to depression in America.  In 2014, the nation’s community-based nonprofit leader in mental health support, recovery and advocacy began screening people for mental health issues using their online, scientifically-based mental health screening tools.

To this date, 1.7 million people took advantage of the screening opportunity.

Most noteworthy, the results of Mental Health America’s screening programs shed a light on the current depression epidemic in America and serve as a wake-up call to the country.

Depression in America

The depression screen is one of nine mental health screens provided online by Mental Health America.

Especially relevant results found by MHA’s depression screening:

• About 1,400 people screen for depression every day.

• Sixty-six percent of screeners are under 25; 32 percent are under 18.

• Fifty-nine percent report to having serious depression.

• The youngest screeners have the highest scores compared to any other age group — 37 percent of 11-17 year olds score in the range for severe depression.

• Thirty-two percent of all screeners report they have significant thoughts of suicide or self-harm.

• Among screeners who self-identify as youth and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, 41 percent score for severe depression.

After review, Mental Health America’s president and CEO, Paul Gionfriddo, emphasized the importance of these recent findings on depression in America.

“The sheer volume of individuals seeking mental health screening and supports is astonishing.  But when you couple this volume with these facts — that the depression screening tool is the most common screening tool they use; that most depression screeners are young; that two in every five depression screeners have severe depression; and that the majority of people coming to our screening program have never been diagnosed with a mental health condition — this is a national wake-up call.”

Mental Health Screening Programs

Mental Health America’s screening programs include anonymous, scientifically-based screens for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder, anxiety, early psychosis, alcohol and substance use, a parent and youth screen, and a work health survey.

Furthermore, after an individual completes their screening, they receive immediate results, education, resources and linkage to MHA affiliates. Along with the results of their screens, the participants provide MHA with valuable demographic and survey responses that allow the organization to further support their mental health policy and education efforts.

Mr. Gionfriddo adds the need for improvement in mental health services.

“We must demand better mental health services — practitioners, employers, and educators need to offer mental health screening to all children and adults and policy makers must pass meaningful mental health reform legislation that emphasizes earlier detection and integrated services for recovery.”

Plans for the Future

MHA plans to launch a new “Screening-to-Supports,” (or S2S) initiative in the next year.  This new initiative will include informational and educational resources.  Plus, people will benefit from receiving referrals to services and supports.

In addition, people will monitor their mental health with do-it-yourself tools.  And engagement with others who are experiencing similar conditions is included in the S2S initiative.

Gionfriddo concluded as follows.

“S2S will use digital and other resources to help people in need onto pathways to recovery.  The reason is simple — because this is what 1.7 million screeners have asked from us. They want help, and we want to respond. This officially may be Mental Illness Awareness Week, but for us and for so many Americans, every day is Mental Health Day.  We need to address mental illness in this country Before Stage 4.”

Mental Health Screening Tools

In conclusion, one of the quickest and easiest ways to determine whether you are experiencing symptoms of a mental health condition is to use the mental health screening tools provided by Mental Health America.

Mental health conditions, like depression or anxiety, are real — they’re common and treatable. However, recovery is also possible.

Finally, following a screening, information, resources and tools are provided for you.  In addition, you can also discuss the screening results with your doctor or healthcare provider.

Staggering New Data Shows Serious Depression Epidemic in America

Junk food shortening lives of children worldwide, data shows

Junk food and sugary drinks are taking an enormous toll on children around the world, with soaring numbers who are obese and millions developing conditions such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure previously seen only in adults, data has revealed.

Children were facing crippling illnesses and shortened lives because of the spread of the heavily marketed fast-food culture, experts said, and health services around the world would struggle to cope. They predicted that the UN target to stop the rise of childhood obesity by 2025 would be missed.

Among the countries facing the worst scenarios were Egypt – where more than a third (35.5%_ of children aged five to 17 were overweight or obese in 2013 – Greece (31.4%), Saudi Arabia (30.5%), the United States (29.3%), Mexico (28.9%) and the UK (27.7%).

More than 3.5 million children now had type 2 diabetes, which was once unknown in this age group and can lead to horrible complications in later life, such as amputations and blindness. The World Obesity Federation, which compiled the data, predicted that number would rise to 4.1 million by 2025.

About 13.5 million children have impaired glucose tolerance, which is a precursor to diabetes. Around 24 million have high blood pressure and more than 33 million have fatty liver disease as a result of obesity, which is more often associated with alcoholism and can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer.

If anything, the experts said, the figures were an under-estimate because they were based on the numbers of obese children, and some who were classified as overweight would also have the diseases.

The figures are alarming for rich and poor countries alike, signalling soaring medical bills to treat the coming epidemic of disease. But the WOF experts who compiled the data said that, while rich countries were struggling, poorer countries were ill-equipped to cope.

Child obesity incidences

“These forecasts should sound an alarm bell for health service managers and health professionals,” said Tim Lobstein, policy director of the World Obesity Federation. “They will have to deal with this rising tide of ill health following the obesity epidemic.

“In a sense we hope these forecasts are wrong: they assume current trends continue but we are urging governments to take strong measures to reduce childhood obesity, and meet their agreed target of getting the levels of childhood obesity down to 2010 levels before we get to 2025.”

By 2025, say the experts whose findings are published in the journal Pediatric Obesity, 49 million more children will be obese or overweight than in 2010, the year from which the UN said there should be no further increase in obesity – a total of 268 million worldwide. By then, 91 million of these children will be obese.

Lobstein, one of the authors of the paper published ahead of World Obesity Day next Tuesday , said the food children are now eating is at the heart of the problem and that in poor countries, obesity and stunting go hand in hand.

“We find that the large majority of children suffering excess bodyweight are in low- and middle-income countries. Following the recent evidence from the World Bank on the continuing high levels of stunting in children in underdeveloped regions of the world, it is obvious that something is severely wrong with the way our food supplies are developing,” said Lobstein.

“You cannot replace contaminated water with Coca-Cola or Chocolate Nesquik, or a lack of good meals with a pack of fortified noodles, and still expect children to grow healthily. Breastfeeding is rapidly giving way to infant formula in large areas of Asia where markets have tripled in value in a decade – an area where we have seen some of the most rapid increases in overweight and obesity.

“Stunting and obesity are part of a continuum of poor nutrition, and can be found together in the same communities, the same families, and even the same individual children. Health is a key factor in sustainable development, and healthy food supplies are essential for economic development. Healthy food supplies are also a basic human right for this and the next generation.”

In the past 10 years, consumption of sugary drinks worldwide increased by a third. More than half of the world’s population now live in urban environments, while 80% of young people aged 11-17 fail to get sufficient physical activity.

The President of the World Obesity Federation, Professor Ian Caterson called for governments to take tough regulatory action to stop junk food companies targeting children.

“The obesity epidemic has reached virtually every country in the world, and overweight and obesity levels are continuing to rise in most places,” he said. “Common risk factors, such as soft drink consumption and sedentary environments, have increased. Fast food advertising continues to really influence food choices and what is eaten, and increasing numbers of families live in urban environments without access to space to exercise or time to exercise.

“If governments hope to achieve the WHO target of keeping child obesity at 2010 levels, then the time to act is now. Governments can take a number of actions to help prevent obesity, including introducing tough regulations to protect children from the marketing of unhealthy food, ensuring schools promote healthy eating and physical activity, strengthening planning and building rules to provide safe neighbourhoods, and monitoring the impact of these policies.”

Additional reporting by Pamela Duncan

Junk food shortening lives of children worldwide, data shows

After Sifting Through The Data The Verdict Is: Eat Real Food

After Sifting Through The Data The Verdict Is: Eat Real Food

Shaping mental health support through data

If you’re experiencing a mental health issue, one of the people you probably least want to speak to about it is your employer. Disclosing depression or anxiety has long been seen as the last workplace taboo, for fear of repercussions. This is despite the existence of the Equality Act 2010, which protects employees with physical and mental disabilities from discrimination.

But just over a third of workers with a mental health condition discuss it with their employer, according to a survey of 1,388 employees carried out by Willis PMI Group, one of the UK’s largest providers of employee healthcare and risk management services. The research found that 30% of respondents were concerned that they wouldn’t receive adequate support, 28% believed their employer wouldn’t understand, and 23% feared that disclosing it would lead to management thinking less of them.

A culture of fear and silence can have a huge impact on productivity – the charity Mind estimates [pdf] that mental ill health costs the economy £70bn a year. The challenge is that seeking help involves taking ownership of the problem, says Mark Brown, development director of social enterprise Social Spider and founder of the now defunct mental health and wellbeing magazine One in Four. And finding support online can be a time-consuming and frustrating experience.

“Just serving up ever great slabs of information – the internet is awash with it – isn’t going to help anyone to know what to do,” says Brown. “We often confuse the provision of information with the solving of problems. Knowing information is different from knowing how to put that information into action.”

Brown believes that bringing together information with public and open data into a single digital space is one way that could innovate how advice is delivered.

Plexus is aiming to achieve just this. Built by the digital studio M/A, with funding from the Open Data Institute, the knowledge base is being used to design resources for people with mental health conditions, their families, and even employers, to find support available in local areas, seek advice on how best to cope with returning to work after a period off and understand employee rights and employer responsibilities.

Plexus has pooled data from a couple of dozen organisations including NHS Choices, Department for Work and Pensions, the Office for National Statistics and Citizens Advice. In some cases the information has been pulled from APIs; in other instances it has been scraped using web data platform import.io.

The first tool Plexus developed is a chatbot called Grace, which is currently in beta testing. It enables users to record thoughts and feelings anonymously, receive feedback in the form of a newsletter and log in to an online dashboard to see a more detailed analysis, including whether there are any patterns in mood emerging over a period of time. The tool also offers guidance from the various governmental and charity websites under easy-to-navigate sections, such as legal rights and preparing for work.

“Through machine learning, Grace will intuitively know when our users are mostly likely to want to speak with us, be able to see the positive and negative nature of the user’s reply, and adapt the questions to encourage more positive responses,” explains Martin Vowles, creative director and co-founder of M/A. “We’re hoping this approach will allow us to offer a unique tool to each user which helps them understand and develop their mental wellbeing.”

Brown says that the potential for machine learning to tailor information and services is exciting. “It’s very good at looking at big piles of data for patterns. When we know certain things to be correct from one dataset, it can begin to make guesses about lots of other things based on what the machine is being fed.”

The sensitive nature of data being submitted by users on a platform like Grace, though, means many people are likely to be uneasy about their data being made accessible. To get round this, Plexus allows users to decide how their data is shared, with data licences lasting between 13 and 26 weeks. Vowles hopes that “as users become more trusting of Grace and what it can do for them, they’ll become more trusting with [us] using their anonymised personal data.”

Plexus aims to release a series of open datasets, including qualitative, quantitative and information on resources accessed by Grace users, to enable NGOs and local authorities to understand the country’s mental health provision. It’s hoped that they’d then use the knowledge to devise new strategies and ensure targets are met and resources and services available in local areas are of an acceptable standard.

There are also plans to make certain data available to employers, but “this has to be on the employee’s terms”. Vowles imagines that involving employers in the process of receiving support could allow them to get a clearer picture of mental health in the workplace. They could then adapt to make employees feel more comfortable and ensure their business has adequate support in place.

The potential to use open data to shape how future mental health support is delivered is an area that has been underexplored. At the end of last year, the Royal Society of Arts launched an interactive platform with Mind that allows members of the public to find out how well local health providers are looking after people with mental health conditions. The full dataset is available to download and includes data extracted from Public Health England, as well as metrics such as percentage of people with a mental health condition in employment in local areas. Plexus, however, is the first tool to use open data with the aim of providing people with a holistic view of their mental wellbeing.

Brown supports the idea of using open datasets and combine them, but stresses that any tool or platform has to benefit users. The data and information must be digestible and it needs to help them understand and take away from it what they need.

“It’s often extremely easy to forget that people with mental health difficulties are people first and foremost – not objects or problems.”

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Shaping mental health support through data

How real-time data is reducing A&E waiting times

In many trusts, the only way to find out something like how long people are waiting in accident and emergency is to phone the department and ask. “There are not many people at any one time who know what’s going on,” says Marc Farr, director of information at East Kent hospitals university NHS foundation trust. “A hospital has lots of people phoning people all day for information,” he says.

The trust has ended the need for such phone calls. It displays live average emergency waiting times, as well as the number of people waiting, at each of its four hospitals, on its website. As well as informing the public, the business intelligence system helps the trust know when to redirect emergency patients to manage demand.

Farr tells of one situation where they arranged for ambulances to be diverted from one hospital. For six hours, some ambulances that would normally have used Margate’s Queen Mother hospital went to Kent and Canterbury hospital. “You need that type of data and those types of predictions to make those kinds of decisions,” he says.

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Chris Dodgson, head of information for the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch hospitals NHS foundation trust, says that real-time information also helps meet the target for 95% of patients to be seen by emergency departments within four hours. This is often affected by other wards being full, preventing patients being moved on from an emergency bed. “You want to know roughly where your blockages are, and this is where real-time information really helps to unpick those questions.”

East Kent shares data with external organisations, including a nursing agency which it pays to support those leaving hospital to return home. “Having a data flow between us prompts us to discharge patients more quickly …”, Farr says. “Having a mobile, real-time view of how many patients they can take at any one time is really helpful.”

East Kent sells the information-sharing systems it has developed through Beautiful Information, a company jointly owned by the trust, Farr – its founder – and other individuals. Its customers in the NHS and private healthcare sectors access up-to-date data on areas such as bed usage, finance and the workforce through online systems including a smartphone app.

Providing data through smartphones means managers can react quickly, but small screens require clear and simple presentation. The information dashboards use the common traffic light code, with green indicating few problems, amber some and red a serious situation.

However, it also offers black for the worst cases and blue for measures that continually meet targets, meaning “you don’t need to keep checking up on these people,” according to Farr. Users of the system can set their own thresholds for each colour code, which he says is important in getting them to trust its warnings.

Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch, which is working on developing its own data visualisations, uses business intelligence to monitor its progress on treating strokes. The Royal College of Physicians works out a grade for hospitals based on more than 50 clinical measures every four months. The trust puts the same data into the same formula to calculate the grade as often as clinicians want to check it, allowing them to redesign the service and see improvements far faster. “The impact of that over the last few months is that if you plot our scores we’ve gone from being at the lower end up to the very top end,” says Dodgson.

The trust has just installed a Microsoft SQL 2016 data warehouse to improve its work in this area. In his previous job at Salisbury NHS foundation trust, Dodgson established a business intelligence system that greatly speeded flows of information. Demand on beds varied significantly throughout the year, so Dodgson and colleagues used three years of data to predict availability for each week. As a result, more staff were placed on-call for the weekend after New Year’s Eve: “It was a really busy weekend,” he says, adding that by publishing what actually happened as well as predictions, staff gained confidence in the accuracy of the forecasts.

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Dodgson says business intelligence can be hit by poor-quality information if staff do not have the time to collect it. This can be tackled by using data that is already being gathered for other purposes, such as patient observations.

He has also occasionally met opposition, including a consultant who didn’t like the idea that decreasing lengths of stay could lead to bed closures. He says it is vital to take all views into account: “The numbers say one thing, operationally it says something different. Where do we meet in the middle? Business intelligence from my point of view is about the beginning of a conversation, it’s not about cast-iron certainties, especially when you’re talking about service transformation and change.”

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How real-time data is reducing A&E waiting times