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A.
Managed Care Is Not Always Best For Preventive Services
Narrator:
This is Science Today. If you're enrolled in a managed
care health plan, you may think you have better
access to preventive services like disease screenings
or immunizations than in non-managed plans. In fact,
studies in the past have said as much - but new
research from the University of California, San
Francisco, has found this may not be the case. Kathryn
Phillips, lead author of the latest study, says
that's because managed care has changed dramatically
over the last decade.
Phillips: What we found overall is that we
really don't know whether managed care plans do
or do not provide more preventive services than
fee for service plans.
Narrator: That's because there's no longer
just one type of managed care health plan, so Phillips
recommends better consumer awareness.
Phillips: Consumers should know what type
of plan they're in, what types of benefits they
provide, how well their plan scores relative to
other plans in terms of providing preventive services
that are recommended.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa
Branin.
B.
A Simple Way to Reduce the Risk of Surgical Infection
Narrator:
This is Science Today. A new study has found that
boosting up the oxygen during surgical procedures
can cut a patient's risk of post-operative infection
in half. Lead author Dr. Daniel Sessler, a professor
of anesthesia at the University of California, San
Francisco, says white blood cells called neutrophils
need oxygen to kill the bacteria that cause infection.
Sessler: The killing actually uses oxygen.
It takes oxygen and turns it into something called
a free radical, which is actually a poisonous substance,
which is then injected into the bacteria to kill them.
The speed of this process depends on the amount of
oxygen in the tissues.
Narrator: All it takes during surgery is turning
two knobs up and supplying the patient with about
three cents worth more oxygen.
Sessler: Most patients do not get infected
after surgery. Surgical infections are relatively
rare, but they are very serious, very expensive complications.
So, decreasing the incidence of this complication
is well worth doing.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Committing to the Future of our Kids
Narrator: This is Science Today. As working
parents of ten to twelve year-old kids are finding
out, there's a lack of after-school programs for middle-school
aged children. Rivka Polatnick, a research sociologist
at the University of California, Berkeley studied
this trend and says many kids are home alone at a
very vulnerable time in their lives.
Polatnick: There's a lot of peer pressure.
Middle school is probably the worst time in a kid's
life in terms of peer pressure and wanting to look
cool. So, suddenly there's a lot of pressure to act
real grown up and be cool.
Narrator: Polatnick says this lack of supervision
could lead preteens down the wrong path through adolescence.
Polatnick: The most important thing right now
is to recognize that kids need support beyond age
ten when they leave elementary school. Kids still
need a lot of support in the way of supportive, enriching
after-school activities and that we need to commit
resources to that. We've got to be able to commit
to the future of our kids.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
How Astronomers Detect Extrasolar Planets
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Our sun contains nine planets
and scientists have long wondered whether or not other
stars in the night sky might also harbor planets similar
to our own. Geoff Marcy, a professor of astronomy
at the University of California, Berkeley, says there's
been an ongoing search for many years now to find
extrasolar planets.
Marcy: You can't actually see directly the
planet orbiting another star - the glare from the
star is just too bright to see the little tiny dot
of light that would be the planet. So instead, what
we do is we watch the stars to see if they move in
space - wobble around and around.
Narrator: That would indicate a gravitational
tug from the orbiting planet. But Marcy recently witnessed
one of these planets cross in front of its star, causing
it to dim.
Marcy: We've always known that there was a
chance that if you're lucky, the orbital plane of
the motion of the planet would take the planet right
in front of the star - just by luck. And so the transit
of the planet actually happened just as we had imaged
and always hoped.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
How Anxiety Can Factor into C-section Birth Rates
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Women over forty who give birth
for the first time have a higher rate of caesarian
sections than first-time mothers half their age. Dr.
William Gilbert of the University of California, Davis
found this was largely due to the higher risk of pregnancy
complications in older women. But Gilbert says other
possible factors their study did not cover are maternal
and physician anxiety levels.
Gilbert:
Obviously if you're a woman having a first child over
forty and you either paid the money with infertility
drugs to get pregnant or you were pregnant spontaneously,
this is what we would call a premium, quote/unquote,
pregnancy. We actually think all pregnancies are premium
but if you're twenty-two and you have a miscarriage,
you still have time where if you're forty-two, you're
chance of getting pregnant is even less and less.
Narrator: This may cause anxiety amongst health
care providers and lead to delivering a patient earlier
than normal.
Gilbert: By delivering earlier, they may have
an increased risk of induction or outright caesarian
section and this could be part of the cause for the
increase in caesarian section rate.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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