|
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 In Cesarean Section Birth Rates
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Women over forty who give birth
for the first time have a higher rate of cesarean
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 cesarean section and
this could be part of the cause for the increase in
cesarean section rate.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
|
