How long patients wait for kidney transplants often depends on where they live. But minor changes to kidney transplant allocation policies could reduce those geographic disparities, suggests a Northwestern Medicine study.

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Depression is known to be a common symptom of Parkinson’s disease, but remains untreated for many patients, according to a new study by Northwestern Medicine investigators in collaboration with the National Parkinson’s Foundation (NPF).

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The Association for Community Health Improvement is seeking proposals for its 2015 National Conference, March 4th - 6th in Dallas, Texas. "This year's theme is Building the Next Generation of Healthy Communities. The conference will feature presentations that share successful case examples and practical tools and skills in areas including building: health-promoting hospitals and care systems, healthy policies and environments, healthy and impactful partnerships, a community health workforce and leaders, tools to measure community health impact, healthy and sustainable funding sources, and healthy populations. 

For more information. 

Proposals are due Friday, September 26th.

The rates of hospitalizations and deaths from heart disease and stroke in the U.S. have declined dramatically in the past two decades, a new study has found. Researchers looked at the medical records of nearly 34 million people ages 65 or older who had been hospitalized for various conditions between 1999 and 2011, and found that the rate of hospitalization for heart attack, heart failure and stroke declined by about 30 to 40 percent over this time. This decline was more rapid than what was seen in other conditions. (Fox News) Read more...

Depression, dental problems, difficulty buying groceries among most common reasons, study finds.

Yet certain types of lung malignancies are still on the rise.

Research in Southern California VA system points to lack of primary care doctor as one factor.

MONDAY, Aug. 11, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Colon cancer screening rates for black patients in a Veterans Affairs health care system in California are much lower compared to other races, even though all patients have similar access to care, according to a new study. Read more...   

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report on the cost-effectiveness and/or cost savings of preventive services and whether or not the service had been recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.  In doing so, GAO "conducted a literature review of articles about U.S. preventive services in meta-analyses or comparative studies in peer-reviewed journals published between January 2007 and April 2014 that addressed cost-effectiveness or cost savings."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its partners have released the 2014 National Preparedness Report (NPR) .  "The NPR is an annual status report on the nation's progress toward reaching the National Preparedness Goal of a secure and resilient nation.  Overall, the NPR found the nation continues to make progress building preparedness in key areas and identifies several areas of sustainment. The report also identified areas for national improvement in building resilience and reducing long-term vulnerability.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans can last for decades, according to a new study that looked at Americans who served in the Vietnam War.

Researchers found that most of the 11 percent of veterans who had PTSD a decade or more after that war showed little improvement since then, The New York Times reported.

More than 18 percent of Vietnam veterans with PTSD had died by retirement age, a rate about twice that of those without the disorder, according to the study to be presented Friday at an American Psychological Association meeting.

Vietnam veterans especially likely to develop PTSD included members of minorities who enlisted before completing high school, and those who had killed multiple times in combat, The Times reported.

The researchers said their findings from the Department of Veterans Affairs-funded study have implications for the United States as it deals with veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This study shows us what the road ahead is going to look like," Dr. Charles Marmar, one of the study authors and chairman of psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center and director of the NYU Cohen Veterans Center, told The Times.

"A significant number of veterans are going to have PTSD for a lifetime unless we do something radically different," he said. (Health Day News)