METHODS FOR CONTROLLING SOME HAZARDS

Respiratory hazards—can be of two general types: air contamination or oxygen deficiency. When an air contaminant such as asbestos dust is present, the actual concentration must be measured. With asbestos, as with many other types of air contaminants, engineering controls should be applied first to correct the problem.     

S-PLUS FOR WINDOWS统计软件包简介

S-PLUS（或S＋）是由前美国贝尔实验室（AT＆T Bell Labs）（现为Lucent Technologies）创始,用S语言研发而成,专用于数据探索、数据统计和编程建模、并提供丰富的面向对象设计环境进行交互式开发、数据挖掘功能的软件包.     

IS THE MEDICAL LOSS RATIO A GOOD TARGET MEASURE FOR REGULATION IN THE INDIVIDUAL MARKET FOR HEALTH INSURANCE?

Effective January 1, 2011, individual market health insurers must meet a minimum medical loss ratio (MLR) of 80%. This law aims to encourage ‘productive’ forms of competition by increasing the proportion of premium dollars spent on clinical benefits. To date, very little is known about the performance of firms in the individual health insurance market, including how MLRs are related to insurer and market characteristics. The MLR comprises one component of the price–cost margin, a traditional gauge of market power; the other component is percent of premiums spent on administrative expenses. We use data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (2001–2009) to evaluate whether the MLR is a good target measure for regulation by comparing the two components of the price–cost margin between markets that are more competitive versus those that are not, accounting for firm and market characteristics. We find that insurers with monopoly power have lower MLRs. Moreover, we find no evidence suggesting that insurers' administrative expenses are lower in more concentrated insurance markets. Thus, our results are largely consistent with the interpretation that the MLR could serve as a target measure of market power in regulating the individual market for health insurance but with notable limited ability to capture product and firm heterogeneity. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A PILOT STUDY OF AN ALCOHOL EDUCATION COURSE FOR YOUNG WOMEN OFFENDERS: WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE?

Although the provision of Alcohol Education Courses (AECs) formale offenders has increased steadily in the last 10 years,treatment interventions for women have continued to be neglectedand under-researched. An Alcohol Education Course designed forwomen offenders was piloted in a prison. This report outlinesthe content of the course and the rationale for its development.Facilitatory and oppositional factors experienced in conductingwork in this setting are discussed. Application of this workis limited to female offenders aged 17–24 with drink-relatedoffending. This pilot study awaits replication in non-institutionalsettings.     

MODELS FOR DIAGNOSING CHEST PAIN: IS CART HELPFUL?

The use of classification and regression tree (CART) methodology is explored for the diagnosis of patients complaining of anterior chest pain. The results are compared with those previously obtained using correspondence analysis and independent Bayes classification. The technique is shown to be of potential value for identifying important indicators and cutpoints for continuous variables, although the overall classification performance was rather disappointing. Suggestions are made for extensions to the methodology to make it more suitable for clinical practice. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR PUBLIC HEALTH, SHANGHAI 2007 Second announcement

Conference Time and Venue 1.Registration Time Dec 11,2007;Scientific Program Dec 12-14,2007 2.Venue Skyway Landis Hotel,Shanghai Address:15 Dapu Road,Luwan District,Shanghai;Zip Code:200023; Tel:86-21-33189988,Fax:86-21-53010000;Homepage:http://www.skywaylandis.com     

18~(th) INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF NUTRITION NUTRITION SAFARI FOR INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS

19-23 Septemder 2005,Durban,South Africa Outline of the ProgrammeⅠ. Prenary lectures 1. Nutrition and HIV/AIDS 2. Nutrition and long term health 3. Global strategy to prevent non-communicable diseases(NCD) 4. Econutrition 5. Evidence-based nutrition 6. N…     

IS THERE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR DECREASING RETURNS TO SCALE IN A HEALTH CAPITAL MODEL?

We estimate a health investment equation, derived from a health capital model that is an extension of the well-known Grossman model. Of particular interest is whether the health production function has constant returns to scale, as in the standard Grossman model, or decreasing returns to scale, as in the Ehrlich-Chuma model and extensions thereof. The model with decreasing returns to scale has a number of theoretically and empirically desirable characteristics that the constant returns model does not have. Although our empirical equation does not point-identify the decreasing returns to scale curvature parameter, it does allow us to test for constant versus decreasing returns to scale. The results are suggestive of decreasing returns and in line with prior estimates from the literature. But when we attempt to control for the endogeneity of health by using instrumental variables, the results become inconclusive. This brings into question the robustness of prior estimates in this literature.