Mr Epidemiology

Editorial note: This piece was co-written by Atif Kukaswadia, PhD, and Ary Maharaj, M.Ed. Atif is a writer for the Public Health Perspectives blog on the PLOS network, and Ary is a writer for Silver Seven, an SBNation blog about the Ottawa Senators hockey team. This piece is being cross-published on both platforms. Enjoy!

CHALLENGES

The environment within NHL clubs are relatively controlled, with most players together a majority of the time — from on-ice, rooming together on the road, and flying with charter planes. Thus, when one player contracts the illness, it’s relatively hard to contain it other than by separating a player out completely. But with mumps having a long incubation period of about 16 to 18 days, although it can be as short as 12 to as long as 25 days (CDC), detecting that an illness is in fact the mumps can be difficult, and by that point, it may already be too late. However, for the public, this controlled environment means that what happens in the NHL may not necessarily pose greater risk. When things go wrong in sports, we generally blame it on the referees, and here, yet again, we can blame referees for increasing the public risk of an NHL mumps outbreak (sort of kidding). The ~66 referees employed by the NHL fly commercially like the rest of the public, waiting around airport terminals and going in-and-out of rinks with the public, potentially leading to increased risk.

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A series published in The Lancet recently investigated the effect of income inequality on the health of Americans. While incomes for those in the top have grown, extreme poverty has also grown in the US. In fact, more than 1.6 million households in the US survive on less than $2 per day; a number double that of the 1990s. The cycle is not likely to be broken either, barring major social change. Differences in aspects ranging from zoning laws, access and quality of education, and inheritance laws continue these inequalities through generations, making it more difficult to rise out of poverty.

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When someone has a heart attack, every minute counts. The American Heart Institute guidelines say that for every minute, the chances of a victim surviving decrease by 7 to 10 percent. To help save lives, Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) have become more and more ubiquitous, and now can be found in many different locations, including coffee shops, banks, malls, and sports complexes. When placing these devices though, a few issues need to be considered, including hours of operation, proximity of other AEDs, and being in high-traffic areas. To help inform these decisions, researchers from the University of Toronto recently conducted a very interesting study.

Using data on cardiac arrests that occurred outside of hospitals in Toronto from January 2007 to December 2015, they were able to place them on a map. They then identified businesses and municipal offices with at least 20 locations from sources such as the Yellow Pages, along with their hours of operation and geographic coordinates. For each site, they mapped the number of cardiac arrests that occurred within 100 m to identify which locations would be able to save the most lives. As a final test of these locations, they then looked at how the locations fared over time; determining if the locations relatively stable or if the AEDs have to be moved every year to continue to be effective.

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I used to bike to work every day in grad school. I lived around 2km away from the hospital I was based at (~ 1.24 miles), so biking was just the most efficient way to get to work every morning. One sunny July morning though, it all came crashing down. I was biking in, following the same route I’d taken literally hundreds of time before. And a pedestrian (with headphones in, oblivious to the world) walked out in front of me. I swerved to avoid them, hit the curb and then flew off my bike.

I don’t remember the next 15 seconds or so. I remember avoiding the pedestrian, losing control, and then the next thing I remember is being flat on my back. I then sat up and remember thinking that my left arm felt funny. I reached over and pulled it onto my lap, and then realized I was in trouble. The fact it was bent in ways it should never be bent in was one indication, the other was the shard of bone sticking out. A bystander yelled “Hey! Are you okay?” to which I replied “CALL AN AMBULANCE! MY INSIDES ARE OUTSIDE!!” (I’m quite proud of broken me for saying that)

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Readers of the blog will know that I successfully defended my PhD in March. Today, I want to share some thoughts I have on the process for those considering a PhD and for those in the PhD.

Deciding if you want to do PhD is an important decision, and not one that should be taken lightly. I get a lot of people asking me whether they should do a PhD, and whether my thoughts have changed since I started. After four and a bit years, I have lots of thoughts. However, if I was to group them, they’d fall into two major categories: those considering a PhD, and those in the PhD.

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As 2013 comes to an end, it’s a time for reflection and thought about the last year, and look towards to the future. 2013 was quite the year in science, with impressive discoveries and wide reaching events. I’ve selected my five favourite science stories below, but I welcome your thoughts and would love to hear your thoughts on the top science stories of 2013.

GoldieBlox and Diversity in Science
This isn’t a new issue by any stretch, but it is one of the most important issues facing science (and higher education in general). Diversity in science is essential for a number of reasons, but perhaps most importantly, it gives us different perspectives on problems, and thus, new and novel solutions. Within the scientific establishment, there have been many stories about discrimination and inappropriate conduct (see SciCurious’ excellent series of posts on the matter, including posts by friends of the blog @RimRK and @AmasianV), and, unfortunately there are no easy solutions.

Perhaps the biggest diversity-related story this year was GoldieBlox. While initially this started as a media darling (who didn’t love the video?), further examination revealed deep-set problems in how they chose to approach the issue of gender representation in STEM disciplines.

There is a lot of change required to reach equality in science careers and to ensure that people are judged and given opportunities based on their work, not their privilege. Lets hope that in 2014 we can start the ball rolling on that change.

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