Fracture risk and antiresorptive medication use in older women in the USA.

UNLABELLED: Risk of fragility fractures in older women appears to be under-recognized and under treated. Analysis of a national sample of older US women reveals that over 5 million are at high risk of fracture; only one third of these report being told they have osteoporosis and one quarter are receiving appropriate treatment. INTRODUCTION: Substantial numbers of older women in the United States suffer fragility fractures each year. Although risk for these fractures can be readily identified from clinical characteristics, many women may not be receiving treatments demonstrated to reduce risk. Our objective was to estimate the extent of fracture risk among older white US women and assess patterns of use of pharmacologic agents in response to that risk. METHODS: Cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 were combined to enumerate risk factors for fracture and use of antiresorptive prescription medications for all white women 65 years of age and older. The FRACTURE Index (FI), developed from the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF), which combines subjects' characteristics to estimate five-year fracture risk, was applied to these national data. RESULTS: Of more than 15 million US women in this age group almost 40% have one risk factor in addition to age that predisposes to fracture; 20% have two or more. More than 5 million women are in the highest category of FI risk; 26% of these will have a nonvertebral fracture and 10% will have a vertebral fracture in the next five years. Antiresorptive medications are being taken by less than 50% of women in most risk categories when all antiresorptives, including estrogen replacement, are included; only 17% of older women who have sustained a prior fracture and 13% in the highest category of FI risk are receiving agents specifically intended to reduce bone loss. CONCLUSIONS: Millions of older US women are at high risk for fragility fractures. Levels of treatment with antiresorptive medications are low and are not commensurate with fracture risk.

Trends in hospital care for hip fractures.

UNLABELLED: To assess the impact of the aging population on the occurrence of fragility fractures, we examined hospital discharges for hip fracture among U.S. women and men aged 45 years and older from 1993 through to 2003. The number of hospitalizations declined by 5%, and age-adjusted rates fell by over 20% for both women and men during this period. INTRODUCTION: Although the aging of the population should mean an increasing burden of fragility fractures, several recently published reports suggest regional declines in the incidence of hip fracture. We investigated trends in hospital discharges and utilization for hip fractures across the USA from 1993 to 2003. METHODS: Hospital discharges from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 1993 through to 2003 were analyzed for numbers of primary diagnosis of hip fracture and associated average length of stay (LOS) and charges among women and men aged 45 years and older. Age-specific rates were constructed using national census data. RESULTS: Over the 11-year study period the number of hospitalizations for hip fractures decreased by 5%, from 296,000 to 281,000. The numbers of discharges declined by 16,600 (7.4%) for women and increased by 1900 (2.6%) among men. However, age-adjusted rates for both women and men fell by about 20%. Average hospital LOS was reduced by about 35% for both sexes, resulting in decreases in days of care of 42 and 33% for women and men, respectively. At the same time, average inflation-adjusted charges for each hospitalization grew by 35% for women and 38% for men, and increasing proportions of patients were discharged to continuing institutional care. During the study interval the total number of prescriptions per year for bisphosphonate anti-resorptive agents grew from under 0.5 to 30 million. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the increasing size of the older segment of the U.S. population, hospitalizations for hip fractures are not increasing. With declining lengths of stay there has been a reduced demand on hospital resources, although with average charges per hospitalization rising and more patients being discharged to other institutions for continuing care the economic consequences of hip fracture continue to increase.

The effects of a health promotion-health protection intervention on behavior change: the WellWorks Study.

OBJECTIVES: This study assessed the effects of a 2-year integrated health promotion-health protection work-site intervention on changes in dietary habits and cigarette smoking. METHODS: A randomized, controlled intervention study used the work site as the unit of intervention and analysis; it included 24 predominantly manufacturing work sites in Massachusetts (250-2500 workers per site). Behaviors were assessed in self-administered surveys (n = 2386; completion rates = 61% at baseline, 62% at final). Three key intervention elements targeted health behavior change: (1) joint worker-management participation in program planning and implementation, (2) consultation with management on work-site environmental changes, and (3) health education programs. RESULTS: Significant differences between intervention and control work sites included reductions in the percentage of calories consumed as fat (2.3% vs 1.5% kcal) and increases in servings of fruit and vegetables (10% vs 4% increase). The intervention had a significant effect on fiber consumption among skilled and unskilled laborers. No significant effects were observed for smoking cessation. CONCLUSIONS: Although the size of the effects of this intervention are modest, on a populationwide basis effects of this size could have a large impact on cancer-related and coronary heart disease end points.

Underusers of mammogram screening: stage of adoption in five U.S. subpopulations. The NCI Breast Cancer Screening Consortium.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this report is to describe the characteristics of women ages 50 to 80 who do not follow commonly accepted mammography screening guidelines. It provides unique understanding of the robustness of characteristics of underusers across five different U.S. subpopulations. METHODS: The data are from the baseline surveys of the five studies of the NCI Breast Cancer Screening Consortium. Stage of adoption of mammography screening and other characteristics of underusers are presented. Polytomous logistic regression analysis was used to explore multivariable associations with stage of adoption in each study site. RESULTS: The five samples studied by the Consortium range in size from 259 to 4,477 women (n = 11,292). The relationship of the perceptions of the pros and cons of mammography with stage of adoption was strikingly similar across the five samples. Other variables consistently associated with stage were a recent receipt of a breast physical examination and recommendation for mammography by a physician. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest a need to encourage regular screening through effective communication from a health care provider. Intervention messages should be designed to increase the pros of mammography, decrease the cons, and highlight these differentially according to the woman's stage of adoption.

Double jeopardy: workplace hazards and behavioral risks for craftspersons and laborers.

PURPOSE: To address three specific questions in a sample of craftspersons and laborers: (1) Do craftspersons and laborers exposed to workplace hazards have higher behavioral risks, such as smoking and high-fat diets, than those with few job risks? (2) Compared to workers with few job risks, do workers exposed to risks on the job have higher intentions to reduce their behavioral risks? (3) Does concern about the level of exposure to risks on the job increase workers' intentions to reduce behavioral risks? DESIGN: A cross-sectional self-administered survey was conducted in participating worksites. SETTING: Twenty-two predominantly manufacturing worksites in Massachusetts. SUBJECTS: Craftspersons and laborers responding to the survey and employed in these 22 worksites (completion rate = 61%, N = 1841). MEASURES: By using standardized items, this survey measured self-reported exposure to workplace hazards, concern about job exposures, smoking status, fat and fiber intake, readiness to quit smoking, plans to reduce fat intake, plans to eat more fruits and vegetables, and sociodemographic variables. RESULTS: Workers reporting exposure to chemical hazards on the job were significantly more likely to be smokers than were unexposed workers, even when results were controlled for gender. Compared with unexposed workers, smokers exposed to chemical hazards were significantly more likely to be thinking of quitting or taking action to quit, when results were controlled for gender, race, and education. Among workers exposed to occupational chemical hazards, concern about this exposure was significantly associated with intentions to decrease fat intake and increase fruit and vegetable intake, and, among men, intentions to quit smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Efforts aimed at integrating health promotion and health protection are needed to address simultaneously the job risks and personal risks these workers face.

Mortality probability models for patients in the intensive care unit for 48 or 72 hours: a prospective, multicenter study.

OBJECTIVE: To develop models in the Mortality Probability Model (MPM II) system to estimate the probability of hospital mortality at 48 and 72 hrs in the intensive care unit (ICU), and to test whether the 24-hr Mortality Probability Model (MPM24), developed for use at 24 hrs in the ICU, can be used on a daily basis beyond 24 hrs. DESIGN: A prospective, multicenter study to develop and validate models, using a cohort of consecutive admissions. SETTING: Six adult medical and surgical ICUs in Massachusetts and New York adjusted to reflect 137 ICUs in 12 countries. PATIENTS: Consecutive admissions (n = 6,290) to the Massachusetts/New York ICUs were studied. Of these patients, 3,023 and 2,233 patients remained in the ICU and had complete data at 48 and 72 hrs, respectively. Patients < 18 yrs of age, burn patients, coronary care patients, and cardiac surgical patients were excluded. OUTCOME MEASURE: Vital status at the time of hospital discharge. RESULTS: The models consist of five variables measured at the time of ICU admission and eight variables ascertained at 24-hr intervals. The 24-hr model demonstrated poor calibration and discrimination at 48 and 72 hrs. The newly developed 48- and 72-hr models--MPM48 and MPM72--contain the same 13 variables and coefficients as the MPM24. The models differ only in their constant terms, which increase in a manner that reflects the increasing probability of mortality with increasing length of stay in the ICU. These constant terms were adjusted by a factor determined from the relationship between the data from the six Massachusetts and New York ICUs and a more extensive data set, from which the ICU admission Mortality Probability Model (MPM0) and MPM24 were developed. This latter data set was assembled from ICUs in 12 countries. The MPM48 and MPM72 calibrated and discriminated well, based on goodness-of-fit tests and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. CONCLUSIONS: Models developed for use among ICU patients at one time period are not transferable without modification to other time periods. The MPM48 and MPM72 calibrated well to their respective time periods, and they are intended for use at specific points in time. The increasing constant terms and associated increase in the probability of hospital mortality exemplify a common clinical adage that if a patient's clinical profile stays the same, he or she is actually getting worse.

Mortality Probability Models (MPM II) based on an international cohort of intensive care unit patients.

OBJECTIVE: To revise and update models in the Mortality Probability Model (MPM II) system to estimate the probability of hospital mortality among 19,124 intensive care unit (ICU) patients that can be used for quality assessment within and among ICUs. DESIGN AND SETTING: Models developed and validated on consecutive admissions to adult medical and surgical ICUs in 12 countries. PATIENTS: A total of 12,610 patients for model development, 6514 patients for model validation. Patients younger than 18 years and burn, coronary care, and cardiac surgery patients were excluded. OUTCOME MEASURE: Vital status at hospital discharge. RESULTS: The admission model, MPM0, contains 15 readily obtainable variables. In developmental and validation samples it calibrated well (goodness-of-fit tests: P = .623 and P = .327, respectively, where a high P value represents good fit between observed and expected values) and discriminated well (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.837 and 0.824, respectively). The 24-hour model, MPM24 (developed on 10,357 patients still in the ICU at 24 hours), contains five of the admission variables and eight additional variables easily ascertained at 24 hours. It also calibrated well (P = .764 and P = .231 in the developmental and validation samples, respectively) and discriminated well (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = 0.844 and 0.836 in the developmental and validation samples, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Among severity systems for intensive care patients, the MPM0 is the only model available for use at ICU admission. Both MPM0 and MPM24 are useful research tools and provide important clinical information when used alone or together.

Explaining variability of cost using a severity-of-illness measure for ICU patients.

Factors related to hospital resource use by intensive care unit (ICU) patients, including severity of illness at admission and intensity of therapy during the first 24 ICU hours were explored in this study. Analysis was based on 2,749 patients admitted to the general medical-surgical ICU at Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Massachusetts, between February 1, 1983 and January 10, 1985. Resource use was indexed by hospital length of stay (LOS) adjusted for differences between ICU and other hospital days. Severity of illness was measured by the Mortality Prediction Model (MPM0), a validated predictor of outcome but not previously used to analyze resource consumption. Intensity of therapy was measured using the Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS). The 10% of patients with longest ICU stays were significantly different from the other 90% with respect to previous ICU use, MPM probability, and TISS score. Variability in resource use was analyzed using four diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) accounting for large numbers of ICU patients. The relationship between severity of illness and resource was nonlinear: as severity increased from low levels, resource use increased at a decreasing rate, reached a plateau, and eventually declined. Within each DRG, MPM0 explained a statistically significant percentage of the variability in resource use.

Intensive care unit patient follow-up. Mortality, functional status, and return to work at six months.

Six months after hospital discharge, we followed up 1545 patients who had received care in the general medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) of a tertiary care hospital. Vital status could not be ascertained for 200 of these patients. Of the 1345 former ICU patients for whom a determination of vital status could be made, 1261 (94%) were alive and 84 (6%) had died. Of those known to be living, 887 (70%) responded to a questionnaire regarding employment, functional, and social status. A large proportion of survivors less than 40 years of age had returned to work. Younger patients admitted to the hospital for elective surgery reported as much compromise of physical and psychological activity as did older patients admitted for emergency reasons. Older survivors reported an increase of interaction with family members and a decrease of social interaction with those other than family.

Refining intensive care unit outcome prediction by using changing probabilities of mortality.

Estimating prognosis is potentially useful as a measure of ICU performance and as a guide for the clinical care of individual patients. In this study, mortality prediction models (MPMs) for patients in an adult general medical-surgical ICU were derived from data gathered at ICU admission and after 24 and 48 h of ICU care. A predictive model was developed which incorporated a sequence of probabilities collected over time in the ICU. The results of this study suggest that using serial observations may enhance substantially the usefulness of the MPM as a vehicle for helping families anticipate the patients' likely outcome.

A comparison of methods to predict mortality of intensive care unit patients.

This paper presents results of the first study explicitly designed to compare three methods for predicting hospital mortality of ICU patients: the Acute Physiology Score (APS), the Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS), and the Mortality Prediction Model (MPM). With respect to sensitivity, specificity, and total correct classification rates, these methods performed comparably on a cohort of 1,997 consecutive ICU admissions. In these patients from a single hospital, the APS overestimated and the SAPS underestimated the probability of hospital mortality. The MPM probabilities most closely matched the observed outcomes. Each method holds considerable promise for assessing the severity of illness of critically ill patients. The MPM should be particularly useful for comparing ICU performance, since it is independent of ICU treatment and can be calculated at the time a patient is admitted.

Validation of the mortality prediction model for ICU patients.

We tested recently developed admission and 24-h models of hospital mortality on 1,997 consecutive admissions to a general medical/surgical ICU. This study population was independent of the group used to develop the models. The admission prediction model estimated each patient's probability of hospital mortality based on seven routinely collected admission variables. The 24-h model utilized seven variables routinely available at 24 h in the ICU. The admission model accurately described the mortality experience of the new cohort, while the 24-h model did not. Advantages of the admission model are that it is evaluable at the time of ICU admission, is independent of ICU treatment, and can be used to stratify patients by severity of illness, thereby making ICU comparisons possible. Its excellent goodness-of-fit, correct classification rate, sensitivity, and specificity suggest that this model is now ready for multihospital testing.

Applications of microcomputer spreadsheet packages as adjuncts to multiple logistic regression analysis.

This paper illustrates how a microcomputer spreadsheet package can be used by epidemiologists to facilitate the computation of multiple logistic regression (MLR) probabilities, as well as odds ratios and associated confidence intervals, given the coefficients of the MLR model. By formatting a spreadsheet, data entry is greatly simplified, and computations are accomplished without any arithmetic manipulations on the part of the user. This approach makes it feasible for clerical support staff to assist in the computation of seemingly complex expressions. The increasing availability of microcomputers in clinical and research settings suggests that numerous analytic applications are amenable to this approach, thereby decreasing reliance on mainframe computers and desk-top calculators.

A method for predicting survival and mortality of ICU patients using objectively derived weights.

Data at ICU admission and after 24 h in the ICU were collected on 755 patients, to derive multiple logistic regression models for predicting hospital mortality. The derived models contained relatively few and easily obtained variables. The weight associated with each variable was determined objectively. There were seven admission variables, none of which were treatment dependent, and seven 24-h variables reflecting treatments and patients' conditions in the ICU. Predicted outcomes using these two models were closely correlated with actual outcome. Theoretically, a predictive model would be useful to physicians for triage decisions as well as determining aggressiveness of care through discussions with families, determining utilization of ICU facilities, and objectively comparing different ICUs. This research represents an initial attempt to develop models that are not based on subjectively determined weights.

Two-year outcome of adult intensive care patients.

Five hundred fifty-eight patients admitted to a general/medical surgical intensive care unit were studied 2 years after hospital discharge to determine whether they were still alive, were able to perform daily activities, and had returned to work. The overall 2-year survivorship (hospital and long-term) was 63.5%. Two-year survival was considerably lower for patients with certain condition or treatment characteristics than for others. This ranged from 14% 2-year survival for patients with 48 or more hours of coma to 82.2% for patients with no condition or treatment characteristics recorded. Once a patient was discharged alive, the 2-year cumulative survival of surgical ICU patients (84.6%) was significantly better than that of medical ICU patients (76.5%). Among ICU survivors responding to a follow-up survey, 85% were able to perform daily activities, but only 66% were working. Of the 44 patients experiencing a change in ability to perform daily activities at time of follow-up compared with pre-ICU admission, functional status of 34 (77%) improved, while 10 (23%) got worse. By comparison, of the 45 patients experiencing a change in working status, only 7 patients (16%) who did not work prior to ICU admission had returned to work, whereas the remaining 38 patients (84%) who worked prior to ICU admission were not working at time of follow-up study.

The epidemiologic assessment of male reproductive hazard from occupational exposure to TDA and DNT.

Dinitrotoluene (DNT) and toluene diamine (TDA) are intermediates in the production of toluene diisocyanate and polyurethane plastics. Some reproductive effects in rodents have been reported; and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reported probable reproductive toxic effect to humans after a preliminary survey. Accordingly, 84 workers exposed to DNT/TDA (classified by intensity and recency of exposure) and 119 nonexposed workers were studied at Olin's chemical complex at Lake Charles, La. Each worker was the subject of a physician's urogenital examination, a reproductive and fertility questionnaire, an estimation of testicular volume, an assessment of serum follicle-stimulating hormone, and an analysis of semen for sperm count and morphology. No differences were found between the exposed and control groups among any of these variables. Although both TDA and DNT are readily absorbed (percutaneous, inhalation, ingestion), they did not present detectable reproductive hazard to the workers.