BACKGROUND Swedish women aged 40-69 years were gradually offered regular mammography screening since 1974, and nationwide coverage was achieved in 1997. We hypothesized that this gradual implementation of breast cancer screening would be reflected in county-specific mortality patterns during the last 20 years. METHODS Using data from the Swedish Board of Health and Welfare from 1960 to 2009, ...

Several bumble bee species ( Bombus Latreille) are declining and efforts to conserve populations will be strengthened by an improved knowledge of their geographic distribution. Knowledge gaps exist, however, especially in central portions North America. Here we report 29 bees from South Dakota the north-central USA, based on 130 years records 1891 2021. Specimens or observations were available ...

Mergers and acquisitions of nonprofit hospitals are on the rise. Proceeds from many of these transactions will endow new health legacy foundations (HLFs). These philanthropic entities have substantial potential for charitable investment in US communities. Research indicates that the greatest improvements in population health can be achieved by addressing underlying social factors. Determining w...

County averages of impervious surface area (ISA), and the urban and woodland fractions were determined for all 67 Pennsylvania counties from archived Landsat image data for the years 1985 and 2000. This paper focuses on changes in these quantities that occurred during the 15-year period, the patterns of development across the state, and the possible reasons for the changes. Changes in ISA sugge...

The Impact of Local Decentralization on Economic Growth: Evidence from U.S. Counties We analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on U.S. county population, employment, and real income growth. Our findings suggest that government organization matters for local economic growth, but that the impacts vary by government unit and by economic indicator. We find that single-purpose governments per...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to describe differences in childhood pesticide exposures between counties on the Texas-Mexico border and nonborder counties. METHOD The authors reviewed all pesticide exposures among children younger than 6 years reported to the South Texas Poison Center during 1997 through 2000. RESULTS Nonborder counties had twice the reported exposure rate of bord...

Assign each rural county to an urban county. Let i index urban counties, and let j each of the rural counties assigned to a particular urban county; let j = 0 for the urban county. DeÞne an urban county and its assigned rural counties as a group, and let Ji be the number of rural counties in group i. Let Nij be the number of nurses in county j of group i, and let Pij be the population of county...

Importance Firearm laws in one state may be associated with increased firearm death rates from homicide and suicide in neighboring states are uncertain. Objective To determine whether counties located closer to states with lenient firearm policies have higher firearm death rates. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study of firearm death rates by county for January 2010 t...

PROBLEM Chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and stroke) are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Data on health risk behaviors that increase the risk for chronic diseases and use of preventive practices are essential for the development, implementation, and evaluation of health promotion programs, policies, and intervention strategies to decre...

BACKGROUND The effect of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening on prostate cancer mortality remains debated, despite evidence from randomized trials. We investigated the association between prostate cancer incidence, reflecting uptake of PSA testing, and prostate cancer mortality. METHODS The study population consisted of all men aged 50 to 74 years residing in eight counties in Sweden wi...