BACKGROUND The reported advantages of the laparoscopic approach to appendectomy are shortened hospital stay, less postoperative pain, and earlier return to usual activities (work). However, a prospective, randomized, double-blind trial comparing laparoscopic appendectomy with open appendectomy in active-duty males failed to disclose a benefit of laparoscopic appendectomy with regards to postope...

U PPER RESPIRATORY tract infections (URIs), the most expensive and widespread malady in the United States, represent 9% of the practice of the average family physician or pediatrician. They are the most common infectious conditions of children, with the average child having 5 to 8 infections per year. The associated health care costs include 23 million lost workdays and 26 million lost school d...

BACKGROUND Despite the high prevalence of depression, information about the burden of this disease in Switzerland is scarce. A better knowledge of the costs of depression may provide important information for future national preventive programmes, optimizing cost-effective budgeting. The estimates of national costs may improve the public's awareness of depression and depression-related costs, b...

BACKGROUND Given links between sedentary behaviour and unfavourable health outcomes, there is a need to understand the influence of socio-demographic factors on sedentary behaviour to inform effective interventions. This study examined domain-specific sitting times reported across socio-demographic groups of office workers. METHODS The analyses are cross-sectional and based on a survey conduc...

To determine if the influenza vaccine can reduce absenteeism and the cost of Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) in healthy adults in the workplace, a prospective, non-randomized, non-placebo control trial was done in six North Carolina textile plants. One hundred thirty-one vaccinated employees were compared with 131 age- and gender-matched non-vaccines from different plants. Twenty-six (20%) of the ...

BACKGROUND Good quality measures of Japanese adults' sedentary behaviors are needed to accurately assess correlates of specific sedentary behaviors. The present study assessed criterion validity of total sedentary behavior and test-retest reliability of six domain-specific sedentary behaviors. METHODS We administered a questionnaire, based on previous studies, that measured domain-specific se...

Background Asthma affects an estimated 300 million people worldwide. Poor compliance with prescribed medication leads to increased morbidity and mortality. The number of asthma cases has more than doubled since 1980 and, nearly 3 million workdays are lost annually due to asthma exacerbations. Non-compliance with therapy is a major impediment to effective asthma management and can lead to failur...

We evaluated CO levels as an index of cigarette smoke in the work place and analyzed diary entries on respiratory symptoms, eye irritation, chest colds and lost days from work due to respiratory illness in 40 passive smokers (nonsmokers chronically exposed to tobacco smoke in the work place) and 40 control subjects (nonsmokers not exposed to tobacco smoke in the work place) matched for age and ...