Food prices reach record high, By Caroline Henshaw, March 3, 2011, Wall Street Journal: “World food prices rose 2.2% in February from the previous month to a record peak, the United Nations’ food body said Thursday, as it warned that volatility in oil markets could push prices even higher. The Food and Agriculture Organization price index rose by 2.2%-the eighth consecutive rise since June-to an average of 236 points last month, the highest record in real and nominal terms since the agency started monitoring prices in 1990. Global cereal supplies are also expected to tighten sharply this year due low stock levels, the FAO said. The body raised its estimate for world cereal production in 2010 by eight million metric tons from its December estimate to 2.2 billion tons but said it expects that to be outpaced by an 18 million-ton increase in world consumption. But while the world isn’t yet facing a food crisis, the secretary of the FAO’s Intergovernmental Group on Grains, Abdolreza Abbassian, said the recent rise in Brent oil prices to above $120 a barrel could create the same potent mix of factors that pushed grain prices to record highs three years ago…”
Day: March 3, 2011
Health Literacy in the US
Many Americans have poor health literacy, By Sandra G. Boodman, February 28, 2011, Washington Post: “An elderly woman sent home from the hospital develops a life-threatening infection because she doesn’t understand the warning signs listed in the discharge instructions. A man flummoxed by an intake form in a doctor’s office reflexively writes ‘no’ to every question because he doesn’t understand what is being asked. A young mother pours a drug that is supposed to be taken by mouth into her baby’s ear, perforating the eardrum. And a man in his 70s preparing for his first colonoscopy uses a suppository as directed, but without first removing it from the foil packet. Each of these examples provided by health-care workers or patient advocates illustrates one of the most pervasive and under-recognized problems in medicine: Americans’ alarmingly low levels of health literacy – the ability to obtain, understand and use health information. A 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that 36 percent of adults have only basic or below-basic skills for dealing with health material. This means that 90 million Americans can understand discharge instructions written only at a fifth-grade level or lower. About 52 percent had intermediate skills: They could figure out what time a medication should be taken if the label says ‘take two hours after eating,’ while the remaining 12 percent were deemed proficient because they could search a complex document and find the information necessary to define a medical term…”
Federal Report on the Status of Women
- White House marks Women’s History Month with 50-year progress report, By Daniel B. Wood, March 1, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Young women in America are more likely than men to have a college degree, and women’s earnings constitute a growing share of household income, but their wages still lag significantly behind those of men with comparable education, according to a report on the status of women released Tuesday by the White House. The White House released the report, which it called the ‘first comprehensive federal report on the status of women in almost 50 years,’ on the first day of Women’s History Month. It was 1963 when the Commission on Women, formed by President John F. Kennedy and chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, issued the first such report. That was the same year that ‘Dr. No,’ the first James Bond film, was shown in US theaters, Iranian women got to vote for the first time, and Sheriff Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor unleashed fire hoses and police dogs on African-American demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala…”
- Gap remains between the sexes when it comes to income, By Lesa Jansen, March 1, 2011, CNN.com: “The earnings gap between men and women has narrowed, but a new White House report shows that on average women still only make about 75% as much as their male counterparts. The report released Tuesday shows that women have not only caught up with men in college attendance but in fact have surpassed them, yet that gain hasn’t translated into the pocketbook. Statistics also show women are more likely than men to live in poverty. This is the first comprehensive look at women’s status in American society in more than 50 years, according to the Obama administration. Valerie Jarrett, White House counselor and chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, calls the report ‘a guidepost to help us move forward,’ and also says the data will affect future policy decisions…”