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Biomedical subjects

Joav Merrick

Publications and source records attributed to Joav Merrick.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Blindness in adolescents in Israel.

Adolescents with blindness or visual impairment, in order to go through the trying time of adolescence, require extra strength to overcome their disability. This short communication looks at prevalence data for blindness in children and adolescents that range from about 3 per 10,000 children in developed countries (60 blind children per million total population) to 15 per 10,000 in the poorest countries (600 blind children per million total population). Data from the year 2000 in Israel showed a total of 18,509 persons with blindness registered in Israel, including 168 children between the age 0-5 years and 788 between 6-18 years. Children and adolescents comprised 5.2% of the total with a small male dominance (520 males, 436 females). The total prevalence rate for children and adolescents (0-18 years) in Israel was 4.5 per 10,000 and 5.3 per 10,000 for the 6-18 year olds. The causes of blindness for children and adolescents in Israel are also presented, with optic atrophy the most common cause.

Adolescent↗
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Trends in adolescent asthma in Israel.

There has been observed a worldwide increase in childhood asthma and this short communication reviews current research on adolescent asthma in Israel. Several studies have found an overall asthma prevalence of 7.8% for Jewish children, 4.9% for Arab children and 3.7% for the total population, while 7.8% was found in Bedouin children in the south of Israel. For the 1980-1997 period for the 5-34 year age group the AMR (asthma mortality rate) per 100,000 was found to be 0.226 with no significant difference between Jews and Arabs. This is a decrease as a result of increase in the use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and a better anti-inflammatory treatment.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Youth injury in Israel: an appeal for change.

Unintentional injury in children and adolescents have raised public health concerns in recent years, because it is the leading cause of death, a physical burden for the injured person, an emotional and social burden for the families together with an economic burden for society. The National Center for Children's Safety and Health in Israel was established in 1995 at the Schneider Children's Medical Center in order to focus on prevention of childhood and adolescent injury and safety. Over these years data has been collected from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Health, the National Trauma Register, Police and the National Poison Center in order to look for trends and develop strategies for intervention. These efforts, together with the active prevention programs that have been established, resulted in a national report (1) presented to the Minister of Health and other policy makers in 2003. The current situation of youth injuries in Israel, which over the years have not shown any improvement, necessitates a new agenda with a focus on prevention and collaboration between various ministries and agencies in order to implement it. The report alone cannot have an impact upon youth safety, but we hope that it will provide an impetus for developing youth safety strategies and programs based on data. We also believe there is a need for long-term monitoring and follow-up of youth injury trends in Israel.

Accident Prevention↗
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Burn injuries and adolescents in Israel.

Burn injury is a public health concern often associated with individual pain, emotional stress, prolonged hospitalizations, permanent disfigurement and family stress. In this paper we studied the avaliable data on burn injury among adolescents in Israel through a Medline search and found three relevant studies with data on this population. The incidence rate of burn injury was 0.46 per 1,000 children aged 5-14 years for Jews and 0.91 for Bedouin. Most of the burn injury in this age group was caused by hot liquids, followed by fire and chemical burns for both Jews and Bedouin, but electical burns occurred more often in Bedouins. Mortality was very low for the adolescent group. Prevention programs in schools since the 1980s have been found effective, but the public health focus should now be geared towards groups at risk.

Accident Prevention↗
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Adolescent injury risk behavior.

Health-risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among adolescents and young adults are often established during adolescence and extended into adulthood. Unintentional motor vehicle injury is the leading cause of mortality in childhood and adolescence in developed countries. This review presents some of the risk factors found in research on unintentional injury and death in adolescence, including risk factors for siblings and adolescents with intellectual disability. These findings should be connected with the findings of a recent study that showed that about one third of all unintentional childhood injury deaths in the United States were preventable. For injury prevention to take place and being effective a multidisciplinary approach is needed to identify host, agent and environmental factors using epidemiology research and biomechanics. In the population of adolescents with intellectual disability there has been little research on injury epidemiology or injury prevention and the service provider will need to focus and educate staff on this issue in order to prevent injury that can result in further disability.

Accident Prevention↗
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Trends in adolescent injury mortality in Israel.

Epidemiology is an important and powerful tool in public health used to monitor health, observe trends and identify risk factors for utilization in strategy, policy and planning of services and interventions. Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death in adolescents worldwide with motor vehicle injury and drowning the leading causes. In Israel the mortality rate for motor vehicle mortality rate for adolescents was found to be 10.6 per 100,000 and 1.0 per 100,000 for drowning. Studies have shown a decrease in injury and mortality over time, but there is still much to do and calculation studies have shown that it is possible to prevent further with targeted serious effort and strategies employed.

Accidents↗
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Obesity and adolescence. A public health concern.

Obesity in adolescence has increased significantly over the past 30-40 years and a recent international comparison study (13 European countries, Israel and the US) showed that the highest prevalence in adolescents was found in the US (12.6% in 13 year old boys, 10.8% in girls; 13.9% in 15 year old boys and 15.1% in 15 year old girls) and the lowest in Lithuania. This increase in adolescence is a public health concern, because most obese adolescents continue their obesity into adulthood with serious risk for chronic disease. Focus should therefore be on prevention programs that increase healthier patterns of lifestyle and physical activity.

Adolescent↗
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Physical activity in adolescence. A review with clinical suggestions.

Despite some inconsistencies in research methodologies, most findings support a positive correlation between participation in physical activities and well-being in adulthood. The results are consistent across the life span of both genders. Favorable connection between physical exercise to physical, psychological, emotional and educational benefits has been constantly proven. Despite such results a comparison between present to past findings show a global tendency for sedentary life style and reduced physical activities in many countries across ages and genders. There are claims that achieving an adult healthy life style is rooted in habits acquired at early ages, thus pointing at childhood and adolescence as the starting point of an active and healthy adulthood. The present article reviews the current literature and findings relating to physical activity with better health and an emphasis on adolescence. Factors correlated to participation of adolescents in physical activities are presented and some clinical issues to promote such activity are discussed. The authors strongly recommend enhanced initiation of community based easily accessed physical exercise programs, for children and adolescents.

Adolescent↗
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A review of physical activity and well-being.

The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. Based on this declaration the construct of well-being has been researched. Many researchers have set a clear path between physical exercise and feeling better or the connection of reduced physical activity and diminished health. Nevertheless the allusive subjective psychological construct of well-being has not been directly connected to physical activity. Despite abundance of technical evidence that supports notions of correlations between physical exercise and well-being, the scientific proof is not within our reach yet. Some of the basic reasons are the facts that the definition of well-being is unclear, not many RCT's (Randomized Control Trials) have been performed, dose related results are scarce and many articles use small populations and different methodology. Until an actual research based connection will be found between physical exercise and well-being, the authors strongly recommend physical activity as part of everyone's leisure time, since there are enough proven physical mental, and social benefits to physical activity besides well-being.

Chronic Disease↗
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Physical fitness and adolescence.

Children, adolescents and adults all benefit from physical exercise and physical fitness can also bring well-being to the person. Tracking physical fitness and activity over time from childhood, adolescence into adulthood will provide information on the benefits and also increase over knowledge on intervention and intervention programs. Many children and adolescents participate in physical activity, but this activity decline in adulthood. This short review provide information from several studies on the benefit of physical exercise and fitness through childhood, adolescence into early adulthood.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Recent trends in adolescent asthma.

Asthma is a disability that can affect the quality of life of the adolescent going through a period with difficulty and often rebellion, but gentle care from the primary physician will guide the adolescent through this period. A worldwide increase in childhood asthma has been observed and recent data from the National Health Interview Survey-2003 in the United States showed an overall 12.5% of children under age 18 years, who ever had asthma diagnosed. This short communication reviews the recent U.S. findings with research on adolescent asthma in Israel, where a study from year 2000 found a higher percentage of ever had diagnosed asthma (13.7%).

Adolescent↗