Excitement is building for FIFA World Cup soccer games in Toronto and Vancouver in June and July, yet Canada’s overburdened health systems may buckle with any additional demand, cautions an editorial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.252094.

Analysis of the medical records of 1,269 elderly patients with advanced cancer by researchers at University of Tsukuba has found that more than 70% were prescribed potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) and that the prescription rate declined closer to the patient's death. Discontinuation was more frequent among patients admitted to palliative care units, those with polypharmacy, and females. These findings may help reduce treatment burden among patients nearing the end of their life.

Canada is failing in a decades-old pledge to monitor the health of Pacific salmon, according to new research from Simon Fraser University.  

At a time when government policy is geared towards accelerating industrial development across sensitive B.C. watersheds, an SFU study published today in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences reports that monitoring of salmon spawning populations has dropped 32 per cent since Canada adopted its Wild Salmon Policy 20 years ago.  

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign scientists can now differentiate between human-derived and hydrological contributions of riverine nitrogen pollution in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The advancement sets the stage for more nuanced policy and management of nitrate and nitrite, the nutrients that degrade drinking water quality and cause oxygen-starved “dead zones” in the Gulf each year.

Approximately 88% of adults view opioid overdose deaths as a very serious problem with high agreement across political groups, according to a national survey conducted by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers. However, political differences over who is responsible will shape the country’s next phase of drug policy.

About The Study: This case-control study found that a Medicaid policy that incentivized high nursing home staffing levels was associated with modest improvement in some dimensions of patient health. However, even modest effects are extremely meaningful at scale: these estimates suggest that if a similar reform were adopted nationally, there would be 6,142 fewer hospitalizations each year.