“This vital study is a reminder that governments must invest in prevention, and that even modest amounts of funding that reach the most at risk groups can yield big reductions in HIV and other infections” added Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and former Director of UNAIDS

Read the full paper here.

Additional materials:
Press release (PDF)

Physicians will be responsible for web-based review and coding of mortality reports. Requirements include the following:

• Fluency in English and at least one other Indian language
• Ability to use computers
• Secure access to high speed internet for 8-15 hours work per week (working hours are flexible)

For your contribution, you will be paid for each record coded. Those who complete 1000 records at high quality will receive a certificate from St. John’s/CGHR.

Interested physicians may apply through this recruitment survey.

Should you have further questions, email MDSlearn@smh.ca. For details about our research please visit our MDS site.  Apply as soon as possible.

Fellowship Terms

The research fellowship is for a duration of one year, and offers a stipend of CAD$43,000. The location of the placement will be at CGHR Toronto, Canada.

Project Description

Mortality and cause of death data are important for planning and evaluation of public health programs and policies, but are often missing or incomplete in low- and middle-income countries. The Million Death Study in India is one of the largest studies of premature mortality in the world, and has been collecting mortality data since 1998. It uses the verbal autopsy method to monitor causes of death and related epidemiological risk factors for 2.4 million nationally-representative households in India.

Recent developments have utilized machine learning in the assignment of cause of death, with the aim of increasing the affordability and speed of verbal autopsy use in large populations. However, there is a lack of a gold standard in cause of death certification in areas with little or no access to health services, and the various automated tools have not been well validated. Considering the importance of accurate cause of death data for public health planning, this project is focused on the development of methodology for robust validation and comparison of machine learning tools in verbal autopsy.

Objectives

The Fellowship enables those with previous work or research experience in verbal autopsy to conduct applied methodological research in the area, and expand their training in a high-level, academic research setting. The candidate is expected to design and carry out a research project comparing global verbal autopsy tools, including selection of appropriate datasets, comparison methodology, and outcome measures. The candidate will be supervised by Professor Prabhat Jha, and will work closely with the verbal autopsy research team at CGHR, Toronto.

Eligibility and Requirements

The candidate must have a Masters degree in an appropriate field (public health, epidemiology, statistics, or computer science), as well as previous research or work experience in verbal autopsy application. Familiarity with use of automated cause of death assignment tools, including InterVA-4, is an asset, as well as a demonstrated ability to independently conduct research and analysis.

How to Apply

Please submit a CV will full research and publication history, and a brief research proposal (one page maximum), to aleksandrowl@smh.ca, by May 13^th, 2013.

For more information on CGHR and the MDS, please visit www.cghr.org

To get more information, and see how you can contribute to the fight, see the declaration homepage here.

Find more details here.

 “Quitting smoking before age 40, and preferably well before 40, gives back almost all of the decade of lost life from continued smoking,” said Dr. Prabhat Jha, lead author of the study. Dr. Jha’s team found that people who quit smoking between ages 35 and 44 regained about nine years of life, while those who quit by 45-54 and 55-64 gained six and four years, respectively. The study is unique as it examines the risks of smoking and the benefits of stopping among a representative sample of Americans.  Importantly, the study is among the first to document a generation of women who started smoking when they were young and kept smoking throughout their adult lives.

Read the full article here: 21st-Century Hazards of Smoking and Benefits of Cessation in the United States

Additional materials
Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)
PowerPoint Slides (PPT)
Webappendix: Tables 1-4 (PDF)

Press Release
North America (PDF)
Asia (PDF)

Videos
Benefits of quitting smoking early (YouTube)
Women’s health risks from smoking (YouTube)
Global smoking patterns (YouTube)

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Nearly one million annual deaths from smoking in India by 2010

February 13, 2008

Results from a CGHR study published in the New England Journal of Medicine find that India is in the midst of a catastrophic epidemic of smoking deaths. Tobacco smoking is expected that nearly one million deaths each year in India during the 2010s – including one in five of all male deaths and one in 20 of all female deaths between 30-69.

There are approximately 120 million smokers in India.  More than one-third of men and about five per cent of women aged 30-69 smoke either cigarettes or bidis (which contain about a quarter the amount of tobacco as a cigarette, wrapped in the leaf of another plant called temburni). On average, male bidi smokers lose about six years of life, female bidi smokers lose about eight years and male cigarette smokers lose about ten years of life.

“It is truly remarkable that one single factor, namely smoking, which is entirely preventable, accounts for nearly one in ten of all deaths in India.  The study brings out forcefully the need for immediate public action in this much neglected field”, states Professor Amartya Sen, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics.

Read the full article here: A Nationally Representative Case-Control Study of Smoking and Death in India

The Lancet Webappendix (PDF)
Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)
PowerPoint Slides (PPT)
Quotes (PDF)

Press Release
English (PDF)
Hindi (PDF)
Assamese (PDF)
Bengali (PDF)
Kannada (PDF)
Malayalam (PDF)
Marathi (PDF)
Tamil (PDF)
Telugu (PDF)

Video News Release
English
Hindi
Assamese
Bengali
Kannada
Tamil

For the full report and more information on the project, please see the Asian Development Bank.

Read the article here.

You can view materials from that episode here.