Field trials aim to tackle poverty

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071022/full/449957a.html
Moving original post to comment. a dirty way of version control...

Looks like the rich always know how to help the poor. They are always bursting with new ideas and money. What happens when hoards of PhDs and marketing MBAs come together to help the poor. Obviously, they set up lab in the heart of developed world.

Do these new mandarins think that the society is yet another lab experiment? May be it is or may be it will be. After all, 200 years of science and technology has brought about more changes than 10000 years of ice age.

A lab based at the MIT, Cambridge, has more than 60 projects on the go in 21 countries this year. Established in the year 2003, the lab has seen a tremendous growth. And now World Bank is inspired to put US$14.9-million in the methodology pioneered by the lab. The methodology in the question is randomized trial, more commonly associated with drug safety tests, to assess what works and what doesn't in development and poverty interventions.

While formulaic approach to social issues has long been discarded as useless, it does not prevent MIT from taking a ‘formula drug’ approach to it. None the less, some of the observations are interesting enough to mention.

One of the studies, involving more than 30,000 youngsters in rural Kenya, found that deworming children reduced the number of days taken off school by 25% - you would say obvious but well the mandarins had to prove it.

Another study, in India, showed that hiring young local women to help at schools with underperforming students significantly increased test scores, and was six times cheaper than the computer-assisted learning already being tested.

Yet another of the non-scalable study: Treated with insecticide, bed nets are one of the main new tools for controlling malaria, but debate has raged over whether widespread use is best encouraged by handing the nets out free, or charging for them to encourage responsibility. In a trial set up in Kenya, the price at which pregnant women could buy nets was randomized. Results come down firmly on giving nets out free. She found that people who got free nets used them just as responsibly as those who paid for them. Moreover, charging even 75 cents reduced net use by 75%.

The lab is also exploring procrastination, which can actually be a major public-health problem asbut many patients don't pick up their test results. The lab has found that giving people as little as 10 cents as a reward for picking up their results on the day they are ready significantly increases compliance.

The lab is currently brainstorming similar ideas to improve tuberculosis (TB) treatment. Patients with TB often stop taking drugs as soon as they feel better. With mobile phones now more common in poor countries, the researchers have come up with an idea. A text message reminds patients to take their pill. On opening the pill wrapper they get a code that gives them three minutes' free call time. "I'd love to test this in a randomized trial," says Glennerster.

Obesity 'not individuals' fault'

AK: BBC again! time to look information from other sources too. Anyway coming to the topic. This type of study and such warnings are doing round for quite some time from NGO's and citizen action groups. What makes this assertion important is that this time it is backed by UK government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7047244.stm
Individuals can no longer be held responsible for obesity so government must act to stop Britain "sleepwalking" into a crisis, a report has concluded.

The largest ever UK study into obesity, backed by government and compiled by 250 experts, said excess weight was now the norm in our "obesogenic" society.

Dramatic and comprehensive action was required to stop the majority of us becoming obese by 2050, they said.

So hard

Obesity, the authors concluded, was an inevitable consequence of a society in which energy-dense, cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife.

In this environment it was surprising that anyone was able to remain thin, Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council said, and so the notion of obesity simply being a product of personal over-indulgence had to be abandoned for good.

"The stress has been on the individual choosing a healthier lifestyle, but that simply isn't enough," she said.

From planning our towns to encourage more physical activity to placing more pressure on mothers to breast feed - believed to slow down infant weight gain - the report highlighted a range of policy options without making any concrete recommendations.

Industry was already working to put healthier products on the shelf, the report noted, while work was advanced in transforming the very make-up of food so it was digested more slowly and proved satisfying for longer.

But it was clear that government needed to involve itself, as on this occasion, the market was failing to do the job, Sir David said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7043639.stm
The public health threat posed by obesity in the UK is a "potential crisis on the scale of climate change", the health secretary has warned.

Alan Johnson said the magnitude of the problem was becoming clear for the first time and "it is in everybody's interest to turn things round".

Life expectancy

Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo told the BBC that a longer term view needed to be taken of the obesity issue.

She said: "The government has been doing a lot already in terms of healthy foods in schools, sports activity in schools, labelling of food, working with young people.

"This report was part of the development of our strategies.

"But... if we don't act, what will happen in health terms for individuals and for our communities in 10, 20 years' time is really something we that we need to face up to, and that means looking at everything."

Dr Colin Waine - who chairs the National Obesity Forum - said that in terms of its impact on society, the health threat posed by obesity "will hit us much earlier than climate change".

He added: "We are now in a situation where levels of childhood obesity will lead to the first cut in life expectancy for 200 years. These children are likely to die before their parents."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/86132.php
National Obesity Forum (NOF) chairman Dr Colin Waine has warned that the financial cost of obesity could "bankrupt the NHS".

Speaking at the NOF's fifth annual conference in London, he talked about the challenges posed by obesity and what needs to be done to overcome them.

Dr Waine said: "Even with the very generous funding that we have had, the problem is escalating so quickly we are not just going to get an epidemic of obesity, we are going to have an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes."

On Sunday, new research by the Foresight Tackling Obesities: Future Choices project warned that half the population will be obese within 25 years if trends continue.

Simon O'Neill, Director of Care, Information and Advocacy at Diabetes UK, said:

"Dr Waine is right to focus on the soaring rates of Type 2 diabetes. The worry is that it's not just adults who are affected.

"It is estimated that there are around 1,000 children with Type 2 diabetes in the UK, all of whom are clinically obese. This means that there is a generation of overweight youngsters facing potential blindness, heart disease and amputations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7057951.stm
Obesity 'epidemic' turns global

People are getting fatter in all parts of the world, with the possible exception of south and east Asia, a one-day global snapshot shows.

Between half and two-thirds of men and women in 63 countries across five continents - not including the US - were overweight or obese in 2006.

The Circulation journal study included over 168,000 people evaluated by a primary care doctor.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/86597.php

IBM plans to launch a program that will offer employees monetary incentive to have their children participate in obesity education, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The program, scheduled to begin next year, will pay $150 to workers who sign up a child who completes a 12-week online program of diet and exercise training. The program is open to all children, and IBM says it does not look at the health information submitted by employees.