Mortality Rates

Children under age 16 should not be allowed to ride all-terrain vehicles because the vehicles can be deadly for youngsters even when riders are required to wear helmets, researchers said. Nearly half the 70 children under 16 who were killed in ATV crashes that were reported in two states between 1997 and mid-2000 were caused by head injuries, and mortality rates were similar with or without a helmet being worn.

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach had the lowest overall mortality rate and lowest fees of the 10 Orange County hospitals that performed open-heart surgery on Medicare patients over a four-year period, according to a report released Tuesday by a private consulting firm. Hoag's mortality rates and charges also were lower than state and national averages, according to Healthcare Data Source, which released the report. The Aurora, Colo.

The rotavirus vaccine introduced in Mexico in 2007 still appears to be preventing diarrhea-related deaths in children, despite speculation that years later the vaccine may not be as effective. In a letter released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report that the vaccine still seems to be successful in reducing mortality rates among children. They compared diarrhea-related deaths during the three years after the vaccine was introduced with death rates during rotavirus seasons from 2003 to 2006.

Some U.S. patients -- or even fellow doctors -- might be less than comfortable with a foreign-born physician who didn't graduate from a U.S. medical school. They shouldn't be, a new study suggests.  Patients treated for congestive heart failure or heart attack had similar mortality rates regardless of whether they were cared for by graduates of U.S. medical schools or non-U.S. medical schools, concludes an analysis published today in the journal Health Affairs. Further, patients of non-U.

Waitresses are five times more likely than other workers to die of lung diseases, and photographers and nurses are twice as likely as other workers to commit suicide, a state mortality study found. The occupational mortality study, released by the California Department of Health Services, computerized nearly 180,000 death certificates filed in California over a three-year period ending in 1981 to match causes of death with occupations.

A key House subcommittee chairman, castigating the Veterans Administration for high death rates during cardiac surgery at its 172 hospitals nationwide, expressed "outrage and shock" Tuesday that many of the deaths were found to have been "preventable." Rep. Ted Weiss (D-N.Y.) cited a recent medical journal article that said 38% of heart operation deaths at VA hospitals from 1981 to 1983 resulted from procedural errors. The article, by Dr.

A Department of Veterans Affairs study released Tuesday reports "significantly elevated" death rates for patients at 44 veterans hospitals and "likely quality of care problems" at 22 of the medical centers. The study, based on a detailed analysis of selected cases, said the quality of care problems were most pronounced at hospitals in Tuskegee, Ala., and Battle Creek, Mich. In the Tuskegee center, the report said that three of 12 cases, 25% of those studied, were judged to have "likely quality of care problems."

In an alarming statistical turn, the number of malaria deaths every year may be vastly underestimated, according to new research re-examining mortality rates from 1980 to 2010. According to a study published in the journal the Lancet, in 2010 there were 1.24 million deaths from malaria worldwide -- nearly twice the World Health Organization estimate of 655,000. And while it's true that malaria deaths have dropped by about 32% since their peak of 1.82 million in 2004, in many regions adults now account for a large slice of the mortality figures.

Bono said during his talk Tuesday at the TED conference in Long Beach that he was asked by TED organizer Chris Anderson to give an overview of the last 10 years of anti-poverty efforts. But the U2 lead singer and international activist was more interested in looking at where these efforts could go in the next two decades with the help of technology and social media.  "I thought, forget the rock opera, forget the bombast, the only thing I would be singing today is the facts," Bono said.