Monthly Archives: December 2009

What Matters? A Thought For The Decade

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A Life That Matters

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.

So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end. It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave. What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example. What will matter is not your competence, but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone. What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice. Choose to live a life that matters. It really matters!

Michael Josephson

May Be Ugly

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Average Income in the United States Will Continue to Drop in 2009

Median household income in the United States has been in a freefall over the past few years due to the “Great Recession”. In inflation adjusted dollars, the last time that the median household income in the United States was $50,303 or lower was 1997. This is a staggering drop that has completely erased all of the gains made in the beginning and middle stages of the decade.

2009 should be even worse, as many are expecting that median household income in the United States could drop as much as 5%. This would leave us with a median household income number of about $47,800. This would be the lowest such number, in inflation adjusted dollars, since 1995.

Mortality Impact of Obesity May be Underestimated

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So when are all of those liberal build tables out there getting updated?

Medical News: Mortality Impact of Obesity Said To Be Underestimated – in Primary Care, Obesity from MedPage Today

Obesity may have an even greater impact on mortality than anticipated, according to a new method of adjusting for confounding.

2009 H1N1 Mortality in AI/AN

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Deaths Related to 2009 Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) Among American Indian/Alaska Natives — 12 States, 2009

The AI/AN population is culturally diverse and spread among approximately 560 federally recognized tribal communities in 34 states and multiple urban areas (2). Health disparities between the AI/AN population and other racial/ethnic populations are well documented (3). Mortality rates and trends for respiratory diseases indicate that AI/ANs are at increased risk for death resulting from pneumonia and influenza (4,5). Although AI/AN death rates varied among the 12 participating states in this study, the aggregate AI/AN H1N1-related death rate from 12 states was four times higher than that of all other racial/ethnic groups combined.

The higher mortality rate among AI/ANs observed in this investigation is consistent with reports of increased influenza-related morbidity and mortality among indigenous populations in other parts of the world during the current H1N1 pandemic and also is consistent with observations from previous pandemics (1,2). After the influenza pandemic of 1918–19, U.S. government investigators reported that influenza-related mortality rates among AI/ANs were four times higher than the rates observed among persons in general urban populations (2).

The factors that produce a higher influenza mortality rate among AI/ANs are unknown but might include higher prevalence of underlying chronic illness such as diabetes. The age-specific prevalence of diabetes in AI/AN adults is two to three times higher than for all U.S. adults (6). In addition, AI/ANs are twice as likely to have unmet medical needs because of cost (7). AI/ANs also have the highest poverty rate (30%), which is twice the national rate and three times the rate for whites among households with children aged <18 years (8), suggesting that delayed access to medical care and living conditions associated with poverty might contribute to their higher influenza mortality rate.

2009 H1N1 Mortality in England

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Mortality from pandemic A/H1N1 2009 influenza in England: public health surveillance study — Donaldson et al. 339: b5213 — BMJ

Conclusions -  Viewed statistically, mortality in this pandemic compares favourably with 20th century influenza pandemics. A lower population impact than previous pandemics, however, is not a justification for public health inaction.