Objectives: During a multi-year community health needs assessment process, we sought to prioritize the health needs of the community served by the Meadville Medical Center (Crawford County, PA) and meet the Affordable Care Act requirement for non-profit hospitals.

Methods: We collected community health perspective data through a voluntary in-person survey. Additionally, we collected data from the Meadville Medical Center Emergency Department and the PA Department of Health. Using qualitative methods we compared the datasets to prioritize community health needs.

Results: Both the perceptions and surveillance data show chronic diseases to be the priority health concern. There was a large perception that mental health is a need; however, surveillance data identified sexually transmitted infections and vaccine-preventable diseases as community health priorities.

Conclusions: Public health interventions, education programs, and further research are needed to address the community health needs that were prioritized. The mixed methodology approach we used to conduct our community health needs assessment can be utilized by other small, rural hospitals that need to complete a community health needs assessment to meet Affordable Care Act requirements.

Intra-articular steroid joint injections have been used for decades for a variety of common medical diseases. The intra-articular steroids have been shown to be more efficacious than some of their precursors such as formalin, glycerin, lipiodol, lactic acid, and petroleum jelly.

Background: Unintended pregnancies constitute a real public health problem in low-income settings. Success in preventing unintended pregnancies is critical in reduction of both maternal and infant mortality.

Objective: To assess the prevalence of contraceptive use and of unintended pregnancies and to identify the correlates of unintended pregnancies among contraceptive users in Brazzaville, Congo.

Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 380 new mothers in two public maternities in Brazzaville. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Bivariate analysis using Chi-square test and logistic regression was used.

Results: Knowledge of contraceptive methods was high among respondents. Overall contraceptive prevalence was 72%:83% for natural and 17% for modern methods, respectively. Forty percent of pregnancies among contraceptives users were unintended. Use of natural methods (3.34[1.06-10.50], p=0.03) and women’s lack of financial income (1.7[1.01-2.92], p=0.04) were associated with high risk of occurrence of unintended pregnancy. Partners’ education level was inversely related to risk of unintended pregnancies (0.45 [1.01-2.92], p=0.004).

Conclusions: Enhancing counseling for better contraceptive use, promoting modern contraceptives and increasing men involvement in family planning should be considered by family health planners in Congo.

Purpose: Studies have shown an inverse relationship between religiosity and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. Tobacco and alcohol use is higher among the impoverished. The purpose of this study was to determine if frequent church attendance was associated with lower rates of smoking and alcohol use in adults living below the poverty threshold.

Methods: A secondary analysis of data from the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey was assessed. 6219 adults (≥ 40 years), representative of 121.8 million non-institutionalized adults in the United States, were included in the study. Logistic regressions predicting excess alcohol consumption, binge drinking, and current smoking were performed using church attendance as a covariate while controlling for age, gender, race, marital status, education, health, and poverty level.

Results: The sample included 20.1% current smokers and 25.7% excessive alcohol consumers. Individuals who did not attend church and were below the poverty line were more likely to be current smokers (OR: 3.45; 95%CI 2.56-4.64) when compared to those who attended church and lived above the poverty line. Those who did not attend church were more likely to binge drink regardless of poverty level (OR 1.64, 1.02-2.65). When predicting excessive alcohol consumption, only those who did not go to church and lived above the poverty level were more likely to drink (OR 1.24, 1.02-1.49). Those who attended church and were impoverished were actually less likely to consume excessive alcohol (OR 0.74, 0.56-0.97) when compared to the referent group of church attendees who were not impoverished.

Conclusions: Church attendance was associated with healthier lifestyle choices regardless of poverty level. It is unclear as to whether church attendance itself impacts lifestyle choices or perhaps masks another unknown variable. While the results did not differ much based on poverty level, church may be a resource available for individuals that health care providers can utilize.

Safety and healthy workplace has received many researches attention in the recent years. Safety behaviors are one of the major issues of organizations, because a safe workplace is a critical factor of the quality of work life [1]. Safety climate in an organization is expected to influence safety behavior positively in the health sector. Thus when employees perceive the organizational safety climate to be positive, they are more likely to participate in positive safety behaviors.