Latest Kaiser Permanente Northern California Stories

OAKLAND, Calif., March 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Adult patients with diabetes who don't understand basic health information are significantly less likely to take newly prescribed antidepressant medication, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study in The Journal of General Internal Medicine. In this study conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and the University of Washington School of Medicine, 72 percent of the 1,366 study participants had limited health literacy...

New UCSF/Kaiser Permanente study shows low risk following insertion of intrauterine devices with same-day screening The risk of developing pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) following insertion of an intrauterine device (IUD) is very low, whether or not women have been screened beforehand for gonorrhea and chlamydia, according to a joint study of nearly 60,000 women by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of...

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The quality of a woman's social networks--the personal relationships that surround an individual--appears to be just as important as the size of her networks in predicting breast cancer survival, Kaiser Permanente scientists report in the current issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Previous research has shown that women with larger social networks--including spouses or partners, female relatives, friends, religious and social...

A U.S. Food and Drug Administration-funded study led by the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research found an increased risk of arterial thrombotic events (ATE) and venous thromboembolic events (VTE) — commonly referred to as blockage of arteries and blood clots, respectively — associated with drospirenone-containing birth control pills compared to four low-dose estrogen combined hormonal contraceptives. "We found that starting use of drospirenone-containing combined...

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A U.S. Food and Drug Administration-funded study led by the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research found an increased risk of arterial thrombotic events (ATE) and venous thromboembolic events (VTE) -- commonly referred to as blockage of arteries and blood clots, respectively -- associated with drospirenone-containing birth control pills compared to four low-dose estrogen combined hormonal contraceptives. The study...

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Rates of diagnosed diabetes are much higher among some Asian subgroups than is apparent when aggregating all Asians as a whole, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research and the University of California, San Francisco which appears in the current online issue of Diabetes Care. In this first study to look at Asian subgroup differences in a population with uniform access to health care,...

Use of electronic health records was associated with improved drug-treatment intensification, monitoring, and risk-factor control among patients with diabetes, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study. In the study, which appears in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers also noted greater improvements among patients with poorer control of their diabetes and lipids. The findings provide an important contribution to the evidence base by demonstrating that, for the...

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Use of electronic health records was associated with improved drug-treatment intensification, monitoring and risk-factor control among patients with diabetes, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study. In the study, which appears in the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers also noted greater improvements among patients with poorer control of their diabetes and lipids. The findings provide an important contribution...

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Protection against whooping cough (also called pertussis) waned during the five years after the fifth dose of the combined diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine, according to researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center. The fifth dose of DTaP is routinely given to 4- to 6-year-old children prior to starting kindergarten. The study appears in the current online issue of the New England Journal of...

OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Long-term use of commonly used blood pressure medications that increase sensitivity to sunlight is associated with an increased risk of lip cancer in non-Hispanic whites, according to a Kaiser Permanente study that appears in the current online issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the study found that photosensitizing antihypertensive drugs such as nifedipine and hydrochlorothiazide were...