Overall, non-food exposures were as important as food-related exposures with regard to their contributions to the proportion of cases. Infection prevention efforts should address kitchen hygiene practices and non-food exposures, such as recreational water exposure, in addition to food-consumption risks.

This study examines factors associated with leaving an abusive relationship, including relationship characteristics, external support, and health status of the abused subjects. The subjects included 448 Seattle women whose abuse resulted in police involvement or filing for a civil protection order against their male partner. Women were followed longitudinally for 9 months. Stepwise logistic regression analyses assessed factors independently predictive of leave taking. Predictors of leaving the abusive relationship were young age, leaving the relationship previously, and having a protection order, an abuse-related physician visit, and a high score of psychological vulnerability to abuse. Seeking but not receiving external support was negatively associated with leave taking.

Although most states mandate considerations of intimate partner violence (IPV) in child custody proceedings, little is known about how often a preexisting history of IPV is effectively presented to the courts in dissolution cases and, when it is, what effect it has on child custody and visitation outcomes. This retrospective cohort study examined the effects of a history of IPV, further categorized by whether substantiation of that history existed and whether the court handling the custody proceedings knew of that history, on child custody and visitation outcomes. The findings from this study highlight several issues of concern regarding the reality of child custody among families with a history of IPV. These include two primary concerns: a lack of identification of IPV even among cases with a documented, substantiated history, and a lack of strong protections being ordered even among cases in which a history of substantiated IPV is known to exist.

No abstract

The completeness of rabies postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) reporting was evaluated in King County, Washington State. Information on rabies immune globulin prescriptions was obtained from hospital pharmacies associated with emergency departments in King County from 2003 to June 2006. Rabies immune globulin is given at the initiation of rabies PEP which is usually started at emergency departments. Because pharmacies are not regular sources of rabies PEP reporting, we compared pharmacy cases with cases reported via routine passive surveillance methods. A capture-recapture method was used to calculate the estimated number of unreported cases from all sources. Reporting completeness was calculated by dividing the number of cases reported via routine surveillance with the sum of reported and estimated unreported cases. Seventy-one unreported rabies PEP cases were identified by comparing previously reported cases with pharmacy cases. A total of 128 cases were estimated to have been missed by the surveillance system. Overall reporting completeness was 62 percent increasing to almost 80 percent in 2005 and 2006. Our findings illustrate the importance of evaluating surveillance systems and suggest that it may be useful to institute active rabies PEP surveillance with emergency departments in addition to continuing educating healthcare providers and facilities about reporting.