Nicholas B King

McGill University | McGill · Faculty of Medicine

We review evidence of determinants contributing to increased opioid-related mortality in the United States and Canada between 1990 and 2013. We identified 17 determinants of opioid-related mortality and mortality increases that we classified into 3 categories: prescriber behavior, user behavior and characteristics, and environmental and systemic de...

In the global burden of disease (GBD) project, the disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is used as a measure of disease burden. DALYs combine years of life lost to premature death and years lived with a disability or health condition, weighted for the severity of the condition. This combined measure makes it possible to compare health conditions wi...

It has become commonplace to call the financial institutions at the centre of the most recent financial crisis 'too big to fail'. This is a misnomer, as institutional size simply happens to be correlated with what really matters: interconnectedness. A big bank that operates in a vacuum is a danger only to itself and its immediate creditors. If it a...

Pain management is marginalized or ignored, with millions of people worldwide unnecessarily living with untreated pain. Reducing global inequalities in untreated pain requires a concerted global effort, say Veronique Fraser and colleagues, which must attend to the complexity of pain and promote multimodal, multidisciplinary pain management.

In recent years, life expectancy in the United States has stagnated, followed by three consecutive years of decline. The decline is small in absolute terms but is unprecedented and has generated considerable research interest and theorizing about potential causes. Recent trends show that the decline has affected nearly all race/ethnic and gender gr...

Survey versions 1 and 2. (PDF)

Location of ISP addresses of respondents. (DOCX)

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project quantifies the impact of different health conditions by combining information about morbidity and premature mortality within a single metric, the Disability Adjusted Life Year. One important goal for the GBD project has been to inform decisions about global health priorities. A number of recent studies hav...

The US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the controversial analgesic Zohydro has drawn attention to its endorsement of so-called ‘enrichment strategies’ for streamlining clinical trials. Among these is ‘enriched enrollment randomized withdrawal’ (EERW), a design intended to improve measures of drug efficacy by screening out patients who ar...

The concept of vulnerability is frequently used in public health policies to develop tailored interventions or dedicate proportionately more resources to certain sub-populations. However, once segments of the population are identified as vulnerable, they are rarely consulted regarding whether this label is acceptable before instituting intervention...

Background: The impact of heat waves on mortality and health inequalities is well documented. Very few studies have assessed the effectiveness of heat action plans (HAPs) on health, and none has used quasi-experimental methods to estimate causal effects of such programs. Objectives: To develop a quasi-experimental method to estimate the causal e...

We estimated trends in drug poisoning death rates by educational attainment and investigated educational inequalities in drug poisoning mortality by race, gender, and region. We linked drug poisoning death counts from the National Vital Statistics System to population denominators from the Current Population Survey to estimate drug poisoning rates...

CONTEXTO: Los estimados cuantitativos de magnitud, dirección e índice de cambio de las desigualdades en salud juegan un papel crucial en la creación y evaluación de las políticas destinadas a eliminar la desproporcionada carga de enfermedad en las poblaciones carenciadas. En general se asume que la medición de las desigualdades en salud es un proce...

Reducing health inequalities is a key objective for many governments and public health organizations. Whether inequalities are measured on the absolute (difference) or relative (ratio) scale can have a significant impact on judgments about whether health inequalities are increasing or decreasing, but both of these measures are not often presented i...

Scenarios depicting inconsistent and consistent changes in absolute and relative mortality inequalities after a hypothetical intervention. (PDF)

Linear regression estimates for respondent’s judgment of program success. (PDF)

Impact of presenting a difference or ratio measure of inequality alongside raw data on amount of respondent’s money for continuation of a hypothetical intervention. (TIFF)

Regression estimates for respondent’s assessment of whether the hypothetical program should continue. (PDF)

Impact of presenting a difference or ratio measure of inequality alongside raw data on respondent’s judgment of success of a hypothetical intervention. (TIFF)

Impact of presenting a difference or ratio measure of inequality alongside raw data on whether a hypothetical intervention should continue. (TIFF)

Logistic regression estimates for judgment of whether inequality increased or decreased. (PDF)

Regression estimates for amount of money respondent was willing to give to support continuation of the hypothetical program. (PDF)

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the cont...

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the cont...

Reduction of health inequalities within and between countries is a global health priority, but little is known about the determinants of popular support for this goal. We used data from the World Health Survey to assess individual preferences for prioritizing reductions in health and health care inequalities. We used descriptive tables and regressi...

To examine the frequency of reporting of absolute and relative effect measures in health inequalities research. Structured review of selected general medical and public health journals. 344 articles published during 2009 in American Journal of Epidemiology, American Journal of Public Health, BMJ, Epidemiology, International Journal of Epidemiology,...

A variety of microbial communities and their genes (the microbiome) exist throughout the human body, with fundamental roles in human health and disease. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Human Microbiome Project Consortium has established a population-scale framework to develop metagenomic protocols, resulting in a broad range of quali...

Studies of the human microbiome have revealed that even healthy individuals differ remarkably in the microbes that occupy habitats such as the gut, skin and vagina. Much of this diversity remains unexplained, although diet, environment, host genetics and early microbial exposure have all been implicated. Accordingly, to characterize the ecology of...

Buchanan and Kelley provide a sophisticated and thoughtful critique of contemporary discussions of biosecurity. They provide sound critiques of American biodefence institutions, and the general sense of imminent threat underlying the rush to fund biodefence. However, the essay consistently misrepresents the breadth and depth of scholarly research o...

Morpheus: No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see itfor yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turningback. You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake up in yourbed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill,you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-holegoes. Remember...

Quantitative estimates of the magnitude, direction, and rate of change of health inequalities play a crucial role in creating and assessing policies aimed at eliminating the disproportionate burden of disease in disadvantaged populations. It is generally assumed that the measurement of health inequalities is a value-neutral process, providing objec...

Introduction: Eden-OlympiaNetworks of EmergenceNetworks of ResponseNetworks as Metaphor and Reality, Problem and SolutionNotes

Inclusion of population medicine in a medical school curriculum has received growing attention. Recently, the Association of American Medical Colleges has highlighted this issue through support of the Regional Medicine and Public Health Education Centers initiative. The Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine joined this consortium while...

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55401/1/Aiello A, et al 2006 Ethical conflicts in public health research and practice antimicrobial resistance and the ethics of drug development.pdf

Since the 1960s, scientists and pharmaceutical representatives have called for the advancement and development of new antimicrobial drugs to combat infectious diseases. In January 2005, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), MD, introduced a biopreparedness bill that included provisions for patent extensions and tax incentives to stimulate indus...

Since the 1960s, scientists and pharmaceutical representatives have called for the advancement and development of new antimicrobial drugs to combat infectious diseases. In January 2005, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), MD, introduced a biopreparedness bill that included provisions for patent extensions and tax incentives to stimulate indus...

This essay reviews major areas of ethical debate with regard to biodefense, focusing on cases in which biodefense presents ethical problems that diverge from those presented by naturally-occurring outbreaks of infectious disease. It concludes with a call for ethicists to study not only the ethical issues raised in biodefense programs, but also the...

The concept of scale politics offers historians a useful framework for analyzing the connections between environment and health. This essay examines the public health campaign around emerging diseases during the 1990s, particularly the ways in which different actors employed scale in geographic and political representations; how they configured cau...

Contemporary American responses to the threat of bioterrorism represent a mixture of familiar and novel themes in the history of public health. As in previous eras, bioterrorism preparedness raises questions about microbial transgression of borders, civil liberties, and the place of biomedical and surveillance technology in public health. However,...

Public health in the United States and Western Europe has long been allied with national security and international commerce. During the 1990s, American virologists and public health experts capitalized on this historical association, arguing that 'emerging diseases' presented a threat to American political and economic interests, This paper invest...