Ecomm Newcomer Greats Is Building A Brand On Sweet, Affordable Sneakers

Someone should probably go make a Wikipedia page for the “Warby Parker model,” since it has rapidly become the go-to business strategy for online retail startups.

The latest addition to the genus Ecommerce Lowoverheadus is Greats, a men’s footwear brand that launched in August. The name derives from the ambition to put a fresh spin on the enduring designs in sneaker history. Although that might sound like copycat design, pretty much every shoe brand iterates on others’ designs; as with most menswear categories, the classics persist in one form or another.

Although their wares are manufactured in the same facilities as upscale lines like Lanvin and Balenciaga, the goal is to create high quality goods while keeping the price point low by cutting out retail overhead. The shoes are priced in the range of $39 to $190, and while early adopters will undoubtedly skew toward sneaker aficionados, the target audience is broad.

“We’re going to make shoes for men with feet,” co-founder Ryan Babenzien said.

Babenzien and his co-founder, Jon Buscemi, are career shoe guys. The former did branding and marketing at K-Swiss and Puma, while Buscemi already has founding another footwear brand, Gourmet Footwear, under his belt.

The company raised an angel round of $500,000 last April, at which point they hadn’t even opened a bank account, Babenzien said. They were pre-selling in beta until their launch on August 6 and only began shipping three weeks ago.

Like Warby, Greats got a lot of early attention from press, including the seal of cool-approval on GQ’s blog. Now the team is looking to raise its seed round.

More than anything, Greats is aiming to be a label, not a startup with a clever business model. When we spoke, Babenzien came back again and again to the idea of building a brand, and, more importantly, to making sure that the DNA of the product is readily recognizable to consumers from the get-go. (Lest we forget that, the site’s URL is greatsbrand.com.)

Greats launched with two styles in three colors each and will be rolling out six additional shoes over the course of the next year. Sneakers are a focus in the first batch, but they’ll also be adding styles like boots and boat shoes into the mix by the end of 2014.

At the moment, Greats’s profit margins are 60%, but the team thinks they can get them higher than that.

“I could have sold this for $120,” Babenzien said, gesturing at the $99 black leather sneakers he was wearing. “And nobody would have blinked. We wanted to make a real statement.”

Part of the team’s long-term roadmap is globalizing Greats. Babenzien said they have been seeing web traffic coming from France, England, Asia, Australia, and Canada.

“The culture of men’s sneakers and footwear is global… we’d like to get to $100 million in revenue in five years,” he said. “I think based on what we’ve seen, it’s well within reach.”

They’ll also be taking on auxiliary categories. Socks, for instance, are something they could get into in the near term. (“That’s more of a strategic category than anything else,” Babenzien said.) Bags and sweatshirts would naturally follow. Because sneakers are part of a youth culture, college age guys form a large portion of Greats’s potential market, and the brand has the opportunity to outfit them from the shoes up.

The company has been moving quickly since April, and they’re wasting no time in getting their products into the offline retail world, as well. On November 9, Greats is opening a hundred square foot shop in a small glass walled shopping complex on Williamsburg’s waterfront, which they’re calling the “Field House” in reference to the brand’s vintage athletic vibe. Customers can buy shoes in the shop, although Babenzien noted that it’s the only physical store in which people will be able to make purchases.

The store will only be open from noon to 7 pm on weekends, the point being to get consumers touching and test driving Greats shoes, rather than serving as a major retail location.

Although having an offline location was always in the team’s playbook, they didn’t expect to make the move so soon. But the Williamsburg space was cheap and didn’t have a lease, so they snatched it up.

Greats is also getting product into the real world with two displays at the upscale LA men’s store Union and at High Point, a sneaker Mecca in Phoenix. The shoes won’t be available for sale at either joint; it’s more about building the brand in the context of other sought-after designers.

The sneaker market for guys is big, and these shoes, with their buttery leather uppers, are sweet. (Unfortunately for the ladies, they’re not running unisex sizes just yet.) The tricky part about online native fashion startups is that the fashion part of the equation — finding the line’s voice and aesthetic point of view — so often loses out to a focus on being online native. Young, creative designers fail all the time out of a lack of business acumen, but a fashion label needs direction, achievable through tight branding and great product. The Greats guys get that.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/eVClssmTstc/
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Fido's tail wags may reveal more than you think

In this 2012 image provided by the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari, a dog, bottom right, watches a video of the silhouette of another dog wagging its tail to its left. At top right is an inset image of the dog's heart rate while the dog was watching the video. A few years ago, researchers discovered a subtle difference in how dogs wag their tails. When a dog sees something positive, such as its owner, it tends to wags its tail more to its right. The wagging tends to go left when it sees something negative, like an unfamiliar dominant dog. In the Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013 issue of the journal Current Biology, the same Italian researchers report that other dogs pick up on that difference, and it’s reflected in their behavior and even their heart rates. (AP Photo/Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari)

In this 2012 image provided by the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari, a dog, bottom right, watches a video of the silhouette of another dog wagging its tail to its left. At top right is an inset image of the dog's heart rate while the dog was watching the video. A few years ago, researchers discovered a subtle difference in how dogs wag their tails. When a dog sees something positive, such as its owner, it tends to wags its tail more to its right. The wagging tends to go left when it sees something negative, like an unfamiliar dominant dog. In the Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013 issue of the journal Current Biology, the same Italian researchers report that other dogs pick up on that difference, and it’s reflected in their behavior and even their heart rates. (AP Photo/Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari)

NEW YORK (AP) — The way Fido wags his tail might reveal more about him than you know. Just ask another dog.

A few years ago, researchers discovered a subtle difference in how dogs wag their tails. When a dog sees something positive, such as its owner, it tends to wags its tail more to its right. The wagging tends to go left when it sees something negative, like an unfamiliar dominant dog.

Now, the same Italian researchers report that other dogs pick up on that difference, and it's reflected in their behavior and even their heart rates. Experts say the tail-wagging difference appears to be one way that dogs gauge how other dogs will respond to them.

"It's just fascinating that dogs pick up on it," said Evan MacLean, co-director of Duke University's Canine Cognition Center. For humans, he said, "it's a difficult thing to see."

MacLean was not involved with the study, reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trento in Italy, an author of the study, said Fido is not deliberately sending a message. Instead, the tail-wagging behavior stems from how different emotional cues activate different parts of the brain, he said in an email.

For the experiment, Vallortigara and co-authors used videos of a dog or its silhouette, wagging its tail mostly to one side or the other, or not wagging at all. They showed the videos to 43 dogs, including such breeds as Rottweilers, beagles, boxers, border collies and German shepherds as well as mongrels.

When the dog in the video wagged mostly to its left, the sign of a negative response, observer dogs tended to have faster heartbeats than when it wagged the other way or not at all. Their behavior also indicated a higher degree of stress.

Alexandra Horowitz, who studies mental abilities of dogs at Barnard College in New York, said that the wagging difference is probably not a primary signal between Fido and Rover in daily life, but it may play a minor role.

___

Online:

Current Biology: http://www.cell.com/current-biology

___

Malcolm Ritter can be followed at http://www.twitter.com/malcolmritter

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-10-31-Tail%20Wagging/id-11d9f6b649794626b3e82ea1d63fda5a
Category: elizabeth smart   Outside Lands  

New climate-studying imager makes first balloon flight

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Contact: Cynthia O'Carroll
cynthia.m.ocarroll@nasa.gov
301-286-4787
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Understanding Earth's dynamic climate requires knowledge of more than just greenhouse gases. One of the key measurements scientists measure is reflected solar radiance, or the amount of outgoing sunlight energy scattered from Earth's surface and atmosphere. Watching solar radiances over time helps scientists gauge and better understand environmental changes like global warming.

Earth-observing satellites have provided measurements of solar radiances for many years, but recent technology advances could lead to new measurements with a higher level of accuracy from those currently available. The next generation, higher-accuracy data would enable climate predictions and trends that could be clearly seen using data sets that are much shorter in duration than the current data sets needed for these types of studies, thus enabling faster detection of climate trends and more timely results.

NASA's Earth Science Technology Office is supporting the development of a new generation of scientific instrument that may one day orbit Earth. The HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS), developed by Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), is a testbed demonstrating improved techniques for future space-based radiance studies.

HySICS made its inaugural engineering balloon flight from Fort Sumner, N.M., the morning of Sept. 29. Balloon flights provide realistic, space-like conditions at a fraction of the cost of launching an instrument into space, so is an ideal means of testing new technologies. A 60-story tall balloon lifted HySICS to an altitude of nearly122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth's atmosphere, heights where the sky is nearly as black as in space. From this vantage point HySICS, aided by the pointing precision of NASA's Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), was able to make measurements of Earth, the sun and the moon during both daylight and night hours.

The hyperspectral imager, which spans a 10 kilometer field of view of Earth from the balloon's altitude, collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight and a half hour flight. The instrument periodically calibrated itself by performing highly accurate radiance scans of the sun and moon. This calibration ensures that the radiance measurements collected of Earth are able to reach the high-accuracy data needs of climate researchers.

After landing safely south of Wheeler, Texas, HySICS was recovered and returned to LASP. The data collected during the engineering flight will be used to improve the instrument over the next year and to further advance the science algorithms used to process the data.

HySICS images scenes onto a single focal plane array at wavelengths between 350 and 2,300 nanometers, covering the extremely important solar and near infrared spectrum containing most of the sun's emitted energy. Using only a single array allows HySICS to be smaller and lighter than many imagers, a feature necessary for cost-effective space-based Earth observing missions.

A second balloon flight is planned for September 2014. During that demonstration flight, HySICS should be able to reach its goal of collecting the most accurate solar radiance measurements (calibrated to the sun to better than 0.2 percent radiometric accuracy) that have ever been made of Earth. In addition, the HySICS lunar observations should provide the highest accuracy radiance measurements ever of the moon, having great value to lunar calibrations for other instruments.

The data HySICS collected on the engineering flight and will collect on the following demonstration flight help to refine the instrumentation needed for radiance and other hyperspectral studies. Not only is HySICS able to act as a space-based radiance testbed, but the measurements the instrument can make will be of great benefit to both the Earth and lunar science communities.

###

For more information on NASA's Earth Science Technology Office, visit:

http://esto.nasa.gov

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Contact: Cynthia O'Carroll
cynthia.m.ocarroll@nasa.gov
301-286-4787
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Understanding Earth's dynamic climate requires knowledge of more than just greenhouse gases. One of the key measurements scientists measure is reflected solar radiance, or the amount of outgoing sunlight energy scattered from Earth's surface and atmosphere. Watching solar radiances over time helps scientists gauge and better understand environmental changes like global warming.

Earth-observing satellites have provided measurements of solar radiances for many years, but recent technology advances could lead to new measurements with a higher level of accuracy from those currently available. The next generation, higher-accuracy data would enable climate predictions and trends that could be clearly seen using data sets that are much shorter in duration than the current data sets needed for these types of studies, thus enabling faster detection of climate trends and more timely results.

NASA's Earth Science Technology Office is supporting the development of a new generation of scientific instrument that may one day orbit Earth. The HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS), developed by Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), is a testbed demonstrating improved techniques for future space-based radiance studies.

HySICS made its inaugural engineering balloon flight from Fort Sumner, N.M., the morning of Sept. 29. Balloon flights provide realistic, space-like conditions at a fraction of the cost of launching an instrument into space, so is an ideal means of testing new technologies. A 60-story tall balloon lifted HySICS to an altitude of nearly122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth's atmosphere, heights where the sky is nearly as black as in space. From this vantage point HySICS, aided by the pointing precision of NASA's Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), was able to make measurements of Earth, the sun and the moon during both daylight and night hours.

The hyperspectral imager, which spans a 10 kilometer field of view of Earth from the balloon's altitude, collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight and a half hour flight. The instrument periodically calibrated itself by performing highly accurate radiance scans of the sun and moon. This calibration ensures that the radiance measurements collected of Earth are able to reach the high-accuracy data needs of climate researchers.

After landing safely south of Wheeler, Texas, HySICS was recovered and returned to LASP. The data collected during the engineering flight will be used to improve the instrument over the next year and to further advance the science algorithms used to process the data.

HySICS images scenes onto a single focal plane array at wavelengths between 350 and 2,300 nanometers, covering the extremely important solar and near infrared spectrum containing most of the sun's emitted energy. Using only a single array allows HySICS to be smaller and lighter than many imagers, a feature necessary for cost-effective space-based Earth observing missions.

A second balloon flight is planned for September 2014. During that demonstration flight, HySICS should be able to reach its goal of collecting the most accurate solar radiance measurements (calibrated to the sun to better than 0.2 percent radiometric accuracy) that have ever been made of Earth. In addition, the HySICS lunar observations should provide the highest accuracy radiance measurements ever of the moon, having great value to lunar calibrations for other instruments.

The data HySICS collected on the engineering flight and will collect on the following demonstration flight help to refine the instrumentation needed for radiance and other hyperspectral studies. Not only is HySICS able to act as a space-based radiance testbed, but the measurements the instrument can make will be of great benefit to both the Earth and lunar science communities.

###

For more information on NASA's Earth Science Technology Office, visit:

http://esto.nasa.gov

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/nsfc-nci103113.php
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Automated system promises precise control of medically induced coma

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

31-Oct-2013

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Contact: Sue McGreevey
smcgreevey@partners.org
617-724-2764
Massachusetts General Hospital

Successful animal study may lead to computer-controlled general anesthesia delivery

Putting patients with severe head injuries or persistent seizures into a medically induced coma currently requires that a nurse or other health professional constantly monitor the patient's brain activity and manually adjust drug infusion to maintain a deep state of anesthesia. Now a computer-controlled system developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators promises to automate the process, making it more precise and efficient and opening the door to more advanced control of anesthesia. The team, including colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reports successfully testing their approach in animals in the open access journal PLOS Computational Biology.

"People have been interested for years in finding a way to control anesthesia automatically," says Emery Brown, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, senior author of the report. "To use an analogy that compares giving anesthesia to flying a plane, the way it's been done is like flying a direct course for hours or even days without using an autopilot. This is really something that we should have a computer doing."

As part of a long-term project investigating the physiological basis of general anesthesia, Brown's team at MGH and MIT has identified and studied patterns of brain activity reflecting various states of anesthesia. One of the deepest states called burst suppression is characterized by an electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern in which brief periods of brain activity the bursts are interrupted by stretches of greatly reduced activity that can last for seconds or longer. When patients with serious head injuries that cause a buildup of pressure within the skull or those with persistent seizures are put into a medically induced coma to protect against additional damage, the goal is to maintain brain activity in a state of burst suppression.

Although anesthesiologists have had computer-assisted technologies for many years, no FDA-approved system exists that completely controls anesthesia administration based on continuous monitoring of a patient's brain activity. Until the current study, Brown notes, no one had demonstrated the level of control required for a completely automated system. Keeping patients at a precise level of brain activity for several days, as required for medically induced coma, appeared to be both a feasible goal and one that cried out for the sort of computer-controlled system called a brain-machine interface.

Adapting programs they had previously developed to analyze the activity of neurons, Brown's team developed algorithms to read and analyze an EEG pattern in real time and determine a target level of brain activity in this case the stage of burst suppression. Based on that target, an automated control device adjusts the flow of an anesthetic drug to achieve the desired brain state, and real-time analysis of the continuous EEG readings is fed back to the system to insure maintenance of the target. When the researchers tested their system in a rodent model, the actual EEG-based measure of burst suppression tracked the target trajectory almost exactly.

"As far as we know, these are the best results for automated control of anesthesia that have ever been published," says Brown, who is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT. "We're now in discussions with the FDA for approval to start testing this in patients." The MGH has also applied for a patent for the technology.

Among the benefits of such a system, Brown explains, would be the ability to maintain medical coma at a more precise, consistent level than can be done manually and using lower doses of anesthetic drugs, a reduction that is possible with any computer-assisted technology. Eliminating the need to devote one intensive-care nurse on each shift to continuous monitoring of one patient would significantly change ICU staffing needs. Further development of the system to control and maintain the full range of anesthesia states should introduce a powerful new tool to the entire field.

###

Lead authors of the PLOS Computational Biology report are Maryam Shanechi, PhD, now at Cornell University, and Jessica Chemali, MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. Additional co-authors are Max Liberman and Ken Solt, MD, MGH Anesthesia. Primary support for this work is through an National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award to Brown.

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

31-Oct-2013

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Contact: Sue McGreevey
smcgreevey@partners.org
617-724-2764
Massachusetts General Hospital

Successful animal study may lead to computer-controlled general anesthesia delivery

Putting patients with severe head injuries or persistent seizures into a medically induced coma currently requires that a nurse or other health professional constantly monitor the patient's brain activity and manually adjust drug infusion to maintain a deep state of anesthesia. Now a computer-controlled system developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators promises to automate the process, making it more precise and efficient and opening the door to more advanced control of anesthesia. The team, including colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reports successfully testing their approach in animals in the open access journal PLOS Computational Biology.

"People have been interested for years in finding a way to control anesthesia automatically," says Emery Brown, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, senior author of the report. "To use an analogy that compares giving anesthesia to flying a plane, the way it's been done is like flying a direct course for hours or even days without using an autopilot. This is really something that we should have a computer doing."

As part of a long-term project investigating the physiological basis of general anesthesia, Brown's team at MGH and MIT has identified and studied patterns of brain activity reflecting various states of anesthesia. One of the deepest states called burst suppression is characterized by an electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern in which brief periods of brain activity the bursts are interrupted by stretches of greatly reduced activity that can last for seconds or longer. When patients with serious head injuries that cause a buildup of pressure within the skull or those with persistent seizures are put into a medically induced coma to protect against additional damage, the goal is to maintain brain activity in a state of burst suppression.

Although anesthesiologists have had computer-assisted technologies for many years, no FDA-approved system exists that completely controls anesthesia administration based on continuous monitoring of a patient's brain activity. Until the current study, Brown notes, no one had demonstrated the level of control required for a completely automated system. Keeping patients at a precise level of brain activity for several days, as required for medically induced coma, appeared to be both a feasible goal and one that cried out for the sort of computer-controlled system called a brain-machine interface.

Adapting programs they had previously developed to analyze the activity of neurons, Brown's team developed algorithms to read and analyze an EEG pattern in real time and determine a target level of brain activity in this case the stage of burst suppression. Based on that target, an automated control device adjusts the flow of an anesthetic drug to achieve the desired brain state, and real-time analysis of the continuous EEG readings is fed back to the system to insure maintenance of the target. When the researchers tested their system in a rodent model, the actual EEG-based measure of burst suppression tracked the target trajectory almost exactly.

"As far as we know, these are the best results for automated control of anesthesia that have ever been published," says Brown, who is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT. "We're now in discussions with the FDA for approval to start testing this in patients." The MGH has also applied for a patent for the technology.

Among the benefits of such a system, Brown explains, would be the ability to maintain medical coma at a more precise, consistent level than can be done manually and using lower doses of anesthetic drugs, a reduction that is possible with any computer-assisted technology. Eliminating the need to devote one intensive-care nurse on each shift to continuous monitoring of one patient would significantly change ICU staffing needs. Further development of the system to control and maintain the full range of anesthesia states should introduce a powerful new tool to the entire field.

###

Lead authors of the PLOS Computational Biology report are Maryam Shanechi, PhD, now at Cornell University, and Jessica Chemali, MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. Additional co-authors are Max Liberman and Ken Solt, MD, MGH Anesthesia. Primary support for this work is through an National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award to Brown.

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/mgh-asp103113.php
Tags: dracula   Government Shutdown Over   Presidents Cup Streaker   Mary Lambert   Duck Dynasty  

Nikon hurt by falling DSLR prices, but still faring better than Canon

Nikon's finance department has been forced to revise its quarterly revenue forecast in a southerly direction due to the fact that entry-level DSLRs are selling for lower prices than it originally expected. One of the culprits is likely to be the D3200 shown above, which is currently going on Amazon ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/6oc06qAml6o/
Similar Articles: aapl   james taylor   Ronan Farrow   auburn football   robin thicke  

Everything That's Wrong with HealthCare.gov

The HealthCare.gov launch did not go so well. Some people paid the website a visit only to be greeted by a blank screen. Others found error messages or talked to misleading call center reps or had their personal information compromised. The whole thing is borked, and everybody knows it.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/V-CxYX7nnf8/everything-thats-wrong-with-healthcare-gov-1455989647
Related Topics: X Men Days Of Future Past   world series game 4   The Goldbergs   liberace   luke bryan  

Public health policies and practices may negatively affect marginalized populations

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

31-Oct-2013

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Contact: Leslie Shepherd
shepherdl@smh.ca
416-864-6094
St. Michael's Hospital

Author says it's important for public health officials to speak to populations that will be affected by a public health policy or program

TORONTO, Oct. 29, 2013--Despite the best intentions of those working in public health, some policies and practices inadvertently further disadvantage marginalized populations, according to a commentary by a researcher at St. Michael's Hospital.

Dr. Diego S. Silva, a scientist in the hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health, said there's an emphasis toward social justice in public health, particularly when it comes to people who are marginalized, disadvantaged or vulnerable.

"For example, despite evidence suggesting that people who are homeless are at greater risk of being infected with influenza and suffer greater morbidity than the general population, many pandemic influenza plans provide impracticable advice or otherwise fail to address their specific needs," said Dr. Silva.

The commentary appears online today in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

In the commentary, Dr. Silva and his colleagues refer to two public health policies case studies that "are intentionally problematic and don't have an easy solution."

In one example, a public health advisory issued by the State Department of Health in Indiana suggests that people who are homeless should be dissuaded from using shelters during flu outbreaks and should instead be treated on the street.

However, "given the cold winters of Indiana, it seems untenable that persons who use shelters will be able to, or ought to, stay away from them without placing themselves in danger of other perils, such as freezing to death," Dr. Silva said.

Dr. Silva said that while it is good advice to urge people to stay home when they are sick, the policy can take on different meanings for various populations.

"What does it mean to 'stay home' if you're homeless?" said Dr. Silva, who has a PhD in public health.

In the second case study, some mental health centres maintain indoor smoking bans on the grounds they reduce the harm associated with second-hand smoke. However, some studies suggest that smoking may have neurological and social benefits for people with schizophrenia.

"Thus even seemingly uncontroversial and commonplace public health programs, like those of tobacco cessation, may have the effect of disproportionately disadvantaging those who are already disadvantaged," he said.

According to Dr. Silva, a greater emphasis on teaching ethics and the philosophy of science is also needed in graduate schools or departments of public health.

Dr. Silva said there needs to be a greater emphasis on teaching ethics and the philosophy of science in graduate schools or departments of public health. He said those in public health schools need to ask more question about ethics and look at what they use as evidence when they make public health policies.

"This is particularly important when thinking about and questioning what constitutes the good and the right in public health, and may help guard against simplistic applications of ethics theories or principles (whether utilitarian or others)," he said.

Dr. Silva said it is important for public health officials to speak to the actual populations that will be affected by a public health policy or program.

"In the public health community, we are intimately aware of people who are marginalized," said Dr. Silva. "The more that we are explicit about the values of public health and its intentions, the more that we will create policies and programs that will better serve marginalized populations."

###

About St. Michael's Hospital

St Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in 27 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, care of the homeless and global health are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.

Media contact:

For more information or to interview Dr. Silva, contact:

Leslie Shepherd

Manager, Media Strategy,

Phone: 416-864-6094

shepherdl@smh.ca

St. Michael's Hospital

Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.

http://www.stmichaelshospital.com

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stmikeshospital

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

31-Oct-2013

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Contact: Leslie Shepherd
shepherdl@smh.ca
416-864-6094
St. Michael's Hospital

Author says it's important for public health officials to speak to populations that will be affected by a public health policy or program

TORONTO, Oct. 29, 2013--Despite the best intentions of those working in public health, some policies and practices inadvertently further disadvantage marginalized populations, according to a commentary by a researcher at St. Michael's Hospital.

Dr. Diego S. Silva, a scientist in the hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health, said there's an emphasis toward social justice in public health, particularly when it comes to people who are marginalized, disadvantaged or vulnerable.

"For example, despite evidence suggesting that people who are homeless are at greater risk of being infected with influenza and suffer greater morbidity than the general population, many pandemic influenza plans provide impracticable advice or otherwise fail to address their specific needs," said Dr. Silva.

The commentary appears online today in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

In the commentary, Dr. Silva and his colleagues refer to two public health policies case studies that "are intentionally problematic and don't have an easy solution."

In one example, a public health advisory issued by the State Department of Health in Indiana suggests that people who are homeless should be dissuaded from using shelters during flu outbreaks and should instead be treated on the street.

However, "given the cold winters of Indiana, it seems untenable that persons who use shelters will be able to, or ought to, stay away from them without placing themselves in danger of other perils, such as freezing to death," Dr. Silva said.

Dr. Silva said that while it is good advice to urge people to stay home when they are sick, the policy can take on different meanings for various populations.

"What does it mean to 'stay home' if you're homeless?" said Dr. Silva, who has a PhD in public health.

In the second case study, some mental health centres maintain indoor smoking bans on the grounds they reduce the harm associated with second-hand smoke. However, some studies suggest that smoking may have neurological and social benefits for people with schizophrenia.

"Thus even seemingly uncontroversial and commonplace public health programs, like those of tobacco cessation, may have the effect of disproportionately disadvantaging those who are already disadvantaged," he said.

According to Dr. Silva, a greater emphasis on teaching ethics and the philosophy of science is also needed in graduate schools or departments of public health.

Dr. Silva said there needs to be a greater emphasis on teaching ethics and the philosophy of science in graduate schools or departments of public health. He said those in public health schools need to ask more question about ethics and look at what they use as evidence when they make public health policies.

"This is particularly important when thinking about and questioning what constitutes the good and the right in public health, and may help guard against simplistic applications of ethics theories or principles (whether utilitarian or others)," he said.

Dr. Silva said it is important for public health officials to speak to the actual populations that will be affected by a public health policy or program.

"In the public health community, we are intimately aware of people who are marginalized," said Dr. Silva. "The more that we are explicit about the values of public health and its intentions, the more that we will create policies and programs that will better serve marginalized populations."

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About St. Michael's Hospital

St Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in 27 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, care of the homeless and global health are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.

Media contact:

For more information or to interview Dr. Silva, contact:

Leslie Shepherd

Manager, Media Strategy,

Phone: 416-864-6094

shepherdl@smh.ca

St. Michael's Hospital

Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.

http://www.stmichaelshospital.com

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/smh-php103013.php
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