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Background: Primary care physicians often fail to diagnose low bone density. This pilot study assessed 2 interventions for their effect on bone mineral density testing., Methods: Five practices in the Iowa Research Network were randomized: 2 to chart reminder alone (CR), 2 to chart reminder plus mailed patient education (CR+PtEd), and one to usual care. A total of 204 women aged 65 years or older were recruited from within these practices. Bayesian hierarchical analyses were used instead of traditional statistical methods to take advantage of collateral data and to adjust for differences between clinics at baseline., Results: After the intervention, the rates of completed bone mineral density testing were 45.2% in the CR+PtEd group, 31.4% in the chart remainder only group, and 9.7% in the usual care practice. Bayesian analysis adjusted for patient and clinic characteristics, which made use of collateral data, gave an odds ratio of 5.47 for the effect of CR+PtEd group. The Bayesian P was .029 and the one-sided 95% credible interval for the odds ratio was greater than 1.2. The effect of CR+PtEd was confirmed by sensitivity analyses. Traditional hierarchical analysis adjusted for practice characteristics could not be used to estimate statistical significance because there were not enough clinics to accommodate a model that included all the important covariables., Conclusions: Specific chart reminders to physicians combined with mailed patient education substantially increased the levels of bone density testing and could potentially be used to improve osteoporosis screening in primary care. Bayesian hierarchical analysis makes it possible to assess practice-level interventions when few practices are randomized.

Background: Sedating antihistamines may impair driving performance as seriously as alcohol., Objective: To compare the effects of fexofenadine, diphenhydramine, alcohol, and placebo on driving performance., Design: Randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, four-treatment, four-period crossover trial., Setting: The Iowa Driving Simulator., Participants: 40 licensed drivers with seasonal allergic rhinitis who were 25 to 44 years of age., Intervention: One dose of fexofenadine (60 mg), diphenhydramine (50 mg), alcohol (approximately 0.1% blood alcohol concentration), or placebo, given at weekly intervals before participants drove for 1 hour in the Iowa Driving Simulator., Measurements: The primary end point was coherence, a continuous measure of participants' ability to match the varying speed of a vehicle that they were following. Secondary end points were drowsiness and other driving measures, including lane keeping and response to a vehicle that unexpectedly blocked the lane ahead., Results: Participants had significantly better coherence after taking alcohol or fexofenadine than after taking diphenhydramine. Lane keeping (steering instability and crossing the center line) was impaired after alcohol and diphenhydramine use compared with fexofenadine use. Mean response time to the blocking vehicle was slowest after alcohol use (2.21 seconds) compared with fexofenadine use (1.95 seconds). Self-reported drowsiness did not predict lack of coherence and was weakly associated with minimum following distance, steering instability, and leftlane excursion., Conclusions: Participants had similar performance when treated with fexofenadine or placebo. After alcohol use, participants performed the primary task well but not the secondary tasks; as a result, overall driving performance was poorer. After participants took diphenhydramine, driving performance was poorest, indicating that diphenhydramine had a greater impact on driving than alcohol did. Drowsiness ratings were not a good predictor of impairment, suggesting that drivers cannot use drowsiness to indicate when they should not drive.

This paper describes male adoption studies at the University of Iowa using private and public adoption agencies within the state of Iowa from 1974 to the present time. This research involves four large studies, the first two of which demonstrated significant genetic as well as environmental effects in the etiology of alcoholism as well as significant correlations between adoptee conditions of antisocial personality and alcohol abuse. Findings in the first two studies were similar. However, the third study, using a sample from Catholic-sponsored adoption agencies across the state, failed to show a genetic effect. The final and fourth study was designed in part to look for heterogeneity in the manifestation of a genetic factor from one sample to another in the Iowa studies. This was done by sampling from two agencies, one of which had shown a genetic effect and the other that had not. In this fourth study, the agency that had not shown a genetic effect in the previous study also failed to show an effect, but the agency that had shown a significant genetic effect in the past did demonstrate a significant genetic effect. There were two remaining agencies in the fourth study for which no comparison with past samples could be made. One of these agencies showed a marginally significant genetic effect and the other showed no effect. Statistical analysis of this last study suggested that observed variability in the odds ratio from sample to sample was due to differences in manifestation of the genetic effect.