Health Highlights: June 11, 2008

"Making a pledge to remain a virgin until married may provide extra motivation to adolescents who want to delay becoming sexually active," Martino said. "The act of pledging may create some social pressure or social support that helps them to follow through with their clearly stated public intention."

It's estimated that 23 percent of female adolescents and 16 of male adolescents in the United States have made a virginity pledge, the RAND statement said.

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Incentives Offered for Use of Electronic Health Records

Twelve sites across the United States will participate in a Medicare demonstration project that will offer incentives to doctors who switch to electronic health records (EHRs), Health and Human Service Secretary Mike Leavitt announced Tuesday.

Once the five-year, $150-million project is fully implemented, as many as 1,200 small- and medium-sized primary care practices will receive incentive payments in exchange for getting rid of paper records and adopting certified EHRs. The goal is to reduce errors and improve health outcomes for patients.

Total payments under the demonstration for all five years may be up to $58,000 per physician or up to $290,000 per practice.

Communities selected to work with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the EHR demonstration project include: Alabama; Delaware; Jacksonville, Fla. (multi-county); Georgia; Maine; Louisiana; Maryland/Washington, DC; Oklahoma; Pittsburgh, Pa. (multi-county); South Dakota; Virginia; Madison, Wis. (multi-county).

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Airline Passengers at No Greater Risk of Infectious Disease

Worries about being at high risk of catching the flu or other infectious diseases while traveling on airliners may be overblown, according to an Australian Transport Safety Bureau study released Tuesday.

"The risk of transmission of infection on board an aircraft is probably no greater than, and perhaps less than, other environments where large numbers of people are gathered together," according to study conclusions cited by Agence France-Presse.

Many people mistakenly believe air in passenger planes is laden with infectious germs and viruses because it's continually recycled with limited fresh air from outside, the bureau noted.

However, the study found that if an aircraft's recirculation and filtration systems are working properly, the risk of catching an infection while flying is no greater than eating in a restaurant or traveling by bus, AFP reported.

Most people who do contract an illness on a flight are seated close to a sick passenger and exposed to droplets from coughing and sneezing, rather than from contaminated re-circulated air, the study found.