Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
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Question: The University of Kansas will have what it says is the smallest four-year medical education site in the country when eight students begin taking classes on Monday on a satellite campus in Salina, Kansas. The move is in response to a shortage of rural doctors in the United States. “By training physicians in a nonmetropolitan area, we are showing young medical students that life can be good, and practice can be stimulating, outside of the big city,” said Dr. William Cathcart-Rake, the physician who directs the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Salina. Students will get some course work via tele-video and podcasts from the school’s other campuses, but they will also train through visits to doctors’ offices in small communities and at the hospital in Salina, school officials said. “It’s a bold and innovative move,” said Dr. Roland Goertz, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He said students at rural clinics will be exposed to a potential medical career they wouldn’t see in urban hospital settings. Cathcart-Rake said six of the eight students being taught at Salina, as part of their scholarships, have committed to practicing in a rural area. Seven of the eight students are from rural areas to begin with, he said. “They see the value of living in wide open spaces and going back to where their friends are,” Cathcart-Rake said. Attending medical school in a place such as Salina reduces chances they will change their minds, which could happen if they went to a big-city school, he said. Salina, with 46,000 residents, is about 175 miles west of the Kansas City metropolitan region where the university’s main medical school is located. Small-town America has become increasingly under-served by doctors. About 21 percent of U.S. residents live in rural regions but only about 10 percent of physicians practice there, according to data cited by the family physicians group. In Kansas, 12 counties don’t have a full-time doctor at all, said Barbara Atkinson, executive dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine. Several factors are often cited for a shortage of rural doctors. Rural doctors tend to be paid less, partly because they are more likely to treat patients on Medicare and Medicaid, which reimburses at rates below standard insurance. General practitioners make up the largest share of rural doctors, but until recent years fewer medical students were going into general medicine, putting a strain on rural care. Older doctors who practice in small towns and retire are sometimes not replaced because younger doctors may prefer the greater cultural amenities urban regions tend to offer. Recent changes in federal healthcare laws are intended to make rural practice more acceptable to doctors. Doctors who practice in certain underserved areas will get bonuses beyond the 10 percent boost in Medicare reimbursements they were already receiving, Goertz said. He said another reason why there are fewer rural doctors is that the large majority of medical students come from urban areas, where medical schools are usually located, making them less like to consider rural medicine. “You tend to gravitate to where you grew up,” Goertz said. Cathcart-Rake is optimistic that the Salina medical school will be a success and that in future years admissions may grow from eight to 12 students.

Answer: Rural doctor shortage prompts opening of medical school.


Question: The study evaluated the combined effect of six lifestyle habits on prostate cancer mortality. Those six factors were, as described in the journal article: “not currently smoking or quit 10 or more years ago, body mass index under 30 kg/m2, high vigorous physical activity, high intake of tomatoes and fatty fish, and low intake of processed meat.” It’s tough to put a price tag on those lifestyle choices. How much does “high vigorous physical activity” cost? How much does it cost to avoid eating processed meat? It would be easy to say this category doesn’t apply. But the release does address the issue, saying the study findings underscore “the ongoing need for more effective prevention measures and policies to increase exercise, improve diet quality and reduce tobacco use in our population….It takes co-operation and effort from multiple areas, like insurance companies, employers, policy makers and city planners, to figure out how to creatively support and encourage more exercise into most busy adults’ working day.” Recognizing the need for policies that support these lifestyle changes is important — and addresses the cost issue in a meaningful way. This is where things get a little tricky. The research described in this journal article looked at data from two different studies: the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS) and the Physicians’ Health Study (PHS). The HPFS tracked 42,701 men from 1986-2010. The PHS tracked 20,324 men from 1982-2010. The release (and journal article) explain that the researchers used the HPFS data to develop a “healthy lifestyle score,” and then applied that score to the men in the PHS to see if it predicted whether someone would contract a lethal form of prostate cancer. The researchers identified the number of lethal cases of prostate cancer in each group to calculate benefits. The release states: “Participants with 5 to 6 points [the highest scores] in the HPFS had a 68 percent decreased risk of lethal prostate cancer[,] and a 38 percent decreased risk was observed in the [PHS] for the same comparison.” Several points to make here. First, the ‘healthy’ group appeared to have been compared to the ‘least healthy’ group (score 0-1) and not all the other groups combined. This was noted in the published results but not mentioned in the release. That’s important. Second, the release does not note (but the journal article does) that the 38 percent decreased risk seen in the PHS was not found to be statistically significant. That’s also an important distinction. Third, this is the relative reduced risk, and doesn’t tell readers what the actual, absolute reduction of risk is. The release doesn’t address harms. But the lifestyle choices at issue here are (for the most part) so broadly defined that it would be difficult to say what the harms would be. What harms are associated with eating tomatoes, avoiding processed meats, or not smoking? We’ll rate this one not applicable. The release does a good job of explaining what is a somewhat complicated study design. The study is basically an analysis of data drawn from two large, previous studies — and the release describes the overall sample size, age range, and length of those two studies. But the language used to describe the results is inappropriate. Since this was an analysis of observational study data that’s unable to prove cause and effect, it’s misleading to use active verbs to describe the results. The release does this in several places: It’s more appropriate to state that these habits were “associated with” reduced risk — not that the habits “save lives” or “cut” risk. Another thing that’s not clearly explained to readers (as noted above) is what it means to develop a lifestyle scoring system based on one study’s data set, and then apply that scoring system to a second data set, when the results section is provided for both data sets. It’s confusing. We’d encourage public affairs specialists preparing news releases and reporters using them as their initial sources to focus more on the limitations of this type of research. Sometimes referred to as “data dredging,” it’s basically finding statistically significant results only by chance. In this case it’s a statistic of a statistic (up to 47% of cancer cases could be prevented with these lifestyle interventions). No disease mongering here. Funding sources were clearly identified, and there are no clear conflicts of interest. Things get tricky again here. As the release notes, most prostate cancers don’t metastasize and aren’t life threatening. But some do metastasize and can be fatal. Are there different types of prostate cancer, just like there are different types of flu? Are there genetic factors that affect risk? Readers would have benefited from that information. And we suppose that the release could have also mentioned other dietary or lifestyle factors that might help reduce risk that were not considered in the paper. However, the range of healthy behaviors discussed here is pretty broad, and it seems excessive to expect the release to address an entire laundry list of possibilities. We’ll give this a Satisfactory rating. The study was limited to a relatively high level income group and the interventions may not be attainable for all men, in all socioeconomic groups. Does partaking of vigorous physical exercise on a regular basis require access to a gym or just a high degree of motivation? Are tomatoes and fish attainable year round for all socioeconomic groups? The study addresses this to some extent when it says, “It takes co-operation and effort from multiple areas, like insurance companies, employers, policy makers and city planners, to figure out how to creatively support and encourage more exercise into most busy adults’ working day.” We’ll award a Satisfactory here. There are a lot — a lot — of papers out there on lifestyle choices and prostate cancer. In fact, the opening sentences in the abstract for the journal article says as much, while articulating what sets this research apart: “Several lifestyle factors have been associated with risk of lethal prostate cancer, but little is known about their combined effect. Our objective was to develop and apply a lifestyle score for prevention of lethal prostate cancer.” However, the release does not acknowledge all of the existing work on lifestyle and prostate cancer, and therefore fails to highlight how this paper fits into that broad body of work. Apart from the cause-and-effect statements addressed above, there is no unjustifiable language used here.

Answer: Working up a sweat may protect men from lethal prostate cancer


Question: The death toll rose by 743 on Tuesday, the second highest daily tally since the outbreak emerged in northern regions on Feb. 21, and up steeply from the 602 recorded on Monday. Italy has seen more fatalities than any other country, with latest figures showing that 6,820 people have died from the infection in barely a month. The total number of confirmed cases hit 69,176 on Tuesday, but with Italy testing only people with severe symptoms, the head of the Civil Protection Agency said the true number of infected people was probably 10 times higher. “A ratio of one certified case out of every 10 is credible,” Angelo Borrelli told La Repubblica newspaper, indicating he believed some 700,000 people could have been infected. The latest data comes as a disappointment to a country that has been in lockdown for two weeks, with schools, bars and restaurants shut and Italians forbidden from leaving their homes for all but essential needs. On Monday the government closed all businesses not deemed to be essential to the nation’s supply chain of vital requirements, and after the latest figures Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte stiffened fines for people leaving their homes to up to 3,000 euros ($3,225) from a previous maximum of 206 euros. “Every one of us must play our part,” he told reporters at a news conference held by remote video link to avoid contagion. “If everyone obeys the rules they don’t only protect themselves and their loved ones, but they will enable the whole national community to come out of this emergency.”  Current restrictions are due to remain in place until April 3, but there is speculation the date will have to be pushed back given the continual rise in cases across the country. A decree issued on Tuesday gave the government the power to extend the deadline to July 31. However, Conte denied planning to keep the lockdown in place until that date, saying he hoped to loosen curbs “well before then”. Investment bank Goldman Sachs forecast on Tuesday that the Italian economy, already teetering on recession before the outbreak hit, would shrink by more than 11% this year. Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri told parliament he expected a contraction of “a few percentage points”. The Civil Protection Agency said the biggest difficulty facing the health service was a shortage of masks and ventilators - a problem that has dogged hospitals since the start of the outbreak. Underscoring the problem, the regional governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia, ordered the confiscation of ventilators at veterinary surgeries, saying they could be converted to human use. With other countries looking to hoard their own medical supplies, a consortium of Italian textile and fashion companies have converted their production lines and will soon be able to produce half the required amount of masks. “(This) will give our system the ammunition that we need in order to fight this war and avoid our total dependence on imports,” Domenico Arcuri, the national commissioner for the emergency, told reporters. The government has said a number of industrial sectors, including medical suppliers, must keep operating during the crisis, but there is growing unhappiness amongst some unions who think the list of strategic concerns is too wide. Workers in the metal, chemical, textile, rubber-plastic and paper industries are expected to go on strike on Wednesday, alarming the government, which is holding talks with unions to try to stave off the stoppages. “The last thing that Italy can allow itself is industrial conflict in a situation of national emergency,” deputy Economy Minister Antonio Misiani told SkyTG24 television.

Answer:
Italian coronavirus deaths jump, dashing hopes that worst was over.