OBJECTIVE The prevalence of serious infections caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens transmitted in the hospital setting has reached alarming levels, despite intensified interventions. In the context of mandates that hospitals ensure compliance with disinfection procedures of surfaces in the environment surrounding the patient, we implemented a multihospital project to both evaluate and impro...

Over the last decade community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has emerged as a major cause of disease in the general population with no health care exposure or known classical risk factors for MRSA infections. The potential community reservoirs have not been well defined though certain strains such as ST398 and USA300 have been well studied in some settings. MRSA ha...

Global concerns for environmental quality have resulted in a proliferation of fertilizer and pesticide regulations that restrict golf course management programs. The objective of this project was to investigate the long-term effects of conventional and alternative cultural and pest management programs, designed to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides, on the quality and performance of golf pu...

BACKGROUND Environmental cleanliness is one of the contributing factors for surgical site infections in the operating rooms (ORs). To decrease environmental contamination, pulsed xenon ultraviolet (PX-UV), an easy and safe no-touch disinfection system, is employed in several hospital environments. The positive effect of this technology on environmental decontamination has been observed in patie...

Over the past decade, the civil engineering community has ever more realized the importance and perspective of the reliability-based design optimization (RBDO), the selection of a design that satisfies performance constraints with a specified probability. Since then several stochastic simulation algorithms for computing small failure probabilities encountered in reliability analysis of engineer...

Evidence indicates that the atmospheric and oceanic processes that occur in response to increased greenhouse gases in the broad-scale climate system may already be changing the ecology of infectious diseases. Recent studies have shown that climate also influences the abundance and ecology of pathogens, and the links between pathogens and changing ocean conditions, including human diseases such ...

Health care-associated infections (HAI) remain a major cause of patient morbidity and mortality. Although the main source of nosocomial pathogens is likely the patient's endogenous flora, an estimated 20% to 40% of HAI have been attributed to cross infection via the hands of health care personnel, who have become contaminated from direct contact with the patient or indirectly by touching contam...

BACKGROUND Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains were isolated and characterized from environmental surfaces of two fire stations from two independent districts in the northwestern United States. After the first sampling and before the second sampling, education was provided, additional signage was added, and changes in disinfection protocols were put in place. Nasal carria...