Over the last few weeks we have been working to rebrand the Community and Health Research Unit (CaHRU) and redevelop our website and the launch day has come: welcome to the new website www.cahru.org.uk!
Our blog posts are still available and will continue to let you know the latest news in the unit but there is a wealth of extra information now available across the website.
A further study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, points to a link between influenza as a trigger of 
cardiovascular events, while presentations given in the past week in Toronto suggest that influenza vaccination might prevent such events.
Charlotte Warren-Gash and colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, have published a new study, “Influenza Infection and the Risk of Acute Myocardial Infarction in England and Wales: A CALIBER Self-Controlled Case Series Study”, which provides further evidence that influenza rather than other respiratory infections, trigger heart attacks. This is accompanied by an editorial in the same issue of the journal by Niroshan Siriwardena, “Increasing Evidence that Influenza is a Trigger for Cardiovascular Disease”.
Members of the Community and Health Research Unit from the University of Lincoln recently attended the combined Society of Academic Primary Care and RCGP Annual Scientific Meeting in Glasgow where they were selected to give five oral presentations on some of the team’s current research into cardiovascular disease, adult vaccination and insomnia treatment. The conference provided a wonderful opportunity for junior and senior members of the team to present work at an international conference. 
An analysis and commentary paper on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender primary care has been published in the British Journal of General Practice.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) primary healthcare will, increasingly, be a feature of the primary care repertoire. Pride in Practice, which is supported by the RCGP, provides a rating system that judges primary care surgeries on a welcoming environment, access, the general practitioner (GP) – patient consultation, staff awareness and training and health promotion for LGBT people. For those surgeries signed up to the initiative, plans to address shortfalls will be developed in consultation with the Lesbian and Gay Foundation.
Jo Middlemass returns to join the research team this October 2012 as Research Assistant on the CHROMED (Clinical tRials fOr elderly patients with MultiplE Disease) study which is a three-year, international, European Commission funded study investigating the effectiveness and costs of telecare for patients with long-term conditions including COPD and heart failure. Previously Jo worked on the ENACT study (Exploring Social Networks to Augment Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for people with insomnia).