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July 02, 2009

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Posted by David Porter

July 01, 2009

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  • Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.
  • The widespread use of expensive cancer drugs to prolong patients’ lives by just weeks or months was called into question by an article published Monday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
  • The disagreement centers on a critical issue: What’s the best way to cover impoverished Americans? Is it by expanding Medicaid? Or by providing subsidies for the poor to buy private insurance on new health insurance exchanges to be created by the legislation?
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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 30, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

Race origins and health disparities

An article out of the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science tries to connect the dots between race origins and health disparities.

Efforts to simplify the complexities of race— including genetic, cultural and socioeconomic variations—have made race-related research “a minefield of often premature and ultimately wrong conclusions,” [lead author Nina T. Harawa said.]

To understand health disparities in the various population groups, she said, researchers need to understand how today’s racial categories evolved from the negative assumptions made hundreds of years ago to justify slavery.


The article appears in Ethnicity and Disease Journal and a pdf version of the first page can be found here.

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Category: Health Disparities; Health Inequality; Health Inequities; Minority Health; Race; Racial Health
Posted by David Porter

June 29, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 26, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 25, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 24, 2009

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  • Aboriginal children are among the most marginalized children in Canadian society. Despite some advances, in almost any measure of health and well-being, Aboriginal children – including First Nations, Inuit and Métis -- are at least two or three times worse off than other Canadian children. As children, they are less likely to see a doctor. As teens, they are more likely to become pregnant. And in many communities, they are more likely to commit suicide.
  • Huge geographic differences exist in cancer risk
  • Almost 2.2 million people lived in neighborhoods where pollution raised the risk of developing cancer to levels the government generally considers to be unacceptable. There, toxic chemicals were significant enough that people who breathed the air throughout their lives faced an extra 100-in-1 million risk of getting cancer.
  • The team of more than 30 researchers found that low-income women not only have more chronic diseases -- such as hypertension, arthritis and diabetes -- than their higher income sisters, but that their condition degenerates more quickly.
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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

Blogging and Tweeting about donating a kidney

Pamela Paulk, the VP of Human Resources at Johns Hopkins is keeping a blog about her experience donating a kidney.

She writes:

I am writing this blog in hopes of bringing more attention and awareness to the need for kidney donors … and to show that ordinary people can be donors. My hope is that maybe one person who reads this will hear about someone else needing a kidney and will say, “Hey, I can do that. I can give my kidney.”

Her most recent blog post was made prior to the day of the surgery. However she updated her Twitter feed up to and after the surgery.

Click on the image for a full sized version or click here.


Twitter is becoming an important tool for getting information out to friends and family members. Last month a transplant team used Twitter to keep a family updated while their 3 year-old received a new kidney.

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Category: Blog; Health Care; Organ Donation; Social Media; twitter
Posted by David Porter

June 23, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

Racial disparities in health care (CNN Video)

Tony Harris and Elizabeth Cohen talk about health disparities.


EXTRA: The Center for Reducing Health Disparities in now on Facebook. You can become a fan here.

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Category: Health Disparities; Racial Disparities
Posted by David Porter

June 19, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 18, 2009

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  • Researchers found that black children with high blood pressure are more likely than other children to develop a thickening of the left chamber of the heart. Known as left ventricular hypertrophy, or LVH, the condition can lead to heart failure, rhythm abnormalities and death.
  • Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.
  • Gov. Ted Strickland has floated roughly $2 billion in cuts to help close a $3.2 billion shortfall in the two-year state budget, a plan that would slash health care and other safety-net services for Ohio's poor.
  • People are afraid of losing their insurance in coming year. Nearly one in four people (23.6%) fear losing their health insurance at some point in the next 12 months.
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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 17, 2009

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  • Reacting to a rising tide of anger from gay and lesbian supporters at a series of slights and deferred promises, President Obama will tomorrow extend some benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
  • Despite the overwhelming evidence that men are being left behind, the U.S. government has never made a concerted effort to address male health issues. Right now, there are seven (seven!) offices of women's health in the U.S. government: six in the Department of Health and Human Services and one in the Department of Agriculture. And the Pentagon makes huge investments in women's health research. Yet there is not a single federal organization that encourages and disseminates physical and mental health research for and about men.
  • Residents in the poorest neighborhoods of Los Angeles County continue to face living conditions that are significantly more unhealthy than more affluent areas.
  • Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite criticism that the practice is unfair and abusive.
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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 16, 2009

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Posted by David Porter

New effort hopes to reduce the disparity in pneumococcal disease

A joint effort launched this week hopes to improve vaccination rates for pneumococcal disease in developing countries. The need is pressing.

Pneumococcal disease takes the lives of 1.6 million people each year – including up to one million children before their fifth birthday. More than 90 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries. Pneumonia, the most common form of serious pneumococcal disease, accounts for one in every four child deaths, making it the leading cause of death among young children.

Access to vaccines will be via an Advance Market Commitment. Donations will be used to help stabilize the price of vaccines once they enter the market. In theory, the promise of stable prices will motivate vaccine producers to invest resources for not only manufacture but also research and development.

The long term price (in a developing country) for a pneumococcal vaccine will be $3.50 if these AMCs are successful. In the U.S., the cost is around $70 per dose.

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Category: AMC; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Flu; Health Disparities; Health Inequities; Vaccines
Posted by David Porter

June 15, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
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June 11, 2009

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June 10, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter

June 09, 2009

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Category: Lunch Break Reading
Posted by David Porter