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August 29, 2007
47 Million without Health Insurance
From Forbes.com:
A record number of Americans are without health insurance, according to new U.S. Census Bureau statistics released Tuesday.
Some of the trend can be explained by employers who are curtailing coverage or making it too costly for lower income workers to afford, the report said.
"The number of people without health insurance coverage increased from 44.8 million in 2005 to 47 million in 2006," David S. Johnson, chief of the bureau's Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, said during a teleconference Tuesday.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 29, 2007
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Category: Health Disparities
August 27, 2007
Triple Negative Breast Cancer
From CBSNews.com:
Nicole Sudler was a 28-year-old single mother when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
"I was shocked," she said. "And I was very, very afraid."
Sudler had one of the deadliest and most aggressive forms of breast cancer. Some researchers are calling it "triple negative."
"It kind of made me feel like 'Oh, God, my life is going to be over.' You know, dating, it's not going to happen anymore. Getting married? Probably not," Sudler said.
This kind of cancer is a triple threat because it strikes early; it's resistant to standard drug treatments; and more likely to kill. Its primary targets are young African-American women. Black women under the age of 50 are 77 percent more likely to die from the disease than white women of all ages.
Patients like Sudler compel Dr. Funmi Olopade of the University of Chicago to figure out what is going on.
You can read the rest of the article at CBSNews.com.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 27, 2007
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Category: Breast Cancer; Health Disparities; Triple Negative Breast Cancer
August 21, 2007
Hispanic Teens Take More Skin Cancer Risks
HealthDay is reporting on a study published in the Archives of Dermatology that found Hispanic teens take more skin cancer risks than white non-Hispanics.
Compared to white non-Hispanics, white Hispanics were:
-More likely to tan deeply (44.2 percent vs. 31 percent).
-About 1.8 times more likely to never or rarely use sun-protective clothing.
-About twice as likely to never or rarely use sunscreen.
-2.5 times more likely to have used a tanning bed in the previous year.
-60 percent less likely to have heard of skin self-examination and 70 percent less likely to have been told how to do it.
-Less likely to think they had an average or above-average risk for skin cancer (23.1 percent vs. 39.9 percent).
Original study here.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 21, 2007
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Category: Health Disparities; Hispanic Health; Skin Cancer
August 17, 2007
Legal Interventions to Reduce Health Disparities
The Case Center for Reducing Health Disparities is happy to announce the first presentation in our Fall 2007 Works in Progress Series.
"Community Advocacy Program: Legal Interventions to Reduce Health Disparities" will be presented by Mallory Curran, JD and Janeen Leon, MS, RD, LD.
Date
Friday September 14, 2007.
Time
3-4 p.m.
Location
Case Western Reserver University School of Medicine
2109 Adelbert Avenue.
T503
(the School of Medicine is #50 on this map.)
Please RSVP your attendance to Sharon Lowstetter at slowstetter@metrohealth.org or by phone at 216-778-8484.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Note: the Works in Progress series this semester will include presentations at Cleveland State University. Check back for more information.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 17, 2007
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Category: Works in Progress
August 15, 2007
Prostate Cancer and Race and Ethnicity
From Forbes.com:
In the study, Robbins and his colleagues collected data on 116,916 men (108,076 whites and 8,840 Asians from the six largest represented Asian ethnicities -- Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese) diagnosed with prostate cancer. The researchers compared prognostic factors and survival rates among the men.
The researchers found that for Asians, risk profiles were worse compared with whites. For example, Asians were more likely to have more advanced disease and use non-curative therapies. But, for Asians -- except for South Asians -- survival rates were equal to or better than rates for whites.
The article can be found online at the journal Cancer.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 15, 2007
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Category: Asian Health; Health Disparities; Prostate Cancer
August 13, 2007
World's Best Medical Care?
From Sunday's New York Times:
With health care emerging as a major issue in the presidential campaign and in Congress, it will be important to get beyond empty boasts that this country has “the best health care system in the world” and turn instead to fixing its very real defects. The main goal should be to reduce the huge number of uninsured, who are a major reason for our poor standing globally. But there is also plenty of room to improve our coordination of care, our use of computerized records, communications between doctors and patients, and dozens of other factors that impair the quality of care. The world’s most powerful economy should be able to provide a health care system that really is the best.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 13, 2007
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Category: Health Care
August 10, 2007
Single dads providing less health care
From Reuters via Revolution Health:
Using data from a national survey of U.S. families, researchers found that fewer children in single-father homes made routine, "well-child" doctor visits compared with children in either two-parent or single-mother homes.
The children with single fathers were also 20 percent more likely to go a full year without health insurance, according to findings published online by the journal Health Services Research.
In contrast, children of single mothers had "comparable if not better access to care" than children living with both parents, the study authors report.
"The bottom line is that children in single-father families may be more vulnerable to health problems because they're not getting well-child visits or they don't have easy access to care when they need it," study co-author Dr. Kathleen Ziol-Guest said in a statement.
Full article at Health Services Research.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 10, 2007
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Category: Health Disparities
August 08, 2007
Better to not have insurance?
The AP is reporting on a JAMA article that concludes it might be better for children to have no insurance rather than be underinsured.
For children whose health insurance doesn't cover newly recommended shots, it's better to have no insurance at all, a new study suggests.
Free vaccines are available to children who are uninsured or qualify for public insurance.
But many states can't afford to help children with inadequate private insurance that doesn't cover new, expensive shots and even some older shots, the study found. That puts more than a million children at risk, researchers said.
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Posted by: David Porter on August 08, 2007
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Category: Health Disparities
August 06, 2007
Lead in toys. A Fact of Life for Some.
Across the U.S. stores are removing Mattel products because lead based paint was used during the manufacturing process.
While exhaustive, this type of recall does not remove all the potential hazards. Many small toys that are equally as dangerous can be found in vending machines and as free giveaways.
For example, these 2 stories from NYTimes.com:
That is just what happened in 2003, when doctors in Oregon found a lead medallion that had been purchased from vending machine in the stomach of a young boy who had complained of abdominal cramps and diarrhea.
And last year, Jarnell Brown, a 4-year-old in Minneapolis, swallowed a heart-shaped charm that had been given away by Reebok International as a sales incentive on its children’s footwear. Jarnell died after suffering vomiting, seizures and respiratory arrest. During the autopsy, a charm imprinted with the Reebok logo was removed from his stomach.
Exposure to lead, even small amounts, can affect normal brain development in children. Cleveland, which in 2002 was number 1 in the nation with regards to elevated blood levels in children, is currently working on this issue by lowering the threshold for lead poising.
But in some parts of the world the effort to protect children is not so great.
In one Reuters report we learn that Beijing was silent on the Mattel toy recall. The report goes on to say that "60 percent of Chinese-made toys used paint with lead above internationally accepted limits" and that it was business as usual in the toy stores across China.
"The worry isn't big toy makers that also export their products. The worry is small factories," said Feng Guoqiang, a childhood development specialist at Peking University's Health Science Centre.
For parents in China, it is just one more thing to worry about.
"There are just too many things to worry about," said Li Huijing, mother of a five-year-old girl. "There are some things I just try not to think about. I try to pay more for good toys."
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Posted by: David Porter on August 06, 2007
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Category: China