Topic Page for Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-09-27
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"We want people to come away with a different sense of what constitutes a health story,” says Michelle Levander, a veteran journalist and founding director of the fellowships. “We focus on health as it plays out in the community, as opposed to the medical research arena. We’re trying to broaden journalists’ perspective and encourage fellows to think critically about where ill health starts.”
Posted by: Staff on September 28, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-09-16
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"Teen suicide is a very real issue today in the United States. Until now, we've known very little about how much or how little suicidal teens use healthcare services. We found it particularly striking to observe such low rates of healthcare service use among most teens in our study," said lead author Carolyn A. McCarty, PhD of Seattle Children's Research Institute, and research associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The study, "Adolescents With Suicidal Ideation: Health Care Use and Functioning," was recently published in Academic Pediatrics.
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The new nonprofit group, called Enroll America, plans a state-by-state effort to publicize the expanded availability of health coverage and to help state leaders put in place procedures to simplify enrollment
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Overall, there has been an increase in funded school nurse positions in the U.S. in the last decade. But the numbers vary significantly by state, and some districts have no school nurses at all.
Posted by: Staff on September 16, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-09-14
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The portion of Americans living in poverty last year rose to the highest level since 1993, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, fresh evidence that the sluggish economic recovery has done nothing for the country’s poorest citizens.
Posted by: Staff on September 14, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-09-13
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Is the key to turning around the obesity epidemic as simple as determining what caused it in the first place? This article goes into the potential effects that policy could have on influencing better food and lifestyle choices to combat the obesity epidemic.
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Should the ban on HIV/AIDS organ donation be lifted to provide those with existing HIV increased access to organs?
Posted by: Staff on September 13, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-09-06
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Three hundred and fifty thousand: That's a conservative estimate for the number of offenders with mental illness confined in America's prisons and jails. In fact, the three largest inpatient psychiatric facilities in the country are jails: Los Angeles County Jail, Rikers Island Jail in New York City and Cook County Jail in Illinois. What can be done?
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According to a new analysis, the United States now ranks 41st in the world in terms of neonatal mortality, the death rate of infants less than one month old. The rate is higher in the United States than in, among others, Cuba, Slovakia, Croatia and all of Western Europe and Scandinavia.
Posted by: Staff on September 06, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-09-01
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Do you know how much sugar is in your favorite drink? About half of Americans drink sugary drinks daily -- and low-income people consume more of them than people with higher income.
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Highlights of a Philadelphia community-based program aimed at educating Spanish-speaking residents on health issues.
Posted by: Staff on September 01, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-08-12
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As best practices and evidence-based practice continue to gather attention, data collection is increasingly seen as a key element in improving care.
Posted by: Staff on August 12, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-08-09
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This article looks at some trends in eating out, particularly in the fast food sector in the US, which seems poised for change, following the introduction of mandatory calorie labelling this year
Posted by: Staff on August 09, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-07-02
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"Our study not only demonstrates that there is a racial disparity in acute stroke treatment rates in this predominantly African-American urban population, but identifies two important underlying reasons: African-Americans do not get to the hospital early enough for treatment and they have a greater number of medical reasons for not receiving treatment," says Chelsea Kidwell, MD, director of the Georgetown University Stroke Center.
Posted by: Staff on July 02, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-06-28
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Alarmed by a shortage of primary care doctors, Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of “mystery shoppers” to pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.
Posted by: Staff on June 28, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-06-10
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The Ohio Senate has added an amendment to the proposed state budget at the request of the Ohio Restaurant Association that would ban local municipalities from regulating the ingredients fast food-type eateries can use to prepare foods. "With what the Cleveland City Council did, it just made us think that this might be the beginning of a trend in Ohio and we knew that would be bad for the restaurant industry," Mason said.
Posted by: Staff on June 10, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-06-07
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This study documents an association between an objective measure of the social environment and sexual orientation–related disparities in tobacco use. These results highlight the need for structural-level interventions that reduce smoking behaviors in LGB youth.
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The results of this study of 241 parents found that parental asthma coaching intervention increased outpatient asthma monitoring visits (although infrequent) but did not decrease ED visits.
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An asthma self-management program led by peer leaders is a developmentally appropriate approach that can be effective in assisting adolescents with asthma in improving their attitudes and quality of life, particularly for males and those of low socioeconomic status.
Posted by: Staff on June 07, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-06-06
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To find the free-meal programs in your area, go to the clickable map at https://oh.cnpcares.com/summer/SfspFoodServByCnty.asp
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Typically when we think of disparities, we think racial or gender, perhaps economic, but an article in today's New York Times point to the disparities in care that affect people with disabilities. A disturbing look into how the most defenseless in our society are often treated by those who are hired and paid to care for them.
Posted by: Staff on June 06, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-06-04
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Upstream Public Health, a Portland based nonprofit, recently released a health impact assessment report detailing the benefits of House Bill 2800. The bill, if funded, would create a program reimbursing school districts for buying Oregon food, and a competitive grant program that would fund food, agriculture and nutrition-based activities in schools.
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Released by the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC).
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Kaiser Permanente's initiative is based partly on established clinical guidelines for diet, exercise and medical treatment. In addition, Kaiser solicited ideas from its individual clinics with a high percentage of patients whose blood pressure was under control, and used the most effective strategies. Read more here.
Posted by: Staff on June 04, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-05-23
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he health center, which is expected to open later this year, will house two primary-care doctors. There will be computer stations for the public and a fully equipped kitchen where a dietitian can lead cooking classes. It also will have space set aside for educational programs that target those with chronic conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension.
Posted by: Staff on May 23, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-05-17
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This article by Jerry Large from the Seattle Times considers a variety of factors in the reasons behind health disparities.
Posted by: Staff on May 17, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-05-10
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"This report shows that even higher-income, uninsured families are struggling to meet the high costs of health care," Sherry Glied, assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at Health and Human Services, said in a statement. "No family should bear the burden of being one illness or accident away from bankruptcy."
Posted by: Staff on May 10, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-05-05
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Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are "formal collaborations of health care professionals who agree to assume responsibility for providing a specific and potentially comprehensive set of health care services to a defined population." Should patient stakeholders have a say? of at least 5000 Medicare recipients
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A thought-provoking letter to JAMA exploring the correlation between crime and health disparities.
Posted by: Staff on May 05, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-04-26
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According to a University of Alabama at Birmingham study published April 26, 2011, online in Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society, researchers found that 80 percent of blacks were willing to spend all of their personal finances to extend life, while 54 percent of whites, 69 percent of Hispanics and 72 percent of Asians were willing to do so.
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Nabila El-Bassel, Ph.D., and colleagues from the National Institute of Mental Health Multisite HIV/STD Prevention Trial for African-American Couples Group, tested how well an intervention would work that addressed multiple health-related behaviors in African-American heterosexual couples in which one partner was HIV-positive and the other was not.
Posted by: Staff on April 26, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-04-20
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Without a concerted effort to increase minority representation in medicine as educators, researchers as well as providers, the disparity between providers and consumers of care will worsen—with very negative consequences on Americans' health and health care.
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What are lunches like at your kids’ schools? Do you pack them a lunch, or do they eat what’s served in the cafeteria? Are you satisfied with the nutrition they receive, and if not, what would you change?
Posted by: Staff on April 20, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-03-30
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Modlin, a urologist and one of fewer than 20 black transplant surgeons in the country, has been working to combat health disparities for the majority of his career.
In 2003 he organized the Clinic's first Minority Men's Health Fair. The following year, he founded the Minority Men's Health Center, part of the Clinic's Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute. The center provides outpatient services on Wednesdays and, starting in April, Tuesdays.
Please check out this link for a list of Ohio's Minority Health Month activities for 2011.
Posted by: Staff on March 30, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-03-28
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At the intersection of North 28th and West Oxford Streets, the Oxford Food Shop and the William D. Kelley School are in a tug of war over the cravings of kids
Posted by: Staff on March 28, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-02-08
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Gov. Jan Brewer and the legislature have decided that Arizona's Medicaid program will no longer cover life-saving transplants. The families of those waiting for transplants have created a website (arizona98.com) that lists 26 alternative funding options for lawmakers to consider.
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From Walmart to dining out, Michelle Obama is continuing to address the obesity epidemic across the nation.
Posted by: Staff on February 08, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2011-02-02
Posted by: Staff on February 02, 2011
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-12-09
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For the first time, researchers have established a clear link between accepting family attitudes and behaviors towards their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children and significantly decreased risk and better overall health in adulthood.
Posted by: Staff on December 09, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-12-04
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School meal programs have a major impact on the nation’s health, and supporters of the bill said it could reduce the prevalence of obesity among children. The lunch program feeds more than 31 million children a day.
Posted by: Staff on December 04, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-12-01
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The New York Times cites an article in the November issue of the journal Health Affairs that may point to answers as to why the U.S. ranks 49th in life expectancy. After citing statistical evidence showing that American patterns of obesity, smoking, traffic accidents and homicide are not the cause of lower life expectancy, they conclude that the problem is the health care system.
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England is ready to lay the groundwork for healthy lifestyle promotion. The plan is to include all of society in making efforts to change products, lifestyle, and health choices to create a healthier nation.
Posted by: Staff on December 01, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-11-30
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A hazecam has been working on the 10th floor of MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, taking photographs of the air quality hovering over downtown. The Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency recently decided to support a one-year pilot program to continue operating a camera and archive four pictures being taken every hour. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article about the hazecam in today's Metro section. You can see the hazecam "live" at http://clevelandhazecam.net/
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Treatment for children with autism spectrum disorders is costly and following up with the treatment is time consuming. Parents in Texas hit the headlines about their fight to get Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) Therapy coverage for their daughter. Their struggles point out the difficulty in treating children with autism. Noting their incomes, one has to wonder how people of lower income brackets are able to make it work for their children. Are they afforded the same opportunities?
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It is a myth that only Caucasian, well-off females are at risk, David S. Rosen, MD, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and team wrote. The results of the anti-obesity drive over the last few years - focusing on eating habits and losing weight - may have unintentionally contributed towards an increase in eating disorders, the authors add.
Posted by: Staff on November 30, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-11-23
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Providing the more than 10 million people incarcerated around the world "with better health care could prevent outbreaks of HIV and tuberculosis from spilling over into the general population experts say," the Associated Press/Washington Post reports. (Medical News Today)
Posted by: Staff on November 23, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-11-05
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Do you think foreclosure affects your health and the health of your family? Talk about it as part of this study.
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For more information about the study discussed in this clip, please contact Felicia Adams at the Case Center for Reducing Health Disparities at 216-778-8404.
Posted by: Staff on November 05, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-11-02
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Plain Dealer reporter Ellen Kleinerman writes about the shortage of research volunteers and the hopeful impact of the Aware for All event being held this Saturday, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. at the Downtown Cleveland YMCA (2200 Prospect).
Posted by: Staff on November 02, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-10-26
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Ohio's mental-health system used to be a national model for mental health. Now it has been described "among the 10 worst states for mental-health budget cuts" by The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Posted by: Staff on October 26, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-10-23
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f current obesity trends don't change, one in three American adults will have diabetes by 2050, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Friday.
Posted by: Staff on October 23, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-10-22
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Will new marketing techniques work to push healthy snacks instead of junk food? This article describes some new ways people are trying to reach consumers and encourage healthy eating.
Posted by: Staff on October 22, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-10-21
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Providing financial incentives to hospitals to improve quality is increasingly common, but there is little evidence about their effect on hospitals that provide care for poorer patients. An article from Annals of Internal Medicine is highlighted on the Robert Wood Johnson website.
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This report released by the CDC in October presents complete period life tables by Hispanic origin, race for the non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black populations, and sex for the United States based on age-specific death rates in 2006.
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More than two years have passed since President George W. Bush signed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, but it will not be in full effect until early 2011 as health plans begin their new enrollment years.
Early indications, however, are that relatively few employers are dropping mental health coverage in response to the law's mandate, a concern of some of the bill's opponents.
Posted by: Staff on October 21, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-10-07
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An article appearing in the Archives of Internal Medicine looks into the racial disparities of end of life discussions in advanced cancer patients. The study found that while there are similar rates for end of life discussions, black patients tend to have lower terminal illness awareness, more preferences for life prolonging care and are less likely to have a DNR in place. For more information, read the summary at Kaiser Health News.
Posted by: Staff on October 07, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-09-30
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Congress is about to increase the amount of money it gives to the National School Lunch Program. The Obama administration asked for more than $10 billion to improve the program over 10 years. The current bill cuts that money in half. If the bill passes, districts will get about a 6-cent increase per child. Currently, schools in high-expense cities such as San Francisco get $2.74 a meal per child. "When's the last time you could get a lunch for that price?" Woldow asked. "What we need is really about $5 a child to feed them healthy food."The No. 1 meal served to children in U.S. schools is chicken fingers and French fries. Processed food is much cheaper to serve than fresh produce.
Posted by: Staff on September 30, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-08-24
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The National Alliance on Mental Illness Greater Cleveland, recently adapted a session to reach Hispanics -- who, along with blacks -- often view mental illness as a sign of weakness.
Posted by: Staff on August 24, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-08-17
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At any given time in the United States, more than 100,000 people are waiting for donor organs, more than 10 times as many as become available. Some die waiting; others get sicker and sicker, sometimes too ill to survive when a suitable organ finally becomes available.
Posted by: Staff on August 17, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-08-13
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Emergency room patients who ask to be seen by a physician of their same gender, race or religious background are not always treated equally, U.S. researchers find.
Posted by: Staff on August 13, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-08-12
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These findings indicate that ED visit rates have increased from 1997 to 2007 and that EDs are increasingly serving as the safety net for medically underserved patients, particularly adults with Medicaid.
Posted by: Staff on August 12, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-08-10
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Significant differences exist between patients' and physicians' impressions about patient knowledge and inpatient care received. Steps to improve patient-physician communication should be identified and implemented.
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"Closing the disparity gap is not only morally and professional imperative, it remains a glaring civil rights injustice that must be addressed," the ACP states.
Posted by: Staff on August 10, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-07-07
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The U.S. government's plan to base Medicare payments to hospitals on certain quality-of-care measures could end up transferring funds away from hospitals in the nation's poorest, underserved areas, an analysis published Tuesday suggests.
Posted by: Staff on July 07, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-07-03
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Mothers of children with autism see their careers disproportionally affected as they confront greater demands on their time, inflexible workplaces and increased medical costs, according to a new study by researchers at Washington State University Vancouver. "We found that negative effects concentrate on the mother," said Dana Baker, lead author with Laurie Drapela of a paper published online this month in the peer-reviewed Social Science Journal.
Posted by: Staff on July 03, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-06-22
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New study from the Ohio State University shows that US preschool-aged children exposed to the 3 household routines of regularly eating the evening meal as a family, obtaining adequate nighttime sleep, and having limited screen-viewing time had an ~40% lower prevalence of obesity than those exposed to none of these routines. These household routines may be promising targets for obesity-prevention efforts in early childhood. The article is published in Pediatrics and is written by Sarah Anderson and Robert Whitaker.
Posted by: Staff on June 22, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-06-21
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The health of children and their mothers in Cuyahoga County has improved in a few key areas, but the state's most populous county continues to fall woefully short in other areas, such as the rate of low birth weight and racial disparity in perinatal and infant mortality, according to a new report.
Posted by: Staff on June 21, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-06-17
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Possible explanations suggested by this study for the differences in surgical rates for blacks compared to whites include perceptions by black patients of poor doctor-patient communication. Also, black patients were less likely than whites to have primary care providers or other sources of support that could help them either reconsider the decision when they don't fully understand their prognosis or challenge a clinical decision against surgery that was not based on absolute contraindications complicating conditions that are considered to make surgery inadvisable.
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The study is being called the first to estimate how often current and former patients have skipped getting care because of money worries. It was led by Kathryn Weaver, a researcher at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. Cancer survivors under the age of 65 years were 55 percent more likely to delay or forgo all types of medical care than their same age peers without a history of cancer. “This is important because cancer survivors have many medical needs that persist for years after their diagnosis and treatment,” said Dr. Weaver. Hispanic and black cancer survivors were more likely to go without prescription medications and dental care than white survivors.
Posted by: Staff on June 17, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-06-08
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We are seeing a global movement for an end to the silent scandal of women dying in childbirth," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, according to a text of his prepared remarks. "We can stop this, and we will."
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Despite universal health insurance coverage and access to military treatment facilities, we found evidence of racial and ethnic differences in asthma prevalence and outcomes after adjusting for differences in demographic characteristics and socioeconomic status. Compared with white children in the MHS, the prevalence of asthma among black and Hispanic children was significantly higher and their outcomes were often worse.
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Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that children and adolescents living in non-smoking homes in counties with laws promoting smoke-free public places have significantly lower levels of a common biomarker of secondhand smoke exposure than those living in counties with no smoke-free laws.
Posted by: Staff on June 08, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-06-04
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The bill includes a requirement that Ohio schools measure kids' body mass index, a measure of height and weight, in kindergarten, third, fifth, and ninth grades. However, school districts can seek a waiver to drop the requirement. The bill also called for 30 minutes a day of exercise from youngsters, but school districts successfully lobbied to turn that into a pilot project for districts that want to participate. The vigorous debate among House lawmakers on the legislation comes as children's health groups estimate that about one-third of Ohio children are considered overweight or obese.
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Community intervention can help American Indian families change behavior related to early childhood weight gain and obesity, according to a new Kaiser Permanente and Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) study.
Posted by: Staff on June 04, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-28
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Thirty-five percent of the pharmacies could provide no translation service and the rest offered only limited translation services. The results showed that 44 percent of pharmacies located in counties where Hispanics made up more than a fourth of the population were unable to translate instructions.
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Statistics show that language is a major factor in cases of misdiagnosis and instances of poor treatment at hospitals, and delays in service or access to preventive care. Medical error in general is a troubling issue, but patients with limited English proficiency are almost twice as likely to suffer adverse events in U.S. hospitals, resulting in temporary harm or death, according to a pilot study by The Joint Commission - an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States
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The success of the integrative approach of a medical-legal partnership is one reason advocates say there is bipartisan support, even in health care-weary Congress, for a federal demonstration project to measure the effects on patients, physicians and health centers, said Ellen Lawton, executive director of the National Center for Medical Legal Partnership. Medical Legal partnerships exist as part of a grass-roots program launched in Boston in 1993 and currently there are 85 partnerships in 37 states.
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Omro is among a growing number of Wisconsin school districts that are serving students fresh, locally grown produce through the National Farm to School program — part of an initiative to bring healthy food from local farms to school children. The program sprouted from a desire in the late 1990s to support community-based food systems, strengthen family farms and promoting healthy eating habits in students.
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"The National Action Plan released by HHS calls for all sectors to become engaged in the effort to ensure that consumers have the tools they need to navigate our health care system. Our members are responding to this challenge, and we stand ready to work with others to address this important foundation for the reform of our health care system."
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Amnesty International highlights the number of people living in "extreme poverty" or on less than $1.25 per day, the disproportionate effect that limited progress on Millennium Development Goal targets has had on women and the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by 'ongoing armed conflicts and insecurity.
Posted by: Staff on May 28, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-27
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New York City’s public hospital system said on Wednesday that some of the thousands of heart test results that were never sent to doctors at Harlem Hospital Center since 2007 had shown signs of abnormal heart function. Hospital officials made the admission a day after acknowledging that results of 4,000 of the tests, called echocardiograms, had never been seen by doctors because of a practice of allowing technicians to read them first.
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As their numbers have grown, from 800 in the 1990s to 30,000 today, medical experts have come to see hospitalists as potential leaders in the transition to the Obama administration’s health care reforms, to be phased in by 2014.
Posted by: Staff on May 27, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-26
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Economic access has become a primary research focus in public health nutrition, including the work by Adam Drewnowski, UW Professor of Epidemiology and his team. Supermarket chains have specific demographics--consumers differ by age, education, income, health, and even obesity rates. "The county-wide [Seattle] obesity rate in 2007 was 19.8 percent, but our research found that the obesity rate was only four percent among Whole Foods and PCC shoppers," said Drewnowski. "Consumers who shop at most area supermarket chains have obesity rates at 25 percent and higher. Clearly, not all supermarkets are the same and economic access is determined by price."
Posted by: Staff on May 26, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-24
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"Effective communication between patients and their doctors is critical to ensure proper care and treatment is prescribed, and it's especially important in addressing disparities in the care of high risk patients," said Jill A. Foster, M.D., M.P.H., co-author of the study and medical director at CE Outcomes, LLC, in Birmingham, Ala. "Findings from these surveys suggest that neither patients nor doctors may realize they're missing key cultural differences, an oversight that can impede health outcomes."
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At non-minority-serving hospitals, there were no disparities in readmissions (23.3 percent versus 23.1percent). Heart failure is the most common cause of hospitalizations and readmissions in the Medicare program. Improving efforts at poor-performing, minority-serving hospitals could increase quality of care for all heart failure patients and reduce racial healthcare disparities, researchers said.
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The criteria for prioritizing specific funding should be simple: what are the evidence-based programs that are primed and ready to go, that are proven to work, that we know will move us toward a healthier society and that we can be sure will deliver a large, measurable return on investment? By these criteria, the top priority for prevention spending should be tobacco control.
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"These findings are very timely as Congress considers the more comprehensive Fatherhood, Marriage and Families Innovation Fund, proposed in the President's 2011 budget," said Carmen R. Nazario, HHS' assistant secretary for children and families. "The results of this study show that it is possible to positively influence and strengthen families with support programs, but also suggest that the current approach isn't adequate.
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Twenty years ago, the United States ranked 29th in the child mortality rate, according to data analyzed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. But as much of the world makes strides in reducing child mortality, the United States is increasingly lagging and now ranks 42nd globally, behind much of Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates, Cuba and Chile. The estimates, derived from modeling based on international birth records and other sources, are being published Monday in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Posted by: Staff on May 24, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-22
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Some of the increased spending on drugs for young people went toward flu medications tied to the H1N1 pandemic. But that built on a base of increasing use of prescription drugs in children due to obesity, diabetes and other health issues that used to be largely the province of the middle-aged. Overall, Medco says, 26% of those under 19, and 29% of kids aged 10 to 19, are taking medications for a chronic condition. Among the meds they’re taking: diabetes drugs, antihypertensives, cholesterol medications and asthma treatments. “All of these adult drugs are popping up in children, which is really disturbing,” Robert Epstein, Medco’s chief medical officer, said on a conference call with media
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The poll found very strong support (94%) for the idea that institutions conducting medical and health research-government, universities and private industry-should work together. Americans see such collaboration as leading to greater knowledge, better success rates and faster development of cures and treatments, as well as avoiding duplication and maximizing resources devoted to research and development.
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This past month researchers at Harvard Medical School published the largest study to date of what has been termed “primary nonadherence” and found that more than 20 percent of first-time patient prescriptions were never filled. According to Dr. Michael A. Fischer, more important factors contributing to nonadherence are likely affordability, physician-patient communication and the cumbersome process of filling out a prescription.
Posted by: Staff on May 22, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-20
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"It's important to note the report finds that having a usual source of medical care, such as a primary care provider, does not affect the number of times people under age 65 visit the emergency department," Dr. Angela Gardner, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said of Wednesday's report.
"In 2007, approximately one in five persons in the U.S. population had one or more emergency department visits in a 12-month period," the report from the National Center for Health Statistics reads.
Cultural Competency: Neighborhood Tour and Conference for Researchers took place yesterday with more than 80 researchers in attendance. The tour was provided by Lolly the Trolley and participants were able to choose either a tour through the Stockyards and Asiatown neighborhoods, or Hough and Asiatown neighborhoods. Click the above link to read the article published in today's Plain Dealer.
Posted by: Staff on May 20, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-14
Posted by: Staff on May 14, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-05-07
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When analyzing obesity disparities among women, socioeconomic status and social context may be more important than race, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions.
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Hospitals need to do a better job of informing patients about charity-care programs that could cover all or some of their medical costs, according to a national report released yesterday. The Access Project and Community Catalyst, two health-advocacy groups based in Boston, surveyed 99 of the nation's almost 5,000 hospitals last summer. The groups found that about 85 percent of hospitals mention charity-care programs to patients, fewer than half provide applications for financial help, and a quarter post eligibility criteria for the programs on their websites. In lieu of paying federal or state taxes, nonprofit hospitals are expected to provide free or discounted medical care to low-income patients.
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Nearly 80,000 chemicals are in use in the United States, and yet only a few hundred have been tested for safety, the report notes.
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Avniel Serkin-Ahmed, a youth advocate, spoke of his experience. "When I was a toddler I received my first mental health diagnosis. Determined to make sure that I would have the best and most 'normal' life possible, my mother fought hard to make sure that I received the supports, services and tests that I needed. My mother faced many unnecessary roadblocks throughout the years in order to ensure that I had the services that I needed at a very early age. Receiving these services at an early stage in my life set a great foundation and provided me with the tools that would need to be successful in my future."
Posted by: Staff on May 07, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-04-21
Posted by: Staff on April 21, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-04-06
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Will the health care reform only help people of color? On Thursday, The Ohio State University Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity released a fact sheet (PDF) that explains how recently passed reforms won’t improve the low quality treatment received by racial and ethnic minorities. The fact sheet is discussed in this Mother Jones article.
Posted by: Staff on April 06, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-03-25
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Not an "end all be all" solution, but perhaps a contribution to ending disparities. Mr. Satcher's discussion is about health insurance and the lack of coverage that contributes to disparities. Unfortunately, there is much more contributing to disparities aside from coverage including patient AND provider education, environment, and cultural issues that are large contributing factors.
Posted by: Staff on March 25, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-03-19
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Research scientists from the Cancer Prevention Institute of California (CPIC) released the results of a study of breast cancer in Asian women which examined their cancer rates by ethnicity, age and immigrant status. The findings challenge the notion that breast cancer rates are uniformly low across the population of Asian women and indicate rising rates of occurrences in specific ethnic groups. CPIC scientists studied Asian populations in California, the state with the largest and most diverse Asian population in the U.S.
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Telephone counseling programs for smoking cessation, popularly known as "quitlines," are an increasingly common way for smokers to quit. Every state in the U.S. now has one. However, most of them provide counseling services in English and Spanish only. The only quitline so far to offer counseling in multiple Asian languages is the California Smokers' Helpline. Since 1993, the Helpline has been counseling smokers in Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese dialects), Korean and Vietnamese, in addition to English and Spanish.
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Extreme obesity is affecting more children at younger ages, with 12 percent of black teenage girls, 11.2 percent of Hispanic teenage boys, 7.3 percent of boys and 5.5 percent of girls now classified as extremely obese, according to a Kaiser Permanente study of 710,949 children and teens that appears online in the Journal of Pediatrics.
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Arizona on Thursday became the first state to eliminate its Children’s Health Insurance Program when Gov. Jan Brewer signed an austere budget that will leave nearly 47,000 low-income children without coverage.
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Writing in this week’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the article's authors say the scientific rationale for the exclusions, if any, is not at all clear. “Researchers should be held to careful scientific reasons,” they add, “when they develop exclusion criteria that are based on sexual orientation.”
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The "Hearts and Minds" initiative focuses on combating risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking and obesity for major illnesses such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. The program has significant implications for African Americans living with mental illness, who face these risk factors as well as additional disparities in access to and quality of health care.
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The goal of this article is to improve rates of cancer screening and cancer outcomes by increasing the medical community’s understanding of the complex cultural and socioeconomic factors affecting Latinos. This article emphasizes cultural issues related to women’s cancers.
Posted by: Staff on March 19, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-03-17
Posted by: Staff on March 17, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-03-11
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If educators and federal officials are serious about closing academic-achievement gaps, they need to better coordinate efforts to address the health disparities that impede learning for students from disadvantaged groups, according to a study released on March 9.
Posted by: Staff on March 11, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-02-26
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Ethnic and racial minorities bear a disproportionate share of America’s diabetes epidemic but are significantly less likely than whites to receive a commonly used test to monitor control of blood glucose....[B]lack and Hispanic patients diagnosed with diabetes are 2 to 3 times less likely than white patients to receive the A1C test during physician office visits. [Washington State University] researchers note that diabetes has become a global epidemic projected to affect 48 million Americans by 2050. Hispanics and blacks are more than twice as likely to develop diabetes and suffer the consequences of insufficient monitoring, say the WSU researchers. 'Earlier this year, the American Diabetes Association announced guidelines encouraging use of the A1C test in both the monitoring and diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease.' (Link courtesy of Michael Massing)
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The County Health Rankings—the first set of reports to rank the overall health of every county in all 50 states—were released today by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at a briefing in Washington, D.C. and on www.countyhealthrankings.org. The 50 state reports help public health and community leaders, policy-makers, consumers and others to see how healthy their county is, compare it with others within their state and find ways to improve the health of their community.
Posted by: Staff on February 26, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-02-11
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The incidence of advanced breast cancer diagnosis among black women remained 30 percent to 90 percent higher compared to white women between 1992 and 2004, according to new findings by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In addition, the disparity in the incidence of advance colorectal cancer actually widened over this time period as rates fell among whites but increased slightly among blacks.
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When it comes to meeting national health goals for physical activity, Mexican-Americans are the most active group in America and may benefit from exercise that researchers typically have not measured, according to research by scholars at the University of Chicago and Arizona State University.
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The results of an innovative study to understand what factors may influence who contracts tuberculosis (TB)/HIV co-infection in San Diego show a significant shift in the ethnic makeup of the disease, with the majority of cases now coming from the Hispanic community.
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The MAC AIDS Fund (MAF) launched its latest VIVA GLAM campaign, a women's initiative aimed at strengthening the service network and resources available to women living with and at risk of contracting HIV.
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A rare study that tracked thousands of children through adulthood found the heaviest youngsters were more than twice as likely as the thinnest to die prematurely, before age 55, of illness or a self-inflicted injury. Youngsters with a condition called pre-diabetes were at almost double the risk of dying before 55, and those with high blood pressure were at some increased risk. But obesity was the factor most closely associated with an early death, researchers said.
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The oversight of the mental health treatment of the young people in [NY] state facilities falls to several dozen psychologists who visit them for consultations, and staff members at the jails who run group therapy sessions despite often having no qualifications beyond a high school degree.
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Although the Department of Veteran Affairs is rolling out treatments nationwide as fast as possible to adequately provide for newly diagnosed PTSD patients, there are still significant barriers to veterans getting a full course of PTSD treatment. The study is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
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Australian indigenous children under five are still twice as likely to die as non-indigenous children, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said. In his annual report on the state of indigenous Australians, Mr Rudd said there were signs of slow progress.
Posted by: Staff on February 11, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-02-04
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The legislation aims to remove financial barriers to treatment for people with mental health problems. About 140 million Americans in more than 450,000 employer plans will benefit from improved coverage.
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A New Jersey study found that African-Americans with cancer are less likely to survive it than whites, and residents of poor neighborhoods less likely to survive than are those in wealthier areas of the state. The racial disadvantage diminishes when socioeconomic status is a consideration, but does not disappear, according to the study in the February issue of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.
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Melanoma is more than 10 times higher in whites compared to blacks, but over a five-year span, blacks have a 78 percent lower survival rate compared to 92 percent of whites, according to study background material.
Posted by: Staff on February 04, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-02-03
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The recession is forcing states such as Washington to pare back health insurance programs for low-income people, even as growing joblessness boosts demand for help. Five of six states that use state funds to assist adults not covered by Medicaid are considering cuts, barring new enrollment or raising fees.
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The February teleconference sponsored by Living Beyond Breast Cancer will focus on the impact culture, wealth and the healthcare system have on the quality of life and survival of women affected by breast cancer. Keynote speaker for this event is Kimlin Ashing-Giwa, PhD. To register, visit their website at http://www.lbbc.org/index.asp and look at the calendar of events.
Posted by: Staff on February 03, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-01-26
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In the past three decades, obesity among American youths has increased from 5 percent to more than 17 percent. In light of this, the study’s authors suggested that clinicians should be aware of guidelines for lipid screening and treatment among youths.
Twenty percent of young people aged 12-19 years in the United States have at least one abnormal lipid level, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Abnormal lipid levels are major risk factors for heart disease, the leading cause of death among adults in the United States.
Posted by: Staff on January 26, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-01-19
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It is estimated that from 2000 to 2005, at least 330,000 South Africans died prematurely and 35,000 babies were infected with HIV as a result of former president Thabo Mbeki's decision to withhold antiretroviral drugs, based on advice from American AIDS denialists.
Posted by: Staff on January 19, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-01-16
Posted by: Staff on January 16, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-01-08
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Story of 7-year old January, diagnosed with child-onset schizophrenia. This story points out the hardships families go through when a child is diagnosed with mental illness and the lack of resources available to help those families.
Posted by: Staff on January 08, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-01-07
Posted by: Staff on January 07, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-01-05
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Galbraith, A.A. et al. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2010;164(1):38-45.
Study comparing the quality of asthma care for children with and without minority-serving providers.
GI symptoms are often overlooked in Autism Spectrum Disorder patients. Autism Research Institute's Director Dr. Stephen Edelson commented, "This is truly a human rights issue; every child deserves proper medical attention--whether or not they have autism. This published report brings much-needed focus to gastrointestinal problems that are commonly associated with the autism spectrum. The conclusions of the report are clear: physicians need to be alert and responsive to such problems when treating these patients; additional research on prevalence, cause, and appropriate treatment is imperative."
Posted by: Staff on January 05, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2010-01-04
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GI symptoms are often overlooked in Autism Spectrum Disorder patients. Autism Research Institute's Director Dr. Stephen Edelson commented, "This is truly a human rights issue; every child deserves proper medical attention--whether or not they have autism. This published report brings much-needed focus to gastrointestinal problems that are commonly associated with the autism spectrum. The conclusions of the report are clear: physicians need to be alert and responsive to such problems when treating these patients; additional research on prevalence, cause, and appropriate treatment is imperative."
Posted by: Staff on January 04, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-29
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Drugs that have been used for decades are being pushed off the market by the FDA and pharmaceutical companies because the medications pre-date modern drug laws and have never been FDA approved. Medications that used to sell for pennies a pill are now being forced out in favor of "new" brand name medications. The example used in the article is colchicine, a medication used to treat gout and other inflammatory illnesses. The FDA granted URL Pharma and their version of colchicine, Colcrys, "three years exclusivity for treatment of gout - a recurrent arthritic inflammatory disease caused by uric acid buildup - and seven years for FMF under orphan drug rules."
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East Carolina University is offering a new online program focusing on ethnic and rural health disparities.
ERHD is a non-credit certificate program designed for health care professionals and others interested in broadening their understanding of health issues and improving their skills in working with ethnic health disparities. The program is composed of 16 modules that may be taken individually or as a full series.
CNN video spotlights a restaurant in Harlem that is making headway into bringing healthier options to inner city neighborhoods.
If you eat too much, exercise too little, drink too much, smoke, take drugs, fail to wear a seat belt or ignore gun safety, there is only so much a doctor or hospital can do for you.
Posted by: Staff on December 29, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-24
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"The combination of increasing disability rates plus a growing population of older adults emphasizes the importance of prevention of the many chronic conditions giving rise to disability in the first place," said the study's lead author, Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor of social work at the University of Toronto. "There is evidence, for example, that the doubling of obesity rates over the last three decades may be linked to rising disability in older people, yet the obesity problem is largely preventable."
Posted by: Staff on December 24, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-23
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Are kickbacks the way of the future in swaying the swing votes in Congress? The deal critics have dubbed the Cornhusker Kickback is expected to cost the federal government $100 million over 10 years. The multimillion-dollar deals cut with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and others to win the 60 votes needed for the historic health care reform bill gave President Barack Obama the margin he needed to fulfill a central campaign promise — but may also have upped the ante for future presidential horse trading.
Posted by: Staff on December 23, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-21
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New technology provides access to health care while never leaving home or getting a physical exam from a health care provider. Is it really going to provide adequate health care for patients who use that technology since they are never physically examined by a provider?
Posted by: Staff on December 21, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-19
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This study is the first to use sophisticated techniques to improve disaster preparedness among Hispanics. It shows that lay health teachers who engage people inside their social networks and use culturally tailored content were more effective than mailers at encouraging participants to stockpile water and food and create a family communication plan.
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Childhood obesity is directly related to how close kids live to convenience stores, according to the preliminary findings of a major Canadian study presented at the Entretiens Jacques-Cartier in Lyon, France
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About one out of every 110 U.S. children have been diagnosed with autism, according to a new federal estimate released Friday. Boys are 4 times more likely to be diagnosed, with a rate that is now 1 for every 70 boys.
Posted by: Staff on December 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-15
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The Associated Press reports that women with low incomes are being turned away or put on long waiting lists for free cancer screenings in at least 20 states. These states include Illinois,Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Posted by: Staff on December 15, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-12
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New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Posted by: Staff on December 12, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-10
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The major bills now pending before Congress include a number of key provisions that could either directly or indirectly have an impact on reducing health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minorities.
Posted by: Staff on December 10, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-08
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Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) at the University of Chicago, is awarding more than $1.5 million to seven organizations that are working to eliminate racial and ethnic health care disparities in their communities.
Each of the final seven grant recipients will receive up to $258,500 to evaluate their proposed interventions aimed at reducing disparities in the health outcomes of patients in their communities. Grantees will focus on cardiovascular disease, depression and diabetes; diseases where evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in care is strong and the recommended standards of care are clear.
Dr. Regina Benjamin noted that the proportion of U.S. physicians who are minorities is only 6 percent -- the same proportion as a century ago. ... The numbers come from a 2004 estimate of the percentage of U.S. physicians that are black or Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics account for roughly 28 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2008 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. In a 27-minute speech, Benjamin told health leaders in the audience to encourage young minorities to pursue careers in medicine or other ambitions" (Stobbe, 12/3)
"Many African-American women don't fit the profile of the average American woman who gets breast cancer. For them, putting off the first mammogram until 50 — as recommended by a government task force — could put their life in danger
Albion's 530 students are part of a nationwide effort to combat obesity called "Fuel Up to Play 60" that is sponsored by the National Football League and the National Dairy Council. The school is one of 20 in the state that will receive $5,000 in grants this year to expand the program at their institution.Rocky River Middle School and North Olmsted Middle School are also receiving the additional grant money this year.
Fuel up to Play, launched in October, is designed to give school children a voice in developing nutrition and fitness programs in their schools. The program's major goals are to make more healthy foods available in schools and to encourage the kids to be physically active for 60 minutes a day.
Posted by: Staff on December 08, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-12-02
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Dr. Daryl Thornton, a MetroHealth Medical Center pulmonologist who is involved with reducing racial health disparities, said misperceptions and mistrust are behind blacks' reluctance to be vaccinated.
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has partnered with the Washington, D.C., Department of Health to launch a study that seeks to determine whether aggressive treatment for HIV could eradicate AIDS, the Washington Post reports.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed offering higher reimbursement rates to schools that serve healthy foods, Reuters reports. Child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs, are slated for reauthorization early next year, and lawmakers are expected to focus their reform efforts on improving the nutritional quality of school meals as a way to help prevent childhood obesity. The school meal programs serve almost 40 million meals per day and account for "more than half [of] students' food intake during the school day." Under the current system, schools receive $2.88 in cash and USDA-provided food for each lunch served for free to students. The USDA proposal would increase that rate, by an amount to be determined, for schools providing more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
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African-Americans with preventable conditions often fail to get adequate care, resulting in hospitalizations years earlier than whites with the same conditions, results from a new study suggest.
Posted by: Staff on December 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-11-24
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"Hospitals that disproportionately care for poor patients are less likely than other hospitals to have adopted health information technology," according to an October study published in Health Affairs, American Medical News reports. The economic stimulus legislation in February directed $19 billion in federal investments to help all types of hospitals adopt electronic records, but some researchers are concerned the money may not close that divide.
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"With an emphasis on caution and patient safety, the DSS position statement boldly advances a revolutionary concept: the legitimacy of gastrointestinal surgery as a dedicated treatment for type 2 diabetes in carefully selected patients," explains lead author Dr. Francesco Rubino, director of the gastrointestinal metabolic surgery program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College and associate professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. "The recommendations from the Diabetes Surgery Summit are an opportunity to improve access to surgical options supported by sound evidence, while also preventing harm from inappropriate use of unproven procedures."
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A Loyola University Health System study has found that one out of five Type 2 diabetics is morbidly obese -- approximately 100 pounds or more overweight.
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Greater access to anti-retroviral drugs has helped cut the death toll from HIV by more than 10% over the past five years, latest figures show.
Posted by: Staff on November 24, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-11-20
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The prevalence of diabetes is at least twice as high in some ethnic groups as it is in whites[,] even among people with similar body mass index (BMI) numbers, a large new study finds[: "Differences between] ethnic groups persisted in normal-weight and underweight participants". [T]here’s a lot more to Type 2 diabetes than weight. [Of] 187,000 people in Hawaii and California...11.6% reported having diabetes. However, age-adjusted...prevalence was 16.1% in Native Hawaiians, 15.8% in Latinos, 15% in African-Americans, 10.2% in Japanese-Hawaiians, and 6.3% in whites....The reason ethnic minorities, low-income people, and unemployed people have so much diabetes is NOT mainly due to health behaviors. [A[ll behaviors combined explain less than 40% of the difference between the healthiest and the least healthy groups. The rest of it is due to the higher stress levels of, say, being an immigrant, being isolated, having economic difficulties, or being discriminated against.'
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Many women and doctors have said they might not follow the new recommendations. But even under the former guidelines, many women have apparently not had the screening, often because they lack insurance.
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Vital Signs - U.S. Draws a D From the March of Dimes in Its Report on Premature Births - NYTimes.comMore than half a million babies — one out of eight — are born prematurely each year in the United States, prompting the March of Dimes to give the nation a D on its premature births report card.
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Ohio's rate of obesity is expected to be one of the highest in the nation, with only a handful of states at over 50 percent. The national average for obese adults is expected to be 43 percent in 2018, according to research by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University, who projected the future costs of treating chronic disease attributable to obesity.
Posted by: Staff on November 20, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-11-14
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Most children actively notice and think about race. A new study has found that children develop an awareness about racial stereotypes early, and that those biases can be damaging.
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New research published in the November issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows that African-American patients with colorectal cancer are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease and are less likely to undergo surgical procedures compared with Caucasians, suggesting that improvements in screening and rates of operation may reduce differences in colorectal cancer outcomes for African-Americans.
Posted by: Staff on November 14, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-11-12
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This report was released by the World Health Organization about both women’s health needs and their contribution to the health of societies. Using current data, it takes stock of what is known about the health of women's lives and across the different regions of the world.
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"There is room for you to make a difference."
That was the message last month at the New England Regional Minority Health Conference (NERMHC). Held from October 14 through 16 at the Westin Hotel in Providence and hosted by the RI Department of Health, the theme of NERMHC was “From Disparities to Equity: the Power to Make Change.”
Posted by: Staff on November 12, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-11-04
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The Network for Multicultural Research on Health and Healthcare, a consortium of researchers from major research institutions around the country, examines health care disparities affecting minorities with chronic diseases and has produced a special supplement of the Journal of General Internal Medicine examining Latinos and health care, shedding light on important issues that have been left out of the health care reform debate.
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The University of Kansas Medical Center has helped develop a program aimed at reducing smoking rates among residents of Native American Indian reservations, Indian Country Today reports.
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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded grants of up to $258,500 each to seven organizations to support the development and testing of interventions aimed at reducing racial and ethnic care disparities, AHA News Now reports.
Posted by: Staff on November 04, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-29
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a user-friendly document to help risk assessors understand how children are exposed to pollution.
More information on the documents: http://www.epa.gov/childexpfactors/highlights
A new study by Oregon State University researchers shows that those in poverty in rural Oregon often know what kinds of foods they should be eating, but face tough choices between eating well and spending less money for meals.
Posted by: Staff on October 29, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-28
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Three studies presented this week at the American College of Gastroenterology's 74th Annual Scientific meeting in San Diego underscore the growing disparities in gastrointestinal disease, particularly colon cancer and Barrett's Esophagus, among certain ethnic and gender populations, including African Americans, Latinos and women. These race- and gender-specific disparities underscore the need for education and vigilance among these populations and perhaps more aggressive screening tactics than the population in general.
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The study, reported in The Cereal Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score (FACTS) Report, was part funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and was conducted by researchers from Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. It is being presented at Obesity 2009, the 27th annual scientific meeting of The Obesity Society, in Washington on 27 October. One of the findings from the researchers was that not one the cereals targeted to children in the US meets the nutrition standard required to advertise to children in the United Kingdom..
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The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, examined data from national surveys taken from 1988 to 1994 and a second time period, from 1999 to 2004. In both time periods, men had more heart attacks than women. But the rates in men improved from 2.5% in the first time frame to 2.2% in the second time frame while women’s rates increased from 0.7% to 1%.
Posted by: Staff on October 28, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-15
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"End-of-life care discussions appeared to be more effective in ensuring that white patients' treatment preferences were honored," said Holly Prigerson, PhD, senior author of the report in The Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study is posted on the journal's web site and will be published in a future print edition.
Posted by: Staff on October 15, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-14
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A new study recently published online by the American Heart Journal shows that more than half of all randomized clinical trials, or RCTs, for cardiovascular disease are not reporting vital information about the study populations race or ethnicity.
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The study published in the medical journal Chest, found that among 1,485 asthmatic children from four U.S. states, black children were twice as likely as white children to have gone to the emergency room for an asthma attack in the past year. Overall, 39 percent of black children had visited the ER, compared with 18 percent of white children.
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A study being published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine calculates that people who live in neighborhoods that are conducive to physical activity and healthy eating have a 38% reduced risk of developing diabetes compared with people who don’t.
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Children in Philadelphia who attended public schools and shopped at corner stores before or after school purchased almost 360 calories of foods and beverages per visit, according to new research published in Pediatrics.
Posted by: Staff on October 14, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-10
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Discussion of a new report by the Commonwealth Fund that shows the wide disparities in health care across the U.S. and how each state fares in comparison.
Posted by: Staff on October 10, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-06
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"Women's health advocates say issues such as maternity coverage and fair pricing affect far more women, who have received inadequate care and coverage for too long."
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The rates are highest in Africa, but North America follows closely behind, concludes the first part of the report, a collaboration with the World Health Organization. The report, and its implications, are to be discussed this week at a child health meeting in India.
Posted by: Staff on October 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-02
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"Before 1990, the mortality rate for both rural and urban communities had been about the same — and both were decreasing. Death rates in rural and urban America have continued to decrease since 1990, but the rate of decline has been much faster in urban areas" reports the Daily Yonder.
Posted by: Staff on October 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-10-01
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This 8 page brief uses data from the 2008 Ohio Family Health Survey and identifies disparities in health behaviors, risk factors, family income and other issues.
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Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2009-2010 was released September 30, and it shows that breast cancer deaths have been falling in the US since the early 1990s, with the biggest drops in women under 50. However, as of 2006, breast cancer death rates were 38 per cent higher in African American women than white women. The report provides possible explanations for that disparity.
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There is rejoicing today at agencies that work with recipients of food vouchers through the Women, Infants and Children program in California. Starting Thursday, WIC recipients -- more than 8 million of them -- will be able to use vouchers to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, under a program revision that has been years in the making.
Posted by: Staff on October 01, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-30
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The State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables, 2009 released includes information, policy, and behavioral indicators of fruit and vegetable consumption.
Posted by: Staff on September 30, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-29
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A new study finds that diabetes significantly increases a woman’s risk of developing atrial fibrillation, a common and potentially dangerous irregular heart rhythm that doctors often miss.
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Prostate cancer patients of low socioeconomic status are more likely to die than patients with higher incomes. That is the finding of a new study from Swiss researchers to be published in the December 1, 2009 issue of Cancer.
Posted by: Staff on September 29, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-24
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"While we often hear media reports of genes that account for race differences in health outcomes, genes are but one of many factors that lead to the major health conditions that account for most deaths in the United States," said Thomas LaVeist, PhD, director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions and lead author of the study.
Posted by: Staff on September 24, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-19
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"Racial health disparities cost the United States $229 billion between 2003 and 2006 — money that could help cover an overhaul of the nation's health care system, according to a new report by Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland researchers," The Baltimore Sun reports.
Posted by: Staff on September 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-17
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The Alabama Department of Public Health announces a decline in Alabama's infant mortality rate in 2008, with a rate of 9.5 deaths per 1,000 live births and a total of 612 infant deaths. In 2007 Alabama's infant mortality rate was 10.0.
Posted by: Staff on September 17, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-16
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"Ultimately, the research -- and the comments -- reiterate the fact that we should be careful with our assumptions. Broadly extrapolating results of studies done in men to women, perhaps especially when it comes to heart disease, is risky."
Posted by: Staff on September 16, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-14
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The Joint Center's Health Policy Institute will unveil a study that estimates the direct medical costs of racial inequalities in health status and access to quality care. Findings will include specific estimates on the combined costs of health disparities for minorities over a three-year period (2003-2006), as well as estimates of how much in direct and indirect costs could have been saved in our health care system during that same period if those disparities for minorities had been eliminated.
WHEN: Thursday, September 17, 2009
8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.The briefing will be available online. To view the live Webcast (8:15 a.m.), visit www.jointcenter.org/hpi
Posted by: Staff on September 14, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-11
Posted by: Staff on September 11, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-10
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At a company event yesterday Apple announced a new iPod nano that has a pedometer. The step counts and estimated calories burned data collected by the iPod nano can be sent to the user’s Nike+ iPod account for tracking.
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Rising obesity rates across the nation have led to worsening health outcomes and increasing inequities in health (1) -72 million American adults are now considered to be overweight or obese.(2) Additionally, economists have identified obesity as a major driver of health care utilization and spending, and contributor to escalating health care costs. In fact, a recent study published in the journal, Health Affairs found that obesity accounts for 9.1 percent of annual health care spending in the United States, nearly $150 billion dollars a year.(3)
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The research is aiming to promote better understanding about lesbian and bisexual women's experiences of breast cancer and the findings will inform policy development.
Recommendations will also be made to cancer organisations and other facilities to help improve services.
The number of children dying before their fifth birthdays each year has fallen below nine million for the first time on record, a significant milestone in the global effort to improve children’s chances of survival, particularly in the developing world, according to data that Unicef will release on Thursday.
Posted by: Staff on September 10, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-08
Posted by: Staff on September 08, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-09-02
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In a recent survey by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, only one-third of parents gave their children’s public schools an “A” grade for offering healthy food choices, according to AnnArbor.com.
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Recognizing that local government officials are eager to address the childhood obesity epidemic, The Institute of Medicine (IOM) produced Local Government Action to Prevent Childhood Obesity, a report that serves as a practical guide for government officials at the city, town, township or county level who want to take action to address healthy eating and active living.
Posted by: Staff on September 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-26
Posted by: Staff on August 26, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-25
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Little tidbit for weight loss..
Posted by: Staff on August 25, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-19
Posted by: Staff on August 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-18
Posted by: Staff on August 18, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-13
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A report, "Building a Comprehensive Child Vision Care System," found that children are being screened at low rates and those who are screened do not often receive the necessary follow-up and treatment they may require. Children without health insurance and those living in poverty are at the greatest risk.
"Children from low-income families lack the health care resources necessary to break the cycle of poverty," said David Rosenstein, DMS, MPH, Oregon Health & Science University professor emeritus. "This lack of vision care is handicapping our most vulnerable populations.
Posted by: Staff on August 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-12
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The findings underscore a central obstacle in tackling childhood obesity, Skelton and his colleagues note: The children who are most affected also generally have the greatest difficulty getting good healthcare.
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According to the report published in the journal BMC Public Health, over-indebted Germans are more likely to be overweight or obese than the population in general. The authors attribute this to the high cost of a healthy diet, lack of awareness of the availability of cheaper but nonetheless wholesome foods, but most particularly to the psychological and social stress experienced by over-indebted individuals. The result of this stress is that they tend to "comfort eat" and become less physically active.
Posted by: Staff on August 12, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-06
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"Cancer is a disease that is cheaper to prevent than treat," says Michele Forman, Ph.D., a professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Epidemiology. "If we eat healthier meals and increase daily exercise, we could avoid about one-third or 186,000 cancer deaths this year."
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"In young women ages 15-29, the torso is the most common location for developing melanoma, which may be due to high risk tanning behavior," according to Francesco Fusco, MD, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mt Sinai School of Medicine NYC and an educational spokesperson for the Skin Cancer Foundation."
Posted by: Staff on August 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-08-05
Posted by: Staff on August 05, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-31
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Book Review in NEJM: The author argues for a "patient-centered bioethics" that pays attention to these problems and maintains a strong alliance with primary care medicine. This is, he contends, "the side of medicine most concerned about talking with and listening to patients and forging long-term relationships" with them. Brody also argues that bioethicists should talk with and listen to communities (not just patients), and in an insightful chapter, he compares and critiques several models of community dialogue.
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Because Americans in the upper half of the income distribution devote a smaller share of their income to health care, their standards of living have yet to decline, but they, too, will do so in the coming decades if current trends continue. If health care reform based on private health insurance is to be sustainable, it has to be affordable for Americans across the entire income distribution. Achieving this goal will require both substantial cost containment and shifts in the distribution of health care costs within the population.
Posted by: Staff on July 31, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-30
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"For the first time, we have evidence that the major difference in survival between black and white patients with head and neck cancer appears to be the rate of HPV infection. We found an astounding difference in prognosis between patients who are HPV-positive and those who are HPV-negative,"
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Men who have a regular, ongoing relationship with a health care provider are more likely to receive prostate cancer screening and less likely to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, regardless of their race.
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Alliance researchers will focus on several of the most successful approaches used to combat malnutrition and attempt to further enrich foods already used to fight it.
Posted by: Staff on July 30, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-21
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The lack of cultural understanding between health-care providers and minority populations is a critical public health concern. As lawmakers work to reform health care, it's important that they address this problem which has long plagued America's health system.
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Researchers seek out the genetic component that causes prostate cancer.
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The number of people who went uninsured in 2008 may be over 50 million.
Posted by: Staff on July 21, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-17
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Boston Medical Center filed suit yesterday against the state, accusing officials of illegally cutting payments made to the hospital for treating thousands of poor patients, a decision executives said could financially unravel the urban hospital’s key services.
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Dale H. Yamamoto says that common provider fees, a national data warehouse, and a physician council are the keys to health care reform.
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Who pays when a student-athlete gets hurt? Sometimes its the student.
Posted by: Staff on July 17, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-16
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Disparities exist in who is obese. This study found that foreign-born black men were the least likely to be obese while U.S. black women were the most likely. Education, self-image, social stigma and other factors contributed.
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How much are we willing to spend for six more months of life?
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As unemployment rises more people are using programs that are funded at the state and federal level. The problem is, although utilization is increasing, funding isn't.
Posted by: Staff on July 16, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-15
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Is donating a kidney a preexisting condition?
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Maybe health care funding shouldn't be affected by swings in the economy.
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The Boston Public Health Commission has launched a new campaign to help improve the survival rates for African-American women with breast cancer.
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U.S. business will spend 9% more for health care costs in 2010 and with rising unemployment more people will be dependent on public programs.
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A UCSF team has found that using a simple communication technology is more effective than traditional methods in managing diabetes in under-served populations that have communication barriers.
Posted by: Staff on July 15, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-14
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Study reports that when socioeconomics, stage at diagnosis, and type of treatment were considered, race no longer predicted survival.
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The [stimulus] bill offers medical facilities as much as $64,000 per physician if they make "meaningful use" of "certified" health IT in the next year and a half, and punishes them with cuts to their Medicare reimbursements if they don’t do so by 2015. Obviously, doctors and health administrators are under pressure to act soon. But what is the meaning of "meaningful use"? And who determines which products qualify? These questions are currently the subject of bitter political wrangling.
Posted by: Staff on July 14, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-13
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The existence of health disparities between racial and ethnic groups is common knowledge among public health wonks. But the average American may find the numbers shocking: In impoverished urban areas like Harlem, one-third of black girls and two-thirds of boys who reach their 15th birthdays don't reach their 65th. That's almost triple the rate of early death among average Americans.
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What happens when you forget to list hypertension as a pre-existing condition? The insurance company doesn't pay for your heart stent.
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The Georgia Commission on Men's Health released its 2009 report earlier in the week. The study finds men live an average of five fewer years than women, with heart disease, stroke and cancer accounting for more than 50 percent of all male deaths in the state.
Posted by: Staff on July 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-10
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Governor says universal health care too expensive for the state.
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Women pediatric residents more likely to request and receive less money, receive lower scores.
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Hospitals in Washington are required to provide free care to anyone living below the poverty line, if they ask for it. But some hospitals give more freely than others.
Posted by: Staff on July 10, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-09
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Black women have a lower incidence of breast cancer than white women, but once diagnosed they are more likely to die of the disease. Now, two new studies add to the debate about the roles that access to care and biology play in this disparity.
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"The greatly elevated risk of disability among Blacks aged 55 to 74 is largely explained by differences in socioeconomic status. Reductions in Black—White health disparities require a better understanding of the mechanisms whereby lower income and education are associated with functional outcomes in older persons."
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[In the UK] some Parkinson's disease patients are going for years without seeing a specialist doctor or nurse.
Posted by: Staff on July 09, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-08
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[One] selfless act started a chain of events that would allow not just one person to get a desperately needed kidney but eight people to get new organs to keep them alive and thriving.
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Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Mortality Are Not Driven by Estrogen Receptor Status Alone (NIH)Black women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have a higher probability of dying from the disease than white women, regardless of their estrogen receptor status, according to research from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. Differences in breast cancer mortality may reflect racial differences in access and response to innovative breast cancer treatments, as well as other biological and non-biological factors, according to the report. In addition, the researchers found that differences in outcomes in the first few years post-diagnosis make up nearly all of the disparity.
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Published Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the study found that African-Americans were more likely than others to die of three gender-related cancers -- breast, prostate and ovarian -- even when they received the same advanced care from the same doctors. The researchers say the survival disparity persisted after they controlled for factors such as education and income.
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Community Based Participatory Research manual now available from CEAL.
Posted by: Staff on July 08, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-07
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McAllen [Texas], on average, now spends $14,946 on healthcare for every patient enrolled in the government's Medicare scheme, almost double the national average of $8,304 per Medicare enrollee.
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[In the UK] at least 46% of ethnic minorities are unfamiliar or not sure about the signs and symptoms of the various forms of cancer or how to reduce their cancer risk even though 61% have had a family member suffer from cancer.
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Qliance customers pay $99 to join, then a flat monthly rate of $39 to $119, depending on age and level of service. Patients can quit without notice and no one is rejected for pre-existing conditions.
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To improve the likelihood of being heard, the health-care industry has hired more than 350 former government staff and members of Congress to lobby on their behalf.
Posted by: Staff on July 07, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-06
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are the freedom to direct ones own Life, to provide for ones own Health and to die with dignity—that to assist in providing such rights when otherwise unattainable, health professions are instituted among people, deriving their roles solely from the consent of the people they serve.
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A free weekend of health care, canceled in May because of worries about the spread of swine flu, has been rescheduled for July 25 and 26 at two locations in Cleveland's University Circle.
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How many nephrologists does the U.S. need?
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There remains a 10-12 year gap in life expectancy at birth between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
Posted by: Staff on July 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-02
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The emergency room at Melrose-Wakefield Hospital is seeing more patients over the past six months. Many with behavioral problems such as depression. The local police chief says they are making frequent trips to the ER.
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Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and AMA president Dr. J. James Rohack discuss health care reform.
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A two-year effort to create a countywide health program for Cuyahoga County's poor and uninsured is at risk of falling short of its ultimate goal as the group's members debate exactly how much money and other resources they are willing to commit.
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Documentaries about health-care and food are all the rage. Cue the lights - bring the music up - action.
Posted by: Staff on July 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-07-01
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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.
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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.
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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?
Posted by: Staff on July 01, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-30
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Because Insurance policies come with limits even the insured may not get access to new drugs or a needed transplant.
Posted by: Staff on June 30, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-29
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More tests don't always equal better care.
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From the journal Annals of Family Medicine
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Almost 50 percent of HIV-positive American teens and young adults don't know they are infected, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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As the lobbyists watched the 22 senators, NPR watched the lobbyists — took panoramic photos of them, in fact.
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Health clinic executives say the money will allow them to keep their doors open as the rolls of uninsured patients grow. An estimated 64 million people use rural health clinics, a number that is expected to rise as people lose their jobs and health insurance.
Posted by: Staff on June 29, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-26
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No one can buy a transplant - but knowing how the system works is a definite advantage.
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One out of five—that’s the latest CDC estimate of how many people living with HIV in the U.S. are unaware of their HIV status. Stigma around HIV remains a barrier for HIV testing. National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) is an opportunity to reduce HIV testing stigma and promote testing!
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Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin today introduced the Ending Health Disparities for LGBT Americans Act (ELHDA), the first comprehensive approach to improving all areas of the health care system where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans face inequality and discrimination.
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Research study finds that endoscopic and histological Barrett's esophagus was present more often in non-Hispanic whites than in African Americans.
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It’s not difficult to get most Americans health-care coverage. If you make it accessible and affordable most people will buy it.
Posted by: Staff on June 26, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-25
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Assistant U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Michele Moloney-Kitts and Christine Lubinski, head of the Center for Global Health Policy and Advocacy, answer viewer questions on President Obama's global health initiative and how it will shift U.S. global health priorities. (Transcript and mp3 available at link)
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Massachusetts will cut some dental services, slow enrollment, and may eliminate coverage for legal immigrants from their 'universal' health coverage.
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Greater Cleveland diabetes patients are showing health improvements in areas such as blood sugar control, but the gains are threatened by a growing number of people losing insurance coverage.
Posted by: Staff on June 25, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-24
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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.
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Huge geographic differences exist in cancer risk
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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.
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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.
Posted by: Staff on June 24, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-23
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Parents struggle to get insurance companies to pay for the newest treatment.
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Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months.
Posted by: Staff on June 23, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-19
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Hospitals are reducing the number of Medicaid patients they accept including children covered under SCHIP.
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Audio program from NPR's Fresh Air.
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Physician heal thyself.
Posted by: Staff on June 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-18
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Posted by: Staff on June 18, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-17
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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.
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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.
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Residents in the poorest neighborhoods of Los Angeles County continue to face living conditions that are significantly more unhealthy than more affluent areas.
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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.
Posted by: Staff on June 17, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-16
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Among cancers which affect both sexes, [in the UK] men are 60 per cent more likely to develop the disease and 70 per cent more likely to die from it.
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Children belonging to ethnic minority and low-income groups face an increased risk of suffering from asthma, new research shows.
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Insurance rules vary, but what often happens is that patients with private insurance end up paying all of the facility fee until they reach their deductible. At the nine Clinic facilities, for example, a person with a $25 co-pay now pays $80 for an office visit because of the $55 facility fee.
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On some reservations, the oft-quoted refrain is "don't get sick after June," when the federal dollars run out. It's a sick joke, and a sad one, because it's sometimes true, especially on the poorest reservations where residents cannot afford health insurance. Officials say they have about half of what they need to operate, and patients know they must be dying or about to lose a limb to get serious care.
Posted by: Staff on June 16, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-15
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HIV is impacting black women disproportionately, according to a recent report by the Florida Department of Health's Bureau of HIV/AIDS. It has been the leading cause of death among black women age 25 to 44 in Florida for the past 15 years.
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British men may be literally dying as a result of their reluctance to see the doctor, researchers said on Monday with a new study showing they are nearly 40 percent more likely to die from any form of cancer than women.
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Online version of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS report.
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Measures of lead poisoning among Cleveland-area children younger than 6 have reached an all-time low. Cleveland's lead poisoning rate dropped from 46.6 percent in 1994, the highest in recent history, to just over 8 percent in 2008, the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council announced Friday.
Posted by: Staff on June 15, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-11
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NPR report on health disparities in minority women.
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Bidding process for community health center may negatively affect Hispanic residents.
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As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
Posted by: Staff on June 11, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-10
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Ensuring that every American or Ohioan is insured is not the same as ensuring that everyone receives equal treatment.
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HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius newly released report on Health Disparities.
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Black women in the District suffer from obesity, diabetes, heart disease and generally poor health in alarmingly high numbers, and white women do not.
Posted by: Staff on June 10, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-09
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As part of the larger effort to overhaul health care, lawmakers are trying to address the problem that intrigues Mr. Obama so much — the huge geographic variations in Medicare spending per beneficiary. Two decades of research suggests that the higher spending does not produce better results for patients but may be evidence of inefficiency.
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Parents may try to set an example by eating a healthy diet themselves, but a new study has found that their children are not paying attention.
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Black, Latino and Asian lawmakers want President Barack Obama to focus more on racial disparities reported in medical treatment as the White House works toward overhauling the nation's health care system.
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Black and Asian patients were more likely than white patients to report communication difficulties with their doctors in 2005.
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Grassley Tweets, "Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a "hammer" u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."
Posted by: Staff on June 09, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-05
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Tourette syndrome occurs in 3 out of every 1,000 school-aged children, and is more than twice as common in white kids as in blacks or Hispanics
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The issue of asthma in Puerto Rican Hispanics is critical. They are affected at a greater rate than any other group and no one is sure why. Potential causes include: lack of Spanish speaking health care providers, a genetic disposition, stress from living conditions, cultural practices, or simply sub-standard care.
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In a study of 41 young people who received a liver transplant, receiving text message reminders helped improve medication compliance. Researchers measured the amount of anti-rejection drugs in the patient's blood. 49% of patients had low levels of anti-rejection medication in the year prior to the study. After they started receiving text messages that number dropped to 15%.
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An increasing stream of uninsured patients into community health centers throughout Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky has extended waiting times and cut hours at some locations.
Posted by: Staff on June 05, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-04
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Sedatives and sleeping pills prescribed to ease depression, anxiety and sleep problems appear to increase the risk of suicide four-fold among the elderly
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Senator Baucus told single-payer advocates Wednesday that he regrets not allowing more discussion of the single-payer plan in his efforts to draft a health system overhaul proposal.
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Dr. Rankin, professor of History at UT Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom.
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Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years.
Posted by: Staff on June 04, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-03
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Research indicates that physical and mental stress in childhood may have life-long adverse health effects and policy initiatives are needed to emphasize the importance of starting health promotion and disease prevention early in life.
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Hispanic children in Houston who had low SES ate 68% of their calories from soda, desserts, pizza, chips, fruit drinks and juice, and processed meats and burgers.
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Blacks in South Carolina who are diagnosed with prostate, oral or female breast cancer die from the diseases at nearly twice the rate of whites.
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Obama says Cleveland Clinic offers 'top-notch quality, lower costs.'
Posted by: Staff on June 03, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-02
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Doctors are reducing fees and offering payment plans for out of work patients
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New study finds widespread disparities in care received by those with mental health problems.
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Some teenagers with depression don't seek treatment because of social stigma.
Posted by: Staff on June 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-06-01
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Single payer advocates rally in Louisville, KY.
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Asthma and diabetes are potentially preventable conditions because good outpatient care can help to prevent the need for hospitalization. Despite national efforts to eliminate health care disparities, low-income Americans continue to have higher hospital admission rates for asthma and many other conditions.
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The American Medical Association is urging hospital leaders to contact their congressional representatives to oppose a federal proposal to set a minimum for charity care
Posted by: Staff on June 01, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-29
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From the Journal Urology, May 2009.
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Besieged by high medical costs and overcrowding, Ohio prison officials are turning to nursing homes to care for inmates who are medically incapacitated or terminally ill.
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A recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said the number of uninsured Americans could jump to more than 65 million in 10 years as healthcare costs more than double.
Posted by: Staff on May 29, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-28
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One in five adults said they had been told in the last 12 months that a doctor or clinic was not accepting new patients or would not see patients with their type of insurance. The rejection rates for low-income adults and those with public insurance were double the rates for higher-income residents and those with private coverage.
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Today, BHN hosts the Health Wonk Review, the floating web digest of health policy blog posts.
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The governor's proposal to whack an additional $5.5 billion from state programs stunned even longtime Capitol-watchers with its blunt force. Ending cash assistance for 1.3 million impoverished state residents, for example, would make California the only state with no welfare program.
Posted by: Staff on May 28, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-27
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About 10% of small businesses are considering eliminating coverage over the next year
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How a 'pre-existing' condition affects getting insurance coverage.
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Blacks and Hispanics were less likely to discuss hospice when compared to white or Asian patients. Non-English speaking patients discussed hospice less than English speaking patients. Those covered under Medicaid were less likely to discuss hospice when compared to those with Medicare or private insurance.
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Malnutrition is not a glamorous field, and so it’s routinely neglected by everybody — donor governments, poor countries and, yes, journalists.
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Almost 25 percent of black women with advanced breast cancer refuse the chemotherapy and radiation treatments that could save their lives, a new study finds.
Posted by: Staff on May 27, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-26
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Logic says that a referral should depend only on a patient’s needs and the reputation and skill of the physician to which the patient is referred. But medicine is a business too, so that isn’t how it always works in practice.
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Maybe the answer isn't more money but rather better data collection.
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Studies show that behaviors from virtual worlds can translate to the real world. Our survey suggests that users are engaged in a range of health-related activities in Second Life which are potentially impacting real-life behaviors. Further research evaluating the impact of health-related activities on Second Life is warranted.
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"There has been a rapid rise in the number of retail clinics across the United States, but this growth is not evenly distributed across communities," says Craig E. Pollack, MD, MHS, an internist and Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Penn. "Poorer neighborhoods are less likely to have access to these clinics."
Posted by: Staff on May 26, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-21
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Recent decades have seen a remarkable change in the delivery of health care services. Nurse practitioners now have much greater prescribing authority, consumers can purchase more than 700 over-the-counter medications once available only by prescription, and numerous devices have become available that enable a nurse, technician, or consumer -- rather than a physician or a laboratory -- to diagnose or monitor a medical condition.
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Minorities continue to fight an uphill battle for a career in medicine and science. They are hampered by historically understaffed, underfunded and ill-supplied schools; a lack of career mentorship as well as institutional and historical racism and inadequate financial resources. Despite these obstacles, there are effective ways to reverse the inequities of minorities in medicine.
Posted by: Staff on May 21, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-20
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The Kalamazoo County Board of Comissioners confessed shock and dismay at statistics that show that infant mortality and sexually transmitted disease rates are many times higher among young blacks than whites.
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Ana Rodriguez was 7 years old and tethered to an IV the first time I met her. "I have special blood," she told me in 1995. "It needs extra care."
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The group that represents Ohio's hospitals says the amount of care and services they give away is going up, and an increasingly sour economy is threatening to force cuts in some community services such as mobile mammography.
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Dane County Jail inmates are now able to get free education in how to prevent and treat HIV, thanks to a Madison-based organization employed by the sheriff's office.
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A detailed analysis of state-provided data has found racial disparities in health care among the three million New Yorkers in the state’s public insurance programs.
Posted by: Staff on May 20, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-19
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Good pictures often tell stories. Researchers at MetroHealth Medical Center gave a number of cancer survivors and their caretakers cameras and told them to take pictures of things that speak to their experiences after they were diagnosed. Their work turned into an exhibit titled "Cancer Through the Camera Lens."
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Ohio’s 178 hospitals said they provided a record amount — $2.2 billion — in charity care and other uncompensated benefits to their local communities in 2007
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Why are hospitals keeping same-sex partners from the bedside of their loved ones?
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New liver cancer cases among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are expected to soar in coming years, the result of persistently higher rates of chronic hepatitis B, a leading cause of the disease, and population growth as projected by the US Census.
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Using evidence based medicine to design hospitals.
Posted by: Staff on May 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-18
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Corruption and ineptitude aren't limited to health care, of course; they're endemic in most Iraqi public institutions. When it comes to public health, however, the repercussions are devastating, and they bring into sharp focus the failures that are threatening Iraq's American-financed effort to rebuild itself as a democracy at peace with itself and its neighbors.
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Black and Latino children, whose communities tend to be more sensitive to economic fluctuations, will be affected most by these changes.
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In June, the Cleveland Clinic will expand its presence in local barbershops and beauty salons with a pilot program designed to provide customers with blood-pressure tests and health education.
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"When you control for their health status and all sorts of characteristics like age, [insured immigrants] actually have medical expenditures that are far below those of U.S. citizens."
Posted by: Staff on May 18, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-15
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Patients who ride MetroHealth Medical System's free vans won a reprieve Thursday when Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones requested the service continue temporarily. Hospital leaders agreed to continue the service while they search for a solution with county officials. The two groups are slated to meet again next week.
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A new report from the National Minority Quality Forum finds that appropriate medications for a variety of diseases often are under-prescribed, over-prescribed, or mis-prescribed for African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans.
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A recently published study in the May edition of the American Journal of Public Health, has found that children who are the victims of racism are more likely to develop mental health problems as adults.
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A photography exhibit highlights the struggle of cancer survivors.
Posted by: Staff on May 15, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-14
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Thousands of Macedonian citizens, who previously had access only to emergency health care and certain hospital services, are now eligible to receive free primary care through the government. Coverage now extends to vulnerable segments of the population, such as the homeless, the elderly and the unemployed.
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"What a disgrace that RNs and physicians are shut out and arrested while the insurance industry is given a seat at the table. We would expect that from the Bush administration, not in the time of the Obama administration," said NNOC/CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro. "The Baucus Committee can arrest nurses, but they cannot silence the voices of RNs who will continue to speak from their hearts on behalf of their patients who want and deserve real reform."
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University Hospitals became the first Northeast Ohio hospital to reveal how much free care and community benefit it provides -- and the numbers signaled a growing need for low-cost medical care in the region. The health system, which provided its annual report for the past year during an evening gathering Tuesday, said the amount it gives to the community increased to $195 million last year, up 16 percent in 2007.
Posted by: Staff on May 14, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-13
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Since early 2007, and under a mandate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to dramatically increase HIV testing nationwide, emergency rooms such as S.F. General's are moving toward a day when nearly every patient who enters its doors - whether for chest pain or a broken finger - is offered an HIV test.
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In 2004, diarrhoea killed 1.8 million children, yet between 2004-2006 only $1.5 billion was spent globally on improved sanitation – vital in the fight to protect children from diarrhoea. In the same period, $10.8 billion was spent on interventions for HIV/AIDS (responsible for 315,000 child deaths), and $3.5 billion on those for malaria (responsible for 840,000 child deaths).
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Consumer Reports' Nancy Metcalf says that many big-name insurance companies are offering those so-called junk policies. They look like a good deal because the premiums are low—but they're low for a reason. They are so riddled with loopholes, limits, and exclusions that they will not come close to covering your expenses if you ever fall seriously ill. More info at http://blogs.consumerreports.org/health/2009/04/junk-health-insurance-affordable-.html
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While heterosexual couples typically don’t have to provide marriage licenses to hospitals in order to prove they are husband and wife, same sex couples often must document their relationship to hospital officials before being allowed to take part in a partner’s care.
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Around the country, hospitals are now affiliated with more than 25 Wal-Mart clinics. The Cleveland Clinic has lent its name and backup services to a string of CVS drugstore clinics in northeastern Ohio. And the Mayo Clinic is in the game, operating one Express Care clinic at a supermarket in Rochester, Minn., and a second one across town at a shopping mall.
Posted by: Staff on May 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-12
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Melanoma is the sixth most common cancer in men and women in the United States. This year over 60,000 Americans will develop melanoma. However, the incidence and mortality rate is higher for middle-aged and older men. Nearly 50 percent of melanoma deaths in the United States are in white men 50 years and older.
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A study of residents of Illinois finds that city dwellers are more likely to have doctors spot breast, colorectal, lung or prostate cancer later in the disease's progression than their peers residing in the suburbs or rural areas.
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Derek Beeston, Principal Lecturer in Ageing and Mental Health, Centre for Ageing and Mental Health, Staffordshire University, discusses the key issues of ageing and risk factors surrounding older adults and suicide.
Posted by: Staff on May 12, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-11
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The research found three in ten of men would feel embarrassed about seeking help for mental distress, and just 14 per cent aged 35 to 44 would see a GP if they felt low compared with 37 per cent of women.
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Just how much does it cost to have a baby?
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A report by the Commonwealth Fund says seven of 10 working-age women -- or an estimated 64 million women -- have no medical insurance coverage or inadequate coverage.
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For the vast majority of gay couples getting health insurance for a domestic partner is still a challenge.
Posted by: Staff on May 11, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-08
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There have been substantial disparities in receiving recommended treatments between blacks and whites, and these disparities have been relatively stable without a significant trend of narrowing during the past 12 years.
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Researchers found that most of the parents avoided seeking care not because of insurance status but rather because they could not find a doctor who speaks Chinese or could not find an interpreter.
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What’s the real cost of health care for rural residents? Richard Oswald explains how labor and delivery equal debt for most young families. And the price only goes up.
Posted by: Staff on May 08, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-07
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As they come to rely more on healthcare providers and caregivers for their needs, this makes LGBT seniors especially vulnerable. A few statistics highlight the needs of the LGBT elder community: LGBT seniors are five times less likely to access services than the mainstream senior population; 62 percent have no partner or live alone; 80 percent have no children; most lack traditional family support. Only 13 percent of long-term care facilities report sensitivity to sexual orientation included in their cultural competency or provider care training.
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Two annual government reports released Wednesday show that progress in improving the quality of health care and narrowing health disparities among ethnic groups remains agonizingly slow, and that patient safety may actually be declining.
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How does one measure, based on MGMA data, the “value” of an NIH grant, writing a peer-reviewed article, performing clinical research, or teaching medical students?
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The second Commission chartbook investigating health across social and economic groups examines the differences in adults’ health based on their levels of education.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley will remain on the Finance Committee at least through next year.
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High cost sharing delays the start of drug therapy for patients with a newly diagnosed chronic disease.
Posted by: Staff on May 07, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-06
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Insurance companies offered Tuesday to end the practice of charging higher premiums to women than to men for the same coverage.
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Providing housing to chronically ill, long-term homeless adults reduces hospitalizations and emergency department visits, according to research conducted in Chicago.
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Eight [single payer advocates] caused a scene at the start of a health-care hearing of the Senate Finance Committee today, getting up one by one and complaining that nobody who shared their view was getting a voice.
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Nearly 2.3 million people in Ohio - most of whom have health insurance - spend more than 10 percent of their pre-tax income on medical care
Posted by: Staff on May 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-05
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The media may be guilty of exaggerating the results of medical studies, but academic medical centers that hype the results aren’t blameless themselves.
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St. Vincent Charity Hospital has spent almost a year on a narrow, focused experiment to foster the concept that would connect patients — particularly those who use its emergency department for regular care — with full-time physicians, keep patients’ tests up-to-date and encourage them to do more to care for themselves.
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How a newspaper went undercover to break the swine flu story.
Posted by: Staff on May 05, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-04
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Concerned about their own job security, many Japanese are seeing the homeless not as troubled individuals seeking handouts, but as victims of a failing economy and a government system that offered no safety nets.
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Kettering Medical Center and other Kettering Health Network hospitals this year began to consistently request co-pays from patients, including those in their emergency departments.
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Calls to local pharmacies suggest it's not uncommon for chain stores to charge significantly more for prescriptions for those without insurance. And smaller drug stores - such as the apothecary and other local pharmacies in the Hanover area - charge significantly less.
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Every BMJ article published since the journal’s first issue in October 1840 is now available online from bmj.com. Introduction video available at http://www.bmj.com/video/stories.dtl
Posted by: Staff on May 04, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-05-01
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Nearly half of the 428 employers polled said they plan to shift more health costs to employees in 2010.
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About one in three thought that their doctor would be able to cure their diabetes or that they wouldn't always have diabetes, while most didn't know about the hemoglobin A1C test, a key gauge of long-term blood glucose control.
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The number of new cancer cases diagnosed each year will jump 45 percent in the next two decades to 2.3 million up from 1.6 million in 2010, affecting many more older adults and minorities
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed changes to its dialysis reimbursement policy, making one lump payment to cover both dialysis and injectable medications, which were previously reimbursed separately. Researchers at the University of Minnesota caution that, because African-American patients require higher doses of costly blood-boosting drugs than Caucasians, facilities may be biased against treating them.
Posted by: Staff on May 01, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-30
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Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review hosts the Health Wonk Review--The Best Health Care Posts on the Web!
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Metropolitan Milwaukee ranks among the top 10 cities in the country where industrial pollution falls disproportionately on poor and minority neighborhoods
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The NHS rationing body, NICE, has confirmed a ban on three out of four new treatments.
Posted by: Staff on April 30, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-28
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African Americans have about a one-in-100 chance of developing heart failure while still in their 30s or 40s, a far higher rate than in whites, and their risk of heart failure at that age is closely tied to whether they have hypertension, obesity, or renal dysfunction earlier in adulthood.
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Young adults have the worst access to mental health care and, despite links between offending behaviour, mental disorders and substance abuse, there are virtually no specialised adolescent forensic mental health services in Australia.
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The number of Latinos without health coverage is about 10 percent higher in Nevada compared to most states.
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In an upcoming issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers report that community health centers refer patients with heart problems to specialists less often than primary care providers in hospitals. It is unclear whether this reflects overuse by hospitals or underuse by community health centers.
Posted by: Staff on April 28, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-27
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Kidney cancer patients with Medicare as their primary payer were more likely to have their kidney surgically removed entirely (radical nephrectomy) whereas those with private insurance were offered surgery to preserve organ function (partial nephrectomy).
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Although the UK has a national health care plan age discrimination exists. Nearly half of British Geriatrics Society Doctors think the NHS is institutionally ageist.
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Study reports that medical residents at hospitals with interpreter services often went without an interpreter because it was easier to 'get by' without one.
Posted by: Staff on April 27, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-24
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There were 1.4 million Americans diagnosed with cancer last year. About 1,500 die daily from the disease nationwide, according to the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. For black women, the cancer death rate is 41 percent higher than white women. For black men with prostate cancer, the death rate is 238 percent higher
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The World Health Organization says roughly 600 million people worldwide have disabilities. Eighty percent of them live in developing nations where disabilities are often viewed as shameful.
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In 2005, medical care amenable mortality was the largest source of absolute black-white mortality disparity, contributing 30% of the black-white difference in all cause mortality among men and 42% among women
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Doctors will triage their conversations with patients, categorizing discussions about advanced directives or risky medications as “high stakes,” and those that occur during routine rounding on a stable patient as “low stakes.” Doctors will then tend to use interpreters in “high stakes” conversations but will muddle through “low stakes” topics themselves, resorting to gestures, mimicry or bilingual family members in order to communicate.
Posted by: Staff on April 24, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-22
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"If we look at the rate of an Aboriginal child dying compared to a non-Aboriginal child dying, the rate of difference is around three to four times that for Aboriginal children for infant mortality, for higher rates of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, childhood injury, suicide, accidental death"
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State law requires hospitals that receive Hospital Care Assurance Program money to provide free care to patients earning up to the federal poverty level ($22,050 for a family of four). Beyond that, every hospital can decide how much assistance it wants to provide.
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"There are so many types of payment systems, both public and private, that it's hard to understand," said Silbaugh. "No one pays the same price on anything.""There are so many types of payment systems, both public and private, that it's hard to understand," said Silbaugh. "No one pays the same price on anything."
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Since Danna Walker lost her $37,000-a-year salary, the government’s recently enacted 65% break on Cobra health-insurance costs would still mean paying $476 a month for continuing coverage.
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Our proposed reorganization, Medicare Expansion, would build a national care system by expanding on the existing Medicare program for citizens over the age of 65 years, with a gradual phasing out of state administered Medicaid programs. This restructuring would involve gradual changes in the age of eligibility into the Medicare system to include the most needy first, until eventually the entire population is covered. The first step in the Medicare Expansion program would be to enroll children under 5 years of age and pregnant women by the end of 2010.
Posted by: Staff on April 22, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-21
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Globally the impact of poverty is pronounced; over 101 million children are deprived of a primary school education; 26,000 children under the age of 5 die each day, almost entirely due to preventable causes. Children that live with poverty are often said to suffer a double disadvantage, this refers to the fact that there are very strong correlations between poverty and negative outcomes (ill-health, shorter life expectancy, less education): a fact that is true for relative and absolute poverty.
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"These findings provide strong circumstantial evidence that universal health insurance coverage sharply narrows disparities," wrote Ashwini R. Sehgal, M.D., of Case Western Reserve University, in an accompanying editorial.
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Twenty percent of Americans say they have delayed or postponed medical care, mostly doctor visits, and many said cost was the main reason
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Every so often reports on black and minority ethnic (BME) staff or service issues in the NHS are published. Each one is seized on by the media, BME organisations and the NHS itself to see what it has uncovered or recommended, and what its impact may be.
Posted by: Staff on April 21, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-20
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More than one-quarter of Arizona residents do not speak English at home, according to the most recent Census data. Federal laws require any organization that receives government funds to provide interpretation services.
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There have been substantial disparities in receiving recommended treatments between blacks and whites, and these disparities have been relatively stable without a significant trend of narrowing during the past 12 years. Efforts should focus on providing appropriate quality treatment and educating blacks on the value of having these treatments to reduce these disparities in receipt of treatment for NSCLC.
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That is the beneficiary's only cost for up to 60 days of Medicare-covered inpatient hospital care in a benefit period. Many beneficiaries buy supplemental policies, known as "Medigap," to pay for deductibles and other costs not covered by Medicare.
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A new study on patient empowerment in 31 European countries has found that there are great disparities in how health care consumers are treated among the different countries, in areas ranging from access to test results and specialists' opinions to the frequency of under-the-table payment for medical care.
Posted by: Staff on April 20, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-17
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A statewide initiative now being circulated would create two kinds of birth certificates: one for the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants and one for everyone else. The measure also would deny publicly funded health benefits to the children of illegal immigrants.
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M. Eileen Collins, 48, of Indianapolis, tried to scrimp on her medication last fall after her husband lost his job and with it their insurance. Without money for insulin, test supplies and other medicines, she asked for free samples and also got a few drugs through $4-a-month generic programs. But she stopped taking most of her drugs and cut her insulin doses in half to stretch her budget.
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Health researcher fired because he didn't delay report on health disparities.
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"The results of this study possibly reflect negative views, attitudes and behaviour of healthcare professionals towards older patients," say the authors, adding that: "rationing of care on the basis of age has occurred in other medical areas."
Posted by: Staff on April 17, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-16
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recent reports have characterized West Virginia’s system for treating the mentally ill as one of the worst in the country
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Latino workers were prohibited from speaking Spanish to Spanish-speaking nursing home residents, disciplined for speaking their native tongue in the parking lot on breaks and subjected to other forms of discrimination and harassment
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Do we need any more proof that the phrase “health care marketplace” is an oxymoron? Looks more like administered prices by monopolists to me.
Posted by: Staff on April 16, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-14
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"Today's economic woes are like none any of us have ever seen and the same is true for hospitals," said Caroline Steinberg, vice president for trends analysis at the American Hospital Association. "People are scared."
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More and more, doctors and other health practitioners are asking patients — even those with insurance — to pay their share of the costs up front, either before they are treated or before they leave the office.
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Black patients suffering from lung cancer are less likely to receive recommended chemotherapy and surgery than white lung cancer patients, a disparity that shows no signs of lessening.
Posted by: Staff on April 14, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-13
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Non-profit hospitals in the Chicago area are sending some poor patients away, advising them to get care at the county’s publicly funded hospital
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While the health of most Utahns improved significantly over the last two decades, minority populations continue to face higher rates of death and disease.
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African-Americans have a higher cancer death rate than Caucasians, and this circumstance largely appears to be due to discrepancies in the incidence numbers for this disease
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While cities have shown considerable racial disparities in cancer survival, those racial disparities virtually disappear among smaller populations, such as neighbourhoods within that city.
Posted by: Staff on April 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-09
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to eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in alcohol-related problems, public health efforts must do more than reduce heavy drinking.
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"Excuse me, sir," a Mexican man politely asks in accented English. "Are you looking for a good dentist?"
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Too many minority women are ignoring their health before they get pregnant, and an alarming disparity in infant mortality is the result, Florida's top health officials warned Wednesday as they marked National Minority Health Month.
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Recent trends in health care costs, health care coverage, and household income have contributed to growing disparities between different income groups in the United States.
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Indian Americans may be at a higher risk for Vitamin D deficiency because of the amount of melanin in their skins, says the author of a new study, published this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
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Too many minority women are ignoring their health before they get pregnant, and an alarming disparity in infant mortality is the result, Florida's top health officials warned today as they marked National Minority Health Month.
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"California is making history through the implementation of this language access law, which will end the unnecessary distress and confusion many" limited English speakers experience.
Posted by: Staff on April 09, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-08
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Both the insured and uninsured are seeing their doctor less.
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While African-Americans make up only 12% of the U.S. population, they represent nearly half of new HIV infections and AIDS deaths every year, the CDC said. Many of those at the highest risk of HIV infection don't realize the level of risk they face or believe that HIV is no longer a serious health threat, according to officials.
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TAP-IN -- the Third Age Professionals Initiative -- held its first volunteer recruitment open house in Northeast Ohio at the end of March. The organization plans two more in the coming month.
Posted by: Staff on April 08, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-07
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Obesity is twice as common in young American Indian/Native Alaskan children as it is in white and Asian children, according to new research offering the first nationally representative analysis of obesity prevalence among preschool-aged kids in five major racial/ethnic groups. The analysis also shows that obesity prevalence is higher in Hispanic and black children than it is in whites and Asians.
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A new Consumer Reports investigation finds that many people who believe they have good health insurance actually have coverage so riddled with loopholes, limits, and exclusions that it won't come close to covering their expenses if they fall seriously ill.
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About 500,000 working-age Californians have lost their health insurance since the economic recession began in November 2007
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Between 2005 and 2007, 87 percent of low-income children in Rhode Island lived in older housing, compared with 74 percent of all Rhode Island children, according to the 2009 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook released today.
Posted by: Staff on April 07, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-06
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The continuing lack of appropriately-trained interpreter services for migrant women has been highlighted in the media in the last couple of years, including one case of a young son who had to translate for his mother, who had just had a miscarriage.
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One in five Americans does not have a family doctor and even many who do often are shut out of care, translating to higher rates of illness and death, and higher costs.
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“Although we have made advances in reducing health disparities among minorities, we need to continue to work to eliminate these disparities. Statistics show minorities are heavily impacted by STDs, which is one of the reason numerous Minority Health Month events are focusing on education and awareness of STD/HIV/AIDS.
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Experts warn that driven by profits from selling medicine, some doctors from Indonesia to Hong Kong are overprescribing medicines, a practice they say will be disastrous in the longer term.
Posted by: Staff on April 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-03
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This updated fact sheet shows variations across states and racial and ethnic groups for six key health and health care indicators. It provides a quick glance at disparities in rates of infant mortality and diabetes-related mortality and AIDS cases in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as similar breakdowns showing the percentage of each group in each state that is uninsured, enrolled in Medicaid, and living in poverty.
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The Cleveland Clinic announced Thursday that it will take over Medina General Hospital, investing $40 million in capital improvements.
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The fact that a child's race, ethnicity and family income can be linked to their quality of health and care from doctors and dentists surprised nobody in the room of 225 people at Columbus State Community College yesterday.
Posted by: Staff on April 03, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-02
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The researchers are with Project REECH. The word stands for research, engagement and education for community health. The project is an effort by the Case Center for Reducing Health Disparities and MetroHealth.
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Some 20% of Medicare patients discharged from the hospital are readmitted within a month, and 34% return within three months, according to a study published in the current New England Journal of Medicine. Unplanned rehospitalizations cost Medicare $17.4 billion in 2004, the study says.
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EARLY this year, Barbara Plumb, a freelance editor and writer in New York who is on Medicare, received a disturbing letter. Her gynecologist informed her that she was opting out of Medicare.
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Inequality is Unhealthy: Dr. Stephen Bezruchka on How Economic Inequality is Dangerous to our HealthWatch the video at DemocracyNow.org
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Chief Executive of the Alzheimer's Society, Neil Hunt, said: "One in three people over 65 will die with dementia, yet there is widespread failure to provide good quality care for people with this devastating condition.
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Nearly half of Hispanics and American Indians in New Mexico went without health insurance at some point in 2007 and 2008, compared with 28% of whites
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Minority groups are substantially underrepresented in New York's physician work force compared to their share of the general population, according to a study from the University at Albany.
Posted by: Staff on April 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-04-01
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Poor harvests, drought and rising food prices could have serious health implications for people living in developing countries
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Reed said a study of third-graders in Ohio showed the average body mass index, a scale for measuring obesity, is higher among those children living in rural areas. And adults in rural areas also are going without proper medical care. Reed said the diabetes rate in adults is 45 percent higher in rural areas of Ohio and heart disease rates are 52 percent higher.
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If you have been a patient at one of Walgreens in-store clinics, you lose your job and have no health insurance, the clinic will treat you -- and qualifying family members -- for the rest of 2009 for free.
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the rate of graft failure among African Americans was approximately 2-fold higher than for white patients over the entire study period. Graft survival has improved slightly more for African American than white pediatric patients over the past 25 years. However, graft survival for African American pediatric patients remains poor compared with white patients.
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Are There Enough Doctors in My Rural Community? Perceptions of the Local Physician Supply
Posted by: Staff on April 01, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-31
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Reform of the U.S. healthcare system is vital this year because of growing costs and worsening care, the Health and Human Services Department said in a report on Monday.
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The idea that mammography may do more harm than good may be alien to many American women.
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The watchdog said NHS trusts must do more to meet their legal obligations to promote race equality following a review, which showed that examples of good practice existed but many trusts fell short on meeting basic requirements.
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The African National Congress (ANC) plans to introduce national health insurance in its next term in government, party president Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.
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The prevalence of diabetes is at least twice as high in some ethnic groups as it is in whites. This is true even among people with similar body mass index (BMI) numbers, a large new study finds.
Posted by: Staff on March 31, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-30
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Indigenous children in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand experience higher rates of infant mortality, child injury, accidental death as well as a host of other health ailments compared to non-Indigenous children according to a new report released today by the Centre for Research on Inner City Health.
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African-American men are 44 percent more likely to die from colon cancer than white men, and African-American women, 46 percent more likely to die than white women.
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Last hired, first fired: This generations-old cliche rings bitterly true for millions of Latinos and blacks who are losing jobs at a faster rate than the general population during this punishing recession.
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Even with Hennepin’s open-door policy, hospital officials say, getting health care is increasingly difficult for many illegal immigrants. Previously allowed to use Medicaid, people here illegally are no longer eligible, except for children, pregnant women or those with emergency cases. Some illegal immigrants are too afraid to approach a public hospital like Hennepin, fearful that any official interaction might tip off immigration agents.
Posted by: Staff on March 30, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-27
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President Barack Obama should specifically address disparities in black unemployment, foreclosures, education and health care, the National Urban League says in its annual "State of Black America" report.
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According to data released by the Missouri Foundation for Health, African-Americans are 2.3 times as likely to receive inadequate prenatal care than whites.
Posted by: Staff on March 27, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-26
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Health disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians will not end unless racism is tackled
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A funny thing happened on the way to passage of Timothy's Law, which requires health insurers to provide coverage for mental illnesses. State legislators exempted three of New York's publicly subsidized health programs for low-income residents.
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Inequality goes hand in hand with the social diseases that blight whole communities. The rational conclusion to be drawn from the mass of evidence that Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have assembled is that all of us, irrespective of income, have much to gain from the creation of a more equal society.
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In Wisconsin, American Indians have the highest rate of diabetes, at almost six times the rate of whites. African Americans and Hispanics have the second and third highest rates, nearly one and a half times more than whites, respectively. Asians have a diabetes rate just slightly higher than whites.
Posted by: Staff on March 26, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-25
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Social and economic gaps between whites and blacks persist in the United States despite an atmosphere that led to the election of President Obama, an Urban League report said.
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The Obama administration has signed onto a United Nations official statement of support for “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity.”
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The factors that feed our obese medical system are manifold. But three are especially troublesome. First, there is an unfortunate ethos within American medicine and society at large called “heroic positivism.” Essentially, it is the idea that the more we do to and for our patients, the more they gain.
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Reductions to public health and nonemergency services by state and county health departments in response to the economic recession have resulted in limited access to care for undocumented immigrants
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Forget about single-payer, which would be the easiest, fastest and most efficient way to cover everyone so the necessary national dialogue over how to control costs can begin. Many liberals, most Democrats in Congress, and President Obama chose a milder approach -- creating a government plan to serve as a default option for anyone or any employer who can't find an affordable option in the private marketplace.
Posted by: Staff on March 25, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-24
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Community health centers saw a significant increase in patient load amid the state's efforts to improve health coverage by expanding public programs and making private insurance more affordable.
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No one can deny the differences between ethnic groups when it comes to culture and language. But it seems race can dictate one's health, too. Some examples:
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The worldwide epidemic of tuberculosis is mainly found in third world countries and is being monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About 1.5 million people die of TB every year. South Africa recently has been hit the hardest (infections of TB have almost tripled) because of the also high rate of HIV in people living there because treatment is expensive and ongoing and the patient’s immune systems are weakened.
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A small recent study of refugees in schools in Stockholm found that Somalis were in classes for autistic children at three times the normal rate.
Posted by: Staff on March 24, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-23
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Black patients wait longer for hospital beds after being admitted into the emergency department than patients of other races
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African Americans have a shorter life expectancy than whites, and cancer plays a major role in this disparity. African Americans are more prone to get cancer; they tend to present at a later, deadlier stage; and they have poorer survival rates after diagnosis.
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Despite the fact that colorectal cancer screening among Medicare patients is increasing, gaps still remain between whites — who are screened most frequently — and other racial and ethnic groups, according to a new study by the University of California, Davis and the University of Washington. The biggest gap is between whites and Hispanics, who are screened at 47% and 33%, respectively. Asians and Pacific Islanders were screened at 42%, and blacks, 38%.
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IF YOU THINK this is the era of e-government and transparency, it's time to think again. Hard as it is to imagine, there's a move afoot in Congress to take away the public's free online access to tax-funded medical research findings.
Posted by: Staff on March 23, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-20
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Overcrowded clinics in Chicago neighborhoods and area hospitals that refuse to give emergency contraception to rape victims are just some of the examples of health care disparity facing women and minorities
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A report released Thursday shows more than 11% of the state's American Indian population has diabetes. The average for all Utahns is about 6%.
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People in some parts of West Lancashire will continue to die much earlier than others within the district unless significant action is taken.
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for most types of cancer, the disparity in mortality is almost entirely due to the fact that African Americans are more likely to get cancer in the first place. Their stage at presentation and survival after diagnosis play a much smaller role.
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Eating out, lack of social support and high-risk lifestyles are just some of the barriers that stop patients with type 2 diabetes from controlling their condition, according to a research review that covered 8,900 patients and 4,550 healthcare providers from 28 countries.
Posted by: Staff on March 20, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-19
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Heart failure—a disabling and often deadly form of heart disease—is hitting African Americans in their 30s and 40s at the same rate as Caucasians in their 50s and 60s, according to a study featured as the lead article of the March 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Do racial and ethnic disparities persist in contemporary practice? If so, what are their health consequences? And how can these disparities be overcome?
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According to the reports, the poor care results from unskilled or indifferent staff members at detention centers, overcrowding in facilities, bureaucracy, language barriers and limited services available to detainees.
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Examples of system changes aimed at reducing wait times can be found at Parma Community General Hospital, with its Doc at the Door program
Posted by: Staff on March 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-18
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Penn study points to need for regionalized emergency care system
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With a large poor and minority population, the District of Columbia has struggled with HIV for decades. Its report on Monday showed the number of people with HIV infections rose 22 percent from 2006 to 2007.
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Despite growing public support to ban the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in food animals, a U.S. representative said on Tuesday efforts to move legislation through Congress this year could be met with resistance.
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As a group, African-American women have the highest percentage of overweight/obesity in the United States. Three out of four African-American women are either overweight or obese.
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Kidney disease is a growing problem in the United States, and certain racial and ethnic minorities, including African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans are at a higher risk than the general population for developing conditions that lead to kidney failure.
Posted by: Staff on March 18, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-17
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Telehealth, sometimes referred to as telemedicine, is particularly valuable in Wyoming. The state's rural nature and sparse population make it more difficult to attract health professionals, and it reduces demand for highly specialized doctors. Many in the state's medical community see telehealth as a way to bring advanced care to the Wyoming's most remote settlements.
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As the recession deepens, doctors and hospitals are reporting that hard-pressed patients are deferring elective surgery, like knee replacements and nose jobs, even as others are speeding up non-urgent procedures out of fear that they may soon lose their jobs and health insurance.
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There are a lot of people other than doctors and nurses getting ready to volunteer
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Even with health insurance, more than one million cancer survivors living in the United States report that they forgo needed medical care because of concerns about cost
Posted by: Staff on March 17, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-16
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The number of uninsured children and seniors in Ohio has dropped in the last few years, but the number of working adults without health insurance has increased - causing the state’s overall uninsured population to climb by about 100,000, according to the 2008 Ohio Family Health Survey released today.
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Illinois lawmakers recently unanimously passed a bill (HB 5192) that seeks to reduce breast cancer health disparities among minority and immigrant women
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If the global economy were a 100-metre dash, the U.S. would start 23 metres behind its closest competitors because of health care that costs too much and delivers too little, a business group says.
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Research has revealed that people with schizophrenia die on average ten years younger than the rest of the population,this has raised alarm bells among race equality experts because of the disproportionate numbers of black people who are routinely given this diagnosis.
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Thanks to new taxes and fees imposed last year, the health plan’s jittery finances have stabilized for the moment. But government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.
Posted by: Staff on March 16, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-13
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A new report by an independent watchdog group says inmates in New York State's 70 prisons lack adequate access to health care.
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High blood pressure accounts for some of the disproportionately higher mortality rates among African American women with breast cancer compared with their Caucasian counterparts, according to an article in the International Journal of Cancer.
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Restaurant group to challenge ruling that businesses with 20 more more employees have to offer health benefits.
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With Inuit women three times more likely to die from cervical cancer than other Canadian women, it is clear that there is a vast health discrepancy here.
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While the doctors were aware that dying patients might feel abandoned and even took what they believed were steps to prevent it, patients and their caregivers continued to feel abandoned by their doctors both in the period leading up to and at the time of death.
Posted by: Staff on March 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-12
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Striking new research shows dying blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. have much steeper treatment costs than whites, sobering evidence that racial health-care differences continue right up until death.
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From isolated reservations across the state to urban pockets around Seattle, Native Americans are dying at higher rates than a decade ago, at a time when most people in Washington are living longer, healthier lives.
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U.S. lawmakers unveiled a bipartisan proposal on Wednesday to allow government approval for cheaper copies of biotechnology medicines that cost as much as tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Posted by: Staff on March 12, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-11
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Three hospitals in the Cleveland-Akron area on Tuesday announced more than 200 layoffs and unveiled plans to shutter some programs and expand others to try and adjust to lower patient volumes and tough economic times.
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The researcher, Dr. Scott S. Reuben, an anesthesiologist in Springfield, Mass., who practiced at Baystate Medical Center, never conducted the clinical trials that he wrote about in 21 journal articles dating from at least 1996
Posted by: Staff on March 11, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-10
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More than three-quarters of adult Americans who have health insurance say they still worry about paying more for their medical care, and nearly 50 percent say they're "very" or "extremely" worried about the issue
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“We have to face up to the fact that individual and collective mental health and well-being depends on reducing the gap between rich and poor. A large divide leads to a mentally unhealthy society, and many associated social problems. In the UK in particular, we’ve failed to acknowledge this link, preferring instead to blame the health and social conditions of those living on or near the poverty line on their own lifestyle choices.”
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Dangling a financial carrot in front of doctors as a way to improve health quality has changed the way some doctors practice medicine, but has yet to significantly improve quality and may be interfering with doctor-patient relationships
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In what may be an ominous sign for retail clinics, CVS Caremark has closed about 90 of some 550 MinuteClinic locations until the next flu season or other “seasonal” needs demand their services
Posted by: Staff on March 10, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-09
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population research leaves more questions than answers when it comes to LGBT health
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All in, the Harvard-affiliated hospital is on track for a $20 million operating loss this fiscal year
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Blacks represent 19% of the county's population, according to state Department of Health epidemiologists; however, in 2008, 35%, or 26, of the 74 TB cases in the county were in U.S.-born blacks.
Posted by: Staff on March 09, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-06
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Racial Disparities In Emergency Department Length Of Stay Point To Added Risks For Minority PatientsSick or injured African-American patients wait about an hour longer than patients of other races before being transferred to an inpatient hospital bed following emergency room visits, according to a new national study published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine
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The study suggests that independent grocery stores can improve access to healthy foods in areas where supermarket chains choose not to venture. Having a large grocery store in the neighborhood boosted the average fruit and vegetable intake by 0.69 servings per day.
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Physicians for a National Health Program, a group of docs that claims 15,000 members and supports a single-payer system, had planned to demonstrate outside the White House today over what they said was the exclusion of single-payer advocates from the White House’s health-reform summit. But yesterday, PNHP canceled the protest — after the group’s president was invited to today’s meeting. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who backs a Medicare-for-All bill in Congress, was also invited.
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“Place of residence plays a larger role in dietary health than previously estimated,” said Manuel Franco, MD, PhD, lead author of the studies and an associate with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology. “Our findings show that participants who live in neighborhoods with low healthy food availability are at an increased risk of consuming a lower quality diet. We also found that 24 percent of the black participants lived in neighborhoods with a low availability of healthy food compared with 5 percent of white participants.”
Posted by: Staff on March 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-05
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The researchers found that the risk of severe complications, such as eclampsia and pulmonary embolism, was 80 cases per 100,000 maternities for white women. For black African women the risk was 188 cases per 100,000 maternities, rising to 196 for black Caribbean women.
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Black heart attack patients living in racially segregated areas are 35% more likely than whites to be admitted to hospitals with higher mortality rates, even when hospitals that have better outcomes are geographically closer.
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A study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco has shown that hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a predictor of mortality among breast cancer patients, especially those who are African-American, and that hypertension accounts for approximately 30 percent of the survival disparity between African-American and white breast cancer patients.
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They're asking patients to agree to what amounts to a gag order that bars them from posting negative comments online.
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Kathryn Kaiser doesn't think she actually has seen her doctor, even though she went to his office three times last year. When she made an appointment, the Scottsdale resident was directed instead to a nurse practitioner for an exam and prescription.
Posted by: Staff on March 05, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-04
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Asian and Pacific Islander children living in the U.S. have higher rates of type 1 and type 2 diabetes than children living in Asian countries
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Trends in Child Health 1997-2006: Assessing Black-White Disparities
Posted by: Staff on March 04, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-03
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The project aims at improving patient health, clearing away barriers to medical care — and lowering the cost of that care — through a coordinated team of medical professionals who are centered around patient needs, MetroHealth said.
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Elderly patients who undergo surgery at teaching-intensive hospitals have better survival rates than at nonteaching hospitals, but these better survival rates occur in white patients, not black patients
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"Five or 10 dollars may not seem like much, but for the families being forced to pay it, it may mean they go without a meal," said Kucinich, a Cleveland Democrat.
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Plunging revenues from investments have forced median profit margins for U.S. hospitals to zero, according to a Thomson Reuters analysis of hospital finances published on Monday.
Posted by: Staff on March 03, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-03-02
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Washington’s Death with Dignity Act will take effect in four days, and doctors, pharmacists and health facility administrators are scrambling to figure out exactly what the law says and how they’re going to deal with it.
Posted by: Staff on March 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-27
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"We're starting to see that people are delaying their access to health care," [Mark] Whitney said. "They are avoiding going to the physician's office, the emergency room or for other services."
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Breast cancer kills black women in Chicago at a rate 68 percent higher than white women.
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A new study suggests that the metabolic response to obesity and insulin resistance, particularly as it pertains to the liver, differs among ethnic groups in the U.S.
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A new analysis from The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services indicates that a lack of access to eye care services for residents in rural and low-income areas has become a major public health crisis in America.
Posted by: Staff on February 27, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-26
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According to data released Tuesday by the Missouri Foundation for Health, African-Americans are two point three times as likely to receive inadequate prenatal care than whites. They are eight times more likely to contract HIV. Thirty times more likely to contract Gonorrhea and four and a half time more likely to be the target of sexual abuse
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"Our bottom line is, choose a diet that is good for your heart and there's a big range of what you can eat. Then just be reasonable about your intake. If you need to lose weight, eat less."
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Asians living in Utah are less likely to suffer from chronic health conditions and are generally in better health than the general population, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Utah Department of Health....
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The number of Americans without health insurance could rise by almost 10 million to 54 million in a decade if lawmakers fail to quickly enact policies that rein in costs and expand coverage, Congress' top budget analyst said on Wednesday.
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More than a third of New York State’s recipients of Medicaid and other public health insurance programs fail to re-enroll on time, losing coverage even though they remain eligible, because of daunting paperwork and other obstacles, according to a new study.
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Europeans with the least education have a higher incidence of lung cancer compared with those with the highest education. However, smoking history accounts for approximately half of this risk, according to a study in the February 24 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Posted by: Staff on February 26, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-25
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More Americans will lose their health insurance as the economy weakens, health care becomes more expensive and fewer employers offer coverage, the U.S. Institute of Medicine said in a report on Tuesday.
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Health care costs will top $8,000 per person this year, consuming an ever-bigger slice of a shrinking economic pie, says the report by the Department of Health and Human Services, due out today.
Posted by: Staff on February 25, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-24
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Deep disparities also exist for nonwhite elders, some tracing to historical injustices that kept minorities from union jobs that offered pensions or steered them to low-paying manual work, according to the study. Seven out of 10 Latino and African-American senior citizens, and six out of 10 Asians, live below the survival standard.
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Women are 30 percent less likely than men to receive a critical clot-busting drug than can limit brain damage after a stroke, according to a Michigan State University study.
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Colon cancer patients who seek out more information about their care are more likely to be prescribed cutting-edge, expensive medications that aren't necessarily the best drugs for them, new research shows.
Posted by: Staff on February 24, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-23
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One of the most vexing questions for doctors is why African Americans are much more likely to die of asthma. The easy explanation would be that they’re not getting preventive treatment, but the numbers are the same even among those with access to health care.
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Lack of access to adequate women's health care puts rural women in the US at a greatly increased risk of poor health outcomes compared with women in urban areas.
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A new study has found that people living in neighborhoods with a high number of fast-food restaurants could have a significantly higher risk for stroke
Posted by: Staff on February 23, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-19
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Massachusetts members of the Physicians for a National Health Program released a report today faulting the state's experiment with health reform for failing to achieve universal coverage, being too expensive and draining funds away from safety-net providers.
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MetroHealth Medical Center plans to introduce a new point-of service fee next month, changing the way it charges uninsured patients for the first time in nearly two decades.
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Blue Shield’s monthly premium for a family of four in Los Angeles with a 40-year-old primary policyholder is $1,461. That’s $401 a month, or $4,812 a year, above the cap. Anthem’s 2009 monthly premium for the same family was $1,356 — $296 a month, or $3,552 a year, above the cap.
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Using a range of data sources, we show that the cutbacks were followed by a major increase in the numbers of uninsured people, greater uncompensated care burden on hospitals, and revenue shortfalls that forced community health centers to obtain larger state grants and charge patients more.
Posted by: Staff on February 19, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-18
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Gov. David A. Paterson of New York has proposed allowing parents to claim these young adults as dependents for insurance purposes up to age 29, as more than two dozen other states have done in the past decade.
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Death rates from cancer — especially colon, lung and prostate cancer — continue to drop overall among African Americans, but the group still is diagnosed at higher rates, and die more often from the disease than their white counterparts.
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Black Medicare beneficiaries gained no extra benefit by having surgery in a major teaching hospital, instead of a community facility, compared with the better outcomes enjoyed by white patients, researchers here said.
Posted by: Staff on February 18, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-17
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Black Medicare beneficiaries gained no extra benefit by having surgery in a major teaching hospital, instead of a community facility, compared with the better outcomes enjoyed by white patients, researchers here said.
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Giving people with type 2 diabetes the opportunity to help manage their care online can substantially improve their long-term blood sugar control, new research suggests.
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In California, many women who are planning families pay higher premiums with larger deductibles to secure optional maternity coverage.
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Recent results from a Tower Hamlets PCT text messaging campaign have shown that text messaging contributes to improved attendance for Breast Screening in Tower Hamlets.
Posted by: Staff on February 17, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-13
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A report from the Internal Revenue Service found that a small minority of nonprofit hospitals provide the bulk of uncompensated care for the poor, rekindling concerns about the tax-exempt industry at a time when government aid to corporations is drawing fire.
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Men have a lower life expectancy than women in all race and ethnicity groups.
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Blacks and Hispanics in Kansas are more likely than whites to smoke, have high blood pressure, and be obese or physically inactive, according to a report released on Wednesday
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The Cleveland Clinic is no longer content with merely providing care at its hospitals.
Posted by: Staff on February 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-02-12
Posted by: Staff on February 12, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-28
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California insurers are discriminating against women, charging them more for individual health insurance than men, the city of San Francisco maintained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the state regulators who govern them.
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Women are less likely than men to receive kidney transplants, and researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that this gap primarily affects older women -- even though they fare as well or better than men their age after a transplant.
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Using professional interpreters can also lead to better care for patients with limited English proficiency, but physicians and medical trainees underuse professional interpreters, frequently substituting their own limited spoken Spanish during clinical encounters.
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Mississippi blacks fare worse than their white counterparts in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality, according to a county-by-county report released on Monday
Posted by: Staff on January 28, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-27
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Western Pennsylvania has the highest rate of blacks progressing to end-stage renal disease, or complete kidney failure, according to the latest report from the U.S. Renal Data System.
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Based on all three approaches for measuring disparities, researchers found that disparities between Hispanics and whites for two broad indicators of health care increased between 1996 and 2005, while disparities between blacks and whites remained roughly constant.
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Drama over language requirements for the head of an improved trauma network in China.
Posted by: Staff on January 27, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-23
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The U.S. agency responsible for keeping the public safe from harmful drugs and foods was added to a list of "high-risk" areas of the federal government because it may not be able to adequately do its job, the Government Accountability Office said on Thursday.
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One in seven Americans under age 65 went without prescribed medicines in 2007 as drug costs spiraled upward in the United States, a nonprofit research group said on Thursday.
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In the year following Hurricane Katrina, the health of survivors 65 and over declined nearly 4 times that of a national sample of older adults not affected by the disaster
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People caring for family members with dementia commonly abuse them with behavior such as swearing and shouting, researchers said on Friday in a study that shows a more widespread problem than previously thought.
Posted by: Staff on January 23, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-22
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Panelists who took part in a December 2008 webcast hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation voiced optimism that as president, Barack Obama will work to eliminate ethnic and racial disparities in health care.
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Under a plan passed Wednesday by the State Council, China is set to spend more than $120 billion in the next few years to build hospitals and clinics as part of an effort to provide basic, universal health care. The government will also subsidize insurance to extend coverage to more of its citizens.
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Dramatic improvements in U.S. air quality over the last two decades have added 21 weeks to the life of the average American, researchers reported on Wednesday.
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Obama said he would address the disparity in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, in which rural providers often get paid less than their urban counterparts when they perform the same procedure.
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Among patients with lung cancer, black patients are less likely than white patients to undergo recommended lung resection, but the disparity in treatment does not appear to have an impact on outcomes, according to research published in the January issue of the Archives of Surgery.
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The recession has squeezed virtually all sectors and demographic groups. But black men, who have always faced higher unemployment rates than the national average, are taking a harder hit, data show.
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People who live in poorer neighborhoods in the U.S. are less likely to have easy access to supermarkets carrying a wide variety of fresh produce and other healthy food, an analysis of 54 studies confirms.
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As President Obama gets down to the business of increasing patients’ access to health coverage, some liberals in Congress are suggesting he take a page from the Bush administration’s playbook: expand community health centers.
Posted by: Staff on January 22, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-21
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Children who suffer physical abuse, death of a parent or other childhood adversity and are anxious or depressed are at increased risk of developing asthma in adulthood, a study suggests.
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Gordon Brown hailed the 'momentous day' for the NHS as the first Constitution ends the era of doctor knows best with list of rights and responsibilities for patients and staff.
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The new president has spoken eloquently and accurately on the problems plaguing many minority communities. But he knows that it takes more than words to bring about change. That’s why, to fulfill his promise of a new, better America, the number one priority should be to fix the nation’s massive health care disparities as soon as he takes office.
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Obama’s health care reform are focused on access, with cost second and quality somehow tied in. He didn’t mention access at all, and he tied quality and cost to science and technology.
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Slowly, and somewhat surprisingly, health care is atwitter.
Posted by: Staff on January 21, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-20
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Women are less likely to receive kidney transplants than men, and researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that this gap primarily affects older women — even though they fare as well or better than men their age after a transplant.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is a failed agency that the public should not trust, Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Steven Nissen told The Plain Dealer in a preview of a talk he’s giving Monday.
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Three-quarters of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes had insufficient levels of vitamin D in a study conducted by researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center.
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A new study from the Health Department reveals huge gaps in the care that New Yorkers with diabetes receive. If we see this in a city that is pro-active in diabetes care, then what is happening in the rest of the U.S.?
Posted by: Staff on January 20, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-16
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In a year-long study conducted in Dallas County, Texas, women who called 911 for suspected heart-related symptoms had a 52 percent greater likelihood of experiencing delays in emergency medical services (EMS) compared with their male counterparts, even after adjusting for a number of factors.
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Rural residents are more likely to suffer from diabetes by 16% than their city-dwelling counterparts, according to a first-of-its-kind study by researchers at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford.
Posted by: Staff on January 16, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-15
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Even as President-elect Barack Obama plans an ambitious push to expand health coverage nationwide, states are slashing health services to their poorest residents amid the economic downturn.
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Hispanic voters turned out in droves last fall to elect Barack Obama and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill. Those allies get their first chance to return the favor on Wednesday when the House takes up a children’s health care measure that would grant Medicaid coverage to children of new immigrants whose families came to the U.S. legally.
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India's fight to lower maternal and child mortality rates is failing due to growing social inequalities and shortages in primary healthcare facilities despite an economic boom, the United Nations said on Thursday.
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Under the [California] law, which took effect Jan. 1, health insurers are required to provide patients who lack English comprehension with an on-site interpreter or access to one through telephone or Web-hosted videoconferencing.
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More than half a million expectant and new mothers die each year, most in Africa and Asia where obstetrical and post-natal care is often unavailable and many pregnancies are complicated by HIV.
Posted by: Staff on January 15, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-14
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The reality of social change during the civil rights period is more complicated and more accessible than any savior myth. Social change begins from the bottom up, with everyday people joining together to make a change. They learn the necessary tools for investigation as well as for resolving conflicts in a nonviolent fashion and for engaging the community.
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Although more families are finding that they qualify for coverage for their children, many of the parents still make too much money to qualify for government-sponsored coverage, such as Medicaid, for themselves. The increase in requests for assistance also burdens already stretched state budgets.
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Surveillance data show higher rates of reported STDs among some minority racial or ethnic groups when compared with rates among whites.
Posted by: Staff on January 14, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-13
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In Jacksonville - More than 13 percent of black infants are born with a low birth weight, compared with 7 percent of white babies.
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New findings are grim for women and their loved ones. Women who have the most serious type of heart attack and get to the hospital in time are less likely to get proper treatment and are less likely to survive than a man.
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The Food and Drug Administration does almost nothing to police the financial conflicts of doctors who conduct clinical trials of drugs and medical devices in human subjects, government investigators are reporting.
Posted by: Staff on January 13, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-10
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Younger women have equal access to kidney transplants compared with their male counterparts, but older women receive kidney transplants much less frequently than older men, new research shows.
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Criticism by a national accreditation group over a lung cancer study that failed to disclose an author’s financial conflicts has led The New England Journal of Medicine to change its procedures.
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If an HMO and an ER can’t agree on what emergency care should cost, they shouldn’t take it out on the patient. That, basically, is what the California Supreme Court ruled yesterday.
Posted by: Staff on January 10, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-08
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Medicaid provides coverage to poor and disabled Americans, many of whom face the highest burden of chronic disease owing to cultural and socioeconomic challenges. The program beats being uninsured, but it often relegates the poor to inferior care.
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Seniors who were hospitalized for a psychiatric illness were less likely to get recommended follow-up care if their Medicare plans required that they pay more for mental health care than for other medical care, researchers have found.
Posted by: Staff on January 08, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-07
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Adolescents aren't just big kids, and too many start falling through cracks in the health care system when they pass the stage of preschool shots and summer camp checkups — what a major new report calls missed opportunities to shape the next generation's well-being.
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Because of long waits, some children who are brought to an emergency room never get treated before they and their caretakers have to leave.
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In a bid to put to rest legal troubles over a practice of canceling patients’ health insurance policies after they got sick, Blue Shield of California has agreed to grant coverage again to nearly 700 such patients.
Posted by: Staff on January 07, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-06
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Women with early-stage breast cancer may live longer if they maintain a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy, a new study suggests.
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...as part of the informed-consent process, doctors have an ethical obligation to tell patients if they are more likely to survive, be cured, live longer or avoid complications by going to Hospital A instead of Hospital B.
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One person is diagnosed with diabetes every three minutes* in the UK, according to new figures from Diabetes UK.
Posted by: Staff on January 06, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-05
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In an article today, Canada’s National Post suggests that the increased demand that would follow health reform could lead to an exodus of Canadian doctors to the U.S.
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105-seconds isn't long enough to discuss the benefits of transradial angioplasty
Posted by: Staff on January 05, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2009-01-02
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...the scarcity of general surgeons, most acute in rural areas where population density is too low to support the legions of surgical specialists that cluster in cities.
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People who live on Syracuse's South Side in ZIP code 13205 are about 3 1/2 times more likely to be hospitalized for preventable illnesses than Skaneateles residents who live in ZIP code 13152.
Posted by: Staff on January 02, 2009
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-31
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"Communities are no longer interested in simply being a subject of a study," said Austin. "They want to engage in a process with the researcher that helps them address some of the pressing issues they confront."
Posted by: Staff on December 31, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-30
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Fifty-eight percent of children had a documented autism spectrum disorder. In adjusted analyses, children who were Black, Hispanic, or of other race/ethnicity were less likely than were White children to have a documented ASD. This disparity persisted for Black children, regardless of IQ, and was concentrated for children of other ethnicities when IQ was lower than 70.
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Community health centers throughout the state are seeing a dramatic increase in patients requesting service, leaving many patients to wait weeks for follow-up care.
Posted by: Staff on December 30, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-29
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Partners HealthCare, the umbrella organization over Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals in Boston, tends to get substantially heftier fees from insurers than other hospitals in the area.
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A majority of Maryland's hospitals have received surpluses from free and unpaid care in recent years, though they are supposed to break even in the long run.
Posted by: Staff on December 29, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-23
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...calls for the Grady Health System to require Fulton and DeKalb County patients who earn between 126 and 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines to pay for 40 percent of their care, up to 25% of their annual income.
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The University of South Florida tracked new clients of various Medicaid programs for three years. A report issued in 2007 illustrated managed care's little secret: When time came for the nursing home, most people disenroll from managed care and fell back on regular Medicaid.
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In England and Wales, the admission rate to paediatric intensive care is higher in children from more deprived areas and 36% higher for children from the south Asian population. Risked-adjusted mortality increases in south Asian children as deprivation decreases.
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The median cost of attending a year of medical school, including all fees, is now $62,243 at private schools and $44,390 for state residents at public schools.
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This holiday season reminds me of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver, a young African American who died in the shadows of our nation’s capital last February from a toothache that progressed to a brain abscess.
Posted by: Staff on December 23, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-22
Posted by: Staff on December 22, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-19
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Hospital executives in the Dayton area are saying that rising unemployment and a worsening economy over the past year have led to a drop in the percentage of patients who are privately insured.
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Not everyone in Ontario has the same access to specialty care.
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How much is Medicare’s unfunded liability? Adding up Medicare Part A, Part B, and Part D ... $85 trillion
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American College of Physicians President Jeffrey Harris sent a letter yesterday to HHS nominee Tom Daschle (pictured) asking that the Obama administration’s economic-stimulus package include a 10% pay bonus for all services provided by primary care docs under Medicare for a period of 18 months.
Posted by: Staff on December 19, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-17
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When supporters of President-elect Barack Obama hold house parties to discuss ways of fixing the health care system over the next two weeks, they may find some unexpected guests. The health insurance industry is encouraging its employees and satisfied customers to attend.
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The incidence of colorectal cancer is declining in the United States, but blacks are developing the disease and dying of it at higher rates than whites, and the racial gap is widening, the American Cancer Society has reported.
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According to researchers discussing the issue during a session on emergency department crowding at the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Scientific Assembly held here in October, the current system of offering hospital beds on a first-come, first-served basis favors patients undergoing elective procedures that are scheduled sometimes days or weeks in advance. These patients also are more profitable to a hospital than patients admitted through the emergency department.
Posted by: Staff on December 17, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-16
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Researchers report that low-income men have more advanced prostate cancer when first diagnosed.
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Today, thousands of scientists, health care workers and policymakers, among others, are convening at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, just outside Washington, D.C., for the first government-sponsored scientific summit on minority health and health disparities.
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American health care cannot be compared to other countries because of our cultural diversity.
Posted by: Staff on December 16, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-15
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...physicians and other health-care providers are facing language and other barriers arising from fast growth in Nashville's immigrant population. As a result, they're hiring interpreters and front-desk staff who speak languages from Arabic to Somali, signing up for services that offer telephone-based translators or send in-person interpreters, or adding satellite clinics in diverse areas of Nashville.
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Relatively low earnings, rising overhead and overwhelming patient loads are sending veteran primary care physicians into early retirement and driving medical students into better-paying specialties, creating what the New England Journal of Medicine recently called a crisis.
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Colorectal cancer diagnoses and deaths have fallen in the United States this decade, but the gap in progress between whites and blacks is widening, the American Cancer Society said on Monday.
Posted by: Staff on December 15, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-12
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“Three strikes, and the game is over.”
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California's low-income teenagers are three times more likely to be fat than their better heeled counterparts, a new study shows.
Posted by: Staff on December 12, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-11
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Childhood social conditions predict stroke risk in black and White American adults. Additional adjustment for adult SES, in particular wealth, nearly eliminated the disparity in stroke risk between black and white subjects.
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This study explored Arizona CHW involvement in advocacy beyond the individual patient level into the realm of advocating for community level change as a mechanism to reduce the structural underpinnings of health disparities.
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Nearly 50,000 more Ohio children could be eligible for Medicaid health insurance, but state budget woes could stop the expansion.
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Low-income teenagers are almost three times more likely to be obese than teens from more affluent households, according to new research from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
Posted by: Staff on December 11, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-10
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Better coordination and care, along with improved training for health care providers, are among the reforms needed to improve the fragmented and poorly designed health services currently available for American teens.
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Adolescents rely on hospital emergency rooms for routine treatment more than any other age group, according to a report that found the U.S. health-care system often fails those ages 10 to 19.
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In Ontario, only one in six children who need mental health services gets treatment.
Posted by: Staff on December 10, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-09
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The authors present three clinical scenarios highlighting challenges in providing equitable emergency care to minority populations.
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As increasing numbers of the unemployed and uninsured turn to the nation’s emergency rooms as a medical last resort, doctors warn that the centers — many already overburdened — could have even more trouble handling the heart attacks, broken bones and other traumas that define their core mission.
Posted by: Staff on December 09, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-06
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A new study says retail prescription prices appear to be higher in poorer ZIP codes of Florida.
Posted by: Staff on December 06, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-03
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“Our health-care system is fraught with waste,” Gary Kaplan, chairman of Seattle’s cutting-edge Virginia Mason Medical Center, tells the Washington Post. As much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent today does nothing to improve health, he said.
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Under a new federal rule, states now have greater authority to charge Medicaid beneficiaries premiums and increase co-payments for doctor’s services, hospital care and prescription drugs.
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More than 50 mentally disabled patients in the large state-run institutions of Texas died in the past year from preventable conditions often related to poor care, a federal investigation revealed Tuesday.
Posted by: Staff on December 03, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-02
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The European Union accused drug companies of adding billions of dollars to health care costs by delaying or blocking the sale of less-expensive generic medicines.
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1. America has the best health care in the world.
Posted by: Staff on December 02, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-12-01
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Older African Americans more likely to rate their health as poor compared with older white Americans, even though when the two groups "are functioning extremely well, new research suggests.
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The surprising news made headlines in December 2002. Generic pills for high blood pressure, which had been in use since the 1950s and cost only pennies a day, worked better than newer drugs that were up to 20 times as expensive.
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Look for legislation clearing a path for generic biotech drugs, direct negotiations of drug prices by Medicare and maybe even importation of prescription medicines. A consensus in support of health reform also appears strong, for now.
Posted by: Staff on December 01, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-26
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There are 8.6 million uninsured children in the United States -- including 215,000 in Ohio, according to a new report released today by Families USA.
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Women younger than age 65 with diabetes tend to have worse cardiovascular risk profiles than diabetic men of the same age, leading to higher death rates following a heart attack.
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Following introduction of the MELD score to the liver transplantation allocation system, race was no longer associated with receipt of a liver transplant or death on the waiting list, but disparities based on sex remain.
Posted by: Staff on November 26, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-25
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The lowest ‘years of healthy life’ is seen in Estonia, where the age is 59 years for men and 61 for women. In Denmark, by contrast, those values rise to 73 years for men and 74 years for women. The UK is higher than the European average with figures of 69 years and 9 months for men and 70 years and 9 months for women.
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Despite political, social and economic advances by black Americans, racial disparities between blacks and whites persist in just about every measurable form.
Posted by: Staff on November 25, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-24
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Financial incentives for doctors can improve the management of coronary heart disease and reduce ethnic differences in quality of and access to care, according to public health experts in the UK.
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...students have been trying for six years to get the administration to tighten its conflicts policies, both in the classroom and at the affiliated hospitals where the students train. One idea they’re pushing is to require faculty and students, while talking about drugs in the classroom, to disclose any ties to the makers of those drugs.
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...fifth graders living in public housing did worse on standardized math and reading tests than fifth graders who lived elsewhere. Researchers found this disparity in fifth-grade test scores even when comparing students at the same school who shared similar demographics, like race, gender and poverty status.
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In one instance, the lawsuit said, the middle schooler's soccer coach asked the girl whether she had AIDS, then told her the team could use her HIV status to its advantage because "the other team will be afraid."
Posted by: Staff on November 24, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-21
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Sen. Chuck Grassley is squawking about another eyebrow-raising conflict-of-interest in psychiatry. This tale of drug-industry influence comes with another twist: It involves National Public Radio.
Posted by: Staff on November 21, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-20
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Employers are dramatically shifting healthcare costs onto workers, so much so that the average annual deductible for an individual surpassed $1,000 for the first time this year, according to a new study.
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According to the results of a large depression treatment study, published n the November issue of Psychiatric Services, minorities with depression have limited access to treatment. Those who seek treatment receive inadequate care. The findings reveal that even when variables such as poverty, insurance coverage, and education were taken into account, ethnicity and race still impacted treatment.
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The Saskatoon Health Region report, Health disparity in Saskatoon: Analysis to intervention, says putting more health services in the inner city alone won't close the health gap between the rich and poor -- a broader cultural shift will be needed.
Posted by: Staff on November 20, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-19
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As Democrats in Congress consider covering more of the uninsured kids by expanding Medicaid, they may want to consider this: Fewer doctors are accepting Medicaid patients not just because fees are so low, but because it often takes months to get paid.
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60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians would not recommend medicine as a career.
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U.S. doctors seem to be fed up. Within the next three years, a new survey shows, almost half are considering cutting back on patients or simply halting their practice. Already, more than three-quarters say, there's a shortage of primary care doctors.
Posted by: Staff on November 19, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-17
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The latest life expectancy figures released by Statistics New Zealand show that a newborn non- Maori girl can expect to live more than than 12 years longer than a Maori boy born on the same day, based on current death rates.
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...Mr Chi said providing equal health, education and welfare services by 2020 for China's 750 million rural residents - still more than half the population - would cost 5-8 trillion yuan (£5,800 billion).
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It has never enjoyed the best reputation, but now hospital food has got healthcare critics spluttering in their soup.
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Need a brain scan? An MRI of your head will cost $1,153 at Mass General, or a bargain price of $716 at Winchester Hospital.
Posted by: Staff on November 17, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-14
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State officials are considering capping enrollment in California's health insurance program for children of the working poor, as an influx of new clients overwhelms it.
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Chronically ill patients in the United States spend more out-of-pocket money, skip needed care, and report more medical errors than patients in seven other industrialized countries, a new survey finds.
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The election of the nation’s first African-American president raises questions about racial disparities in health care.
Posted by: Staff on November 14, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
links for 2008-11-13
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The odds of having a premature baby are lowest in Vermont and highest in Mississippi. The March of Dimes mapped the sta