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Archive for: January 2013
Jan 30 2013

Chicago White Sox Score Community Win

Jan 30, 2013, 10:29 PM

Representatives of the White Sox accept the 2012 Steve Patterson Award for Excellence in Sports Philanthropy Representatives of the White Sox accept the 2012 Steve Patterson Award for Excellence in Sports Philanthropy

The Chicago White Sox had a home turf celebration last week to mark their choice as one of three sports organizations to win the 2012 Steve Patterson Award for Excellence in Sports Philanthropy. The White Sox won for their Volunteer Corps, established in 2009, which brings together more than 5,000 fans, players, executives and other staff members to assist underserved Chicago neighborhoods through volunteer work. Since it was founded in 2009, the Corps has collectively put in more than 17,000 hours of service, including:

  • participating in American Red Cross blood drives that have helped save up to 1,200 lives;
  • repacking more than 150,000 pounds of food that has fed approximately 40,000 hungry families and individuals in Chicago;
  • and taking part in renovation and beautification projects for Chicago public schools and Boys & Girls Club locations. 

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Jan 30 2013

U.S. Public Health School Deans Protest Sham Vaccine Campaign in Pakistan

Jan 30, 2013, 2:33 PM

Earlier this month, the deans of twelve graduate schools of public health, including Harvard, Columbia and Johns Hopkins, sent a letter to the White House, signing as individuals, to protest the reported use by the CIA of a fake polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan to gain information on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. In the letter the deans say that as a result of the fake campaign, medical groups running long-standing vaccination programs have been asked to leave Pakistan. And in December, at least eight polio vaccination workers were assassinated in Pakistan and the U.N. polio eradication program was suspended.

“[C]ontaminating humanitarian and public health programs with covert activities threatens the present participants and future potential of much of what we undertake internationally to improve health,” the deans wrote.

Suspension of vaccine efforts can also pose risks to countries beyond the developing world. According to Johns Hopkins research, Pakistan is one of only three countries where wild polio transmission still occurs.

>>Bonus Link: Read a New York Times article published in late December on other third world vaccination efforts that have come under threat in recent years. 

This commentary originally appeared on the RWJF New Public Health blog.

Jan 28 2013

Toward a Healthier America: New Report Offers Recommendations

Jan 28, 2013, 5:49 PM

In Akron, Ohio, the Austen BioInnovation Institute recently launched the first of its kind Accountable Care Community (ACC), which brings together more than 70 partners to coordinate health care both in and out of the doctor’s office for patients with type 2 diabetes. By improving physician care as well as making healthier choices easier for people in their daily lives, the ACC has reduced the average cost of care per month for individuals with type 2 diabetes by more than 10 percent per month. The ACC estimates the program saves about $3,185 per person per year.

Akron’s Accountable Care Community is one of several case studies in a new report released today by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), A Healthier America 2013: Strategies to Move from Sick Care to Health Care in Four Years. The report, supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and The Kresge Foundation , offers high-impact recommendations to prioritize prevention efforts that can improve the health of all Americans.

“America’s health faces two possible futures,” said Gail Christopher, DN, President of the Board of TFAH and vice president of program strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “We can continue on the current path, resigning millions of Americans to health problems that could have been avoided or we can invest in giving all Americans the opportunity to be healthier while saving billions in health care costs. We owe it to our children to take the smarter way.”

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Jan 28 2013

Local Public Health Departments Tackle Flu

Jan 28, 2013, 1:12 PM

Paul Etkind, NACCHO Paul Etkind, NACCHO

The most recent update on flu activity in the U.S. from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds 47 states showing widespread activity, down from 48 states the week before. “Widespread” means that more than half of the counties in a state are reporting flu activity. While the Western part of the country will likely see more cases, flu seems to be slowing some in the South, Southeast, New England and the Midwest—though still packing a punch in terms of illness, deaths, emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

NewPublicHealth spoke with Paul Etkind, MPH, DrPH, MPH, DrPH, Senior Director of Infectious Diseases at the National Association of County and City Health Officials about the role local health departments play in educating communities about flu prevention and helping to facilitate treatment.

NewPublicHealth: What, if anything, is different about the flu this year?

Paul Etkind: The flu severity that’s being experienced, which we haven’t seen for several years now, has gotten the public’s attention and they’re really heeding the public health urgings, communication and education that’s been going on all along saying hey, get your flu shots, protect yourself. So now, within a relatively short period of time, there’s a very large demand for flu shots.

CDC Flu Map Weekly Flu Surveillance Map, CDC

During the H1N1 outbreak of a few years ago, there was much greater funding for what the health departments were doing. I saw some magic happening then. They had the funds to hold clinics in very unusual places, such as local baseball stadiums and airports. They went to places where people are most comfortable.

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Jan 28 2013

Got the Flu? Antibiotics Won’t Help (So Please Don’t Ask for Them)

Jan 28, 2013, 12:09 PM, Posted by Beth Toner

Beth Toner Beth Toner

One look at the latest flu map from the Centers for Disease Control tells you everything you need to know: We are smack-dab in the middle of flu season. Make no mistake: Influenza, at best, can make you miserable—and, at worst, kill you. If you are one of the many Americans suffering from the flu this season, you will probably try anything to get relief from your sore throat, high fever, body aches, and chills. But do us a favor: Please don’t ask your doctor for an antibiotic. There are medications—called antivirals—that may decrease your symptoms and shorten your illness by a day or two. Antibiotics, however, won’t help you if you have the flu. 

Antibiotics don’t fight infections that are caused by viruses, including influenza. Yet every year flu sufferers are prescribed antibiotics. According to a policy brief from Extending the Cure (ETC), a project funded by the RWJF Pioneer team, that researches and examines solutions to address antibiotic resistance, between 500,000 and 1 million antibiotic prescriptions are filled each flu season for patients who have the flu and no bacterial illness.

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Jan 28 2013

Meet the RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research Program

Jan 28, 2013, 9:00 AM

This is part of a series of blog posts introducing programs in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Human Capital Portfolio. The RWJF  Scholars in Health Policy Research program fosters the development of a new generation of creative thinkers in health policy research within the disciplines of economics, political science, and sociology.

Some of the nation’s most pressing health policy issues—such as the future of the Affordable Care Act, federal funding for medical research, and the health of underserved populations—are being addressed by a group of top scholars who make up the RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research program.

"The program has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to focus 100 percent on my research and to expand my research agenda to questions and topics I wouldn’t have considered otherwise."
- Brigham Frandsen, PhD, Cohort 17 Alumni, Economics

The program, initiated in 1992, was created to attract social scientists—economists, political scientists, and sociologists—to health policy research and analysis and to maintain their commitment to these fields in their future positions. Scholars in Health Policy Research frequently go on to careers in academia, government, and think tanks. By fostering a multidisciplinary approach to health policy, the program leads to innovative collaborations that can ultimately improve the health and health care of all Americans.

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Jan 25 2013

Danny McGoldrick Q&A: Some Good — and Some Bad — News for Smokers This Week

Jan 25, 2013, 11:45 AM

Two new studies published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine found that smoking remains a very serious public health problem in the United States, but smokers who quit between the ages of 25 and 34 regained nearly the same life expectancy as people who had never smoked.

The study on life expectancy (21st-Century Hazards of Smoking and Benefits of Cessation in the United States) found that, on average, smoking reduces a person's life expectancy by at least 10 years. But smokers can significantly extend their life expectancy by quitting. Those who quit between the ages of 25 and 34 lived about ten years longer than people who didn’t quit. Those who quit between 35 to 44, 45 to 54, and 55 to 64 gained 9, 6 and 4 years of life, respectively.

A second study, on smoking and mortality rates in the United States (50-Year Trends in Smoking-Related Mortality in the United States), found that death rates among female smokers — previously shown to be lower than those of male smokers — have increased and are looking similar to those of men for lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other tobacco-related diseases. The study authors say research has shown a rise in similar smoking patterns among men and women since the 1960s. The second study also found that the death rate from COPD continues to rise among both male and female smokers, while there has been a significant decrease in COPD risk among men who never smoked.

"A plausible explanation for the continuing increase in deaths from COPD among male smokers is that cigarettes marketed since the late 1950s have undergone design changes that promote deeper inhalation of smoke,” according to the researchers, who also note that cigarette design changes may have contributed to an increase in one form of lung cancer (called peripheral adenocarcinomas).

According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, tobacco use kills more than 400,000 Americans and results in health care costs for the United States of $96 billion in health each year.

NewPublicHealth spoke with Danny McGoldrick, Vice President for Research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, about the new studies.

NewPublicHealth: What’s most important about these two new studies?

Danny McGoldrick: I think they really point out, once again, just how devastating smoking is to smokers. The average smoker loses more than ten years from their lifetime and we know that it causes all of these horrible diseases, so the studies quantify, yet again, just how devastating smoking is to health.

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Jan 25 2013

Child Abuse Pediatrics Chooses You

Jan 25, 2013, 9:00 AM, Posted by Brendan Campbell

Brendan T. Campbell, MD, MPH, is an assistant professor of surgery and pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Clinical Scholars program (2000-2002).

Human Capital Blog: What kind of work do you do in the area of child abuse pediatrics?

Brendan Campbell: I am a pediatric general and thoracic surgeon and the medical director of the pediatric trauma program at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford. Connecticut Children’s is a Level I pediatric trauma center, which means we see patients with relatively minor and severe multisystem injuries. Caring for abused children is one of the most important services we provide. When children with non-accidental trauma are initially identified, they are admitted to the pediatric surgical service to rule out life-threatening injuries. During their admission we work closely and collaboratively with the suspected child abuse and neglect team (SCAN) to make sure children with inflicted injuries are identified, have their injuries treated, and are kept out of harm’s way.

HCB: Why did you decide to focus on this area?

Campbell: It can be challenging to get a pediatric surgeon interested in child abuse because caring for vulnerable children who are intentionally harmed is not easy, and most of these kids don’t have life-threatening injuries that require an operation. What draws me to the care of injured children is that they are the patients who need me the most.  If we don’t identify the risks they are up against at home, no one else will. They need someone to advocate for them.

The other thing that draws me to child abuse pediatrics is that there is an enormous need to develop better ways to screen for and to prevent abuse.  Over the last 30 years we’ve made enormous strides in lowering the number of children injured in car crashes by enacting seat belt laws, toughening drunk-driving laws, and improving graduated driver licensing systems. Child abuse in the United States, however, remains a significant public health problem that needs more effective screening initiatives and prevention programs.

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Jan 24 2013

Electronic Health Records: A Rising Star in the Flu Prevention Arsenal

Jan 24, 2013, 10:58 AM

Add electronic health records to the critical weapons health professionals have against the flu, as 48 states currently deal with widespread flu activity and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports at least 30 pediatric deaths so far. At least half of those children had not received a flu shot, according to CDC Director Thomas Frieden.

A CDC report from September 2012 found that about 128 million people, or about 42 percent of the U.S. population, got the flu shot during the 2011-2012 season, which started later and proved milder than the one we’re in now. That number has been holding steady for several years, but is below the CDC’s goal of 80 percent of the U.S. population receiving a flu shot.

Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, however, has seen a 6 percent increase in its two-million plus members getting the 2012-2013 flu shot over previous years, for which it gives credit to HealthConnect, the largest civilian health record data base in the United States. Randy Bergen, MD, the vaccine lead at Kaiser in Northern California, says the system lets Kaiser Staff “proactively reach out to all its members and even identify those at greatest risk from contracting the flu [which includes children, the elderly and people with chronic diseases] to give them an extra nudge.”

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Jan 23 2013

Pamela Hyde Q&A: Mental Health and Public Health Law

Jan 23, 2013, 3:27 PM

Pamela Hyde, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Pamela Hyde, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

The keynote address at last week’s 2013 Public Health Law Research (PHLR) annual meeting was from Pamela Hyde, JD, administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

“People are just beginning to wake up to the knowledge that behavioral health [issues are] so common and that half of all Americans have a mental health issue at sometime in their lives,” Hyde told meeting attendees. Depression, according to the World Health Organization, is the most common medical disorder worldwide. And among the eight million people in the past year who had a mental illness or a substance abuse disorder, only 6.9 percent received treatment.

“The country has to spend as much time helping children develop their emotional skills as they do their soccer skills,” said Hyde.

Just prior to the PHLR meeting, NewPublicHealth spoke with Administrator Hyde about public health law research and some new initiatives aimed at helping address behavioral health in the United States.

NewPublicHealth: What research is critically needed on mental health issues to help improve awareness and treatment?

Pamela Hyde: Often people don’t think of behavioral health as part of the larger public health message or initiatives or infrastructure in the country and so they don’t think about mental health research when they think about other kinds of public health research. But you can think about behavioral health needs in the same way. It is just important to protect people from lost hope as it is to protect them from bacteria in the water.

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