PI's Weekly Media Digest: Drug-related deaths outpace car crashes and gun deaths, tracking misogynistic acts as hate crimes, and inmates strike nationwide over working conditions

Welcome to our media digest for the week of September 23, 2016! Below you’ll find summaries of news coverage on the issues of preventing violence, trauma, nutrition, health equity, mental health, and more. The views expressed in these articles do not reflect those of Prevention Institute.

Health Equity

Ezra Klein interviews Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen. Among the topics discussed: “How the medical community’s understanding of pain has changed, and how that helped produce today’s opioid crisis;  misunderstandings that have made the opioid crisis so much worse; why Wen prescribed a drug to treat heroin overdoses to everyone in Baltimore; Wen’s thoughts on the paradox of Baltimore’s great health institutions and its huge health disparities; and the patterns that generate infant mortality.

The White House Council on Women and Girls and several other agencies and organizations held a conference on Monday to address the institutional barriers and structural violence experienced by young women of color in schools. The White House released a toolkit for school administrators to better respond to sexual harassment and a fact sheet with links to documents pledging school policy reforms that emphasize trauma-based approaches. (via BMSG)

Collin Kaepernick calls out his critics as his movement he started continues to grow, stating “There’s a lot of racism in this country disguised as patriotism.”

Following a call for a nationwide prison strike that began September 9, inmates in at least three states have organized work stoppages or staged protests in support of improving their wages and working conditions. So far, prisoners in at least 29 prisons in 12 states have launched strikes and more than 24,000 prisoners have missed work. The strike, billed by activists as one of the first nationally coordinated strikes among prisoners, is intended to combat prison labor conditions, what they term "modern-day slavery."

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute reveals the largest disparity between the hourly pay of blacks and whites in nearly 40 years. On average, whites make 26.7 percent more than blacks, earning $25.22 an hour compared with $18.49 for blacks. Blacks today earn less relative to their white peers than they did in 1979.

This article in The Atlantic argues that private land ownership isn’t a solution to Native American poverty. The author points out that the pipeline protests are not just about protecting their land, but also about protecting their culture and future, noting “Instead, they are combating life-threatening social and emotional upheaval rooted in cultural loss as a result of wars, genocide, forced removals, separation from ancestral homelands, children taken away to boarding schools, and other experiences that negatively impacted tribal communities across generations.” The article includes a comprehensive list of proposals to improve equity and provide justice for native tribes.

This Truthout article discusses the “medicalization of racism,” and initiatives that treat racism like addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex and overeating. At one such program called Racists Anonymous, a licensed therapist helps self-identified racists to "deal with and eliminate racism" within themselves. As the author notes, “Advocates for the medicalization of racism have suggested drug therapy and behavioral modification… This approach erases the structural underpinnings of racism and silences larger calls for racial justice.” The author argues such an approach also frames whites as victims, serves to silence demands for social justice, and protects white privilege. 

At the first-ever Build Black Futures Advocacy Day, 60 youth organizers from BYP100 and the National Black Justice Coalition urged legislators to support a range of policy goals, including eliminating college tuition, ending mandatory minimum sentencing, and supporting reparations.

To better understand poverty, KETV7 Omaha spent a day with a family of 10 living in poverty. BMSG notes that, “though a compelling story, the coverage misses the opportunity to discuss the root causes of poverty.”

Days after Flint city officials announced they might file a lawsuit against the state over the city's lead poisoning crisis, an Advisory Board appointed by Republican Governor Rick Snyder changed the rules so that the city would have to secure permission from the state before it filed a lawsuit against the state.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that black men in Boston who avoid run-ins with police officers may be justifiably motivated by a desire to “avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled,” and their flight should not be automatically interpreted as evidence of “criminal activity.”

Community environments

Johns Hopkins has received a $95 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to analyze the role of environmental factors in shaping the health of 50,000 US kids.

Researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found that smoking can permanently damage DNA and change gene activity: “We don’t really know whether it means ‘damage’ to the DNA… That requires more study, using data outside what we have here. What we’re saying is that it’s a change to your DNA that can have a downstream effect on what genes are expressed at what levels.”

Americans are consuming less sugar and sweeteners, driven in part by declining soda consumption.

California

Dr. Muntu Davis, head of the Alameda County Public Health Department, says the shortage of affordable housing is contributing to health problems, including depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.

Someone turned all the state and Los Angeles ballot measures into informative haikus! For example, Los Angeles’ Measure A: “Modest parcel tax / Maintains parks and rec centers / Rivers and beaches.” 

Violence Prevention and Unintentional Injury

On Monday, the Tulsa Police Department released video of officers fatally shooting 40-year-old Terence Crutcher on Friday night. The video shows Crutcher, who police confirmed was unarmed, walking with his hands up when he was shocked by a Taser and shot, almost simultaneously. In 2012, African Americans made up just 13% of the US population but 31% of people killed by police. The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the shooting. As this Vox story argues, if you don’t understand Black Lives Matter after Terence Crutcher’s death, you never will.  On Thursday evening, the officer who killed Crutcher was charged with first-degree manslaughter. Police also fatally shot an African-American man named Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Tuesday evening while executing a warrant for another man. According to the Charlotte Observer, Officer Brentley Vinson fired the shot that killed the 43-year-old father. "Man was in his truck, reading a book waiting for his kid to come home," one man at the scene told WCNC.  "Cops shot him, for nothing." So far in 2016, 697 people have been shot and killed by police— Scott is the 164th black man to be killed this year by police. Meanwhile, Tyre King, a 13-year-old boy, was the third black person in the last two years to be killed by police in Ohio for playing with a BB gun. In each case, police officers reportedly mistook the BB gun for a real firearm, in this case shooting King multiple times. An independent autopsy suggests the boy was shot while running away.

Nottinghamshire in the UK has been tracking misogynistic acts as hate crimes and reported back on early findings, including increased reporting of activities that were already crimes under British law, and many reports of misogyny intersecting with other forms of abuse, including racism and Islamophobia. “Nottingham women whose video testimonies were played at the event said the new hate crime category gave them confidence the problem was finally being taken seriously. Many might not have come forward before, even to report a serious offence, because it is so normalised. One woman initially told Jeffs: ‘There must be a different number to call [than the standard police numbers], because this isn’t a crime.’” The Guardian reports that the ultimate aim is ‘to change attitudes, challenge the normalisation of misogynistic abuse, and enable women to move freely around their city without being intimidated, abused or harassed. “You can’t measure the success of this by the number of calls, but by the number of women who’ve said they feel like they’re walking taller – just to know it’s there.’”

The Huffington Post used World Suicide Prevention Day, last Saturday, as a hook to discuss the issue of gun suicides, which kill more than 20,000 Americans each year. Suicides have long been excluded from the conversation around gun violence, but research shows that of the approximately 90 Americans killed every day by gun violence, most are suicides.

As overall rates of gun ownership have declined, the number of firearms in circulation has skyrocketed. In fact, just 3% of American adults own half of the nation's firearms, according to the results of a Harvard-Northeastern survey of 4,000 gun owners.

Health Systems Transformation

The Senate voted 89-7 on Tuesday to advance a symbolic measure that will be used as legislation to fund the federal government and US  Zika virus response efforts. The "shell bill" does not include any funding details, but lawmakers say they are nearing an agreement that would provide $1.1 billion for Zika response efforts and fund the federal government through Dec. 9.

Vice President Biden last week outlined three steps federal agencies will take to improve the clinical trial search process for cancer patients and their providers. The announcement is part of President Obama's cancer "moonshot" initiative being led by Biden, whose son died of brain cancer last year.

Anthem's proposed $54 billion acquisition of Cigna would significantly reduce competition in the commercial insurance market in 121 metropolitan areas across 14 states, according to a new analysis by the American Medical Association. Aetna's planned $37 billion takeover of Humana would diminish competition in 51 markets across 15 states, the analysis found. The AMA, which opposes both deals, warns that reducing the number of major national carriers from five down to three would seriously undermine competition.

Mental health

La Prensa reports that Latino youth face factors that increase their risk for mental health problems, as well as more barriers to accessing help, including distrust and stigmas. Nearly three-quarters of Latino youth who need help don’t get it, and at least one study suggests the rate is even higher for Latino immigrants.

Drug-related deaths are outpacing deaths from car crashes and gun violence. Mother Jones published a series of graphics highlighting the problem, including one that shows that most users acquire prescription painkillers from a friend or relative. Less than 5% purchase drugs from dealers.

For the kickoff of its new EqualEd section, focused on inequality inside and outside the classroom, The Christian Science Monitor features an article by Stacy Teicher Khadaroo on the power of mentoring to transform young people's lives. Having an “achor relationship” at school can make a substantial difference in attendance and success.

STAT publishes an investigation on the tactics Abbott Laboratories deployed to market OxyContin to doctors, from free donuts to downplaying the drug’s addictive properties. That strategy continues to unfold today, as prescription painkillers come under sharper scrutiny: “The makers of prescription painkillers have adopted a 50-state strategy that includes hundreds of lobbyists and millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at stemming the tide of prescription opioids….. The drugmakers vow they’re combating the addiction epidemic, but The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found that they often employ a statehouse playbook of delay and defend that includes funding advocacy groups that use the veneer of independence to fight limits on the drugs.”.

Connecticut, among other states, received a $5 million grant from SAMHSA to increase access to substance abuse treatment and boost prevention measures The grant includes $1 million to increase access to medication-assisted treatment and counseling and $3.5 million to raise awareness of the risks of opioid abuse.