PI's Weekly Media Digest: Public Health in the News
Welcome to our media digest for the week of April 29, 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.
Mental Health
NPR’s All Things Considered featured an interview with Baltimore’s Health Commissioner Lena Wen by Audie Cornish in which Wen talks about plans to address community-level trauma. Wen says, “the unrest [after Freddie Gray] paradoxically opened the door for us to address trauma, which is a natural segue to talk about mental health and the bigger picture of emotional well-being. People finally felt like they could talk about the trauma they've experienced for so many years. It's the trauma of police brutality. It's the trauma of discriminatory practices. It's the trauma even of being poor. We now want to convene a citywide group to address this issue, which is very difficult because ultimately, the trauma work has to be done at the community level.”
Laura Flanders interviews Johann Hari, the author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. Hari says that “addiction is an adaptation to your environment, and we can see that in all sorts of human ways” and recommends that the US “take all the money we were spending on arresting drug users, imprisoning drug users, all of that, and spend it all on reconnecting addicts with society.”
The rate of suicides that occur in the U.S. increased by 24 percent from 1999 through 2014, according to a CDC report published last week. The increase means the U.S. suicide rate, now 13 per 100,000 people, is the highest it has been in almost 30 years. In total, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2013, up from 29,199 in 1999. Researchers do not know what is driving the increase in suicide rates.
Alaska Public Radio (KDLG) reports a 20-member, cross-sector taskforce is convening to address high rates of heroin use and opioid abuse. The group will first meet on May 20 and is expected to have recommendations for the governor by November. In the meantime, “the groups partnering to put together the task force will be collecting resources for task force members, and making connections with existing community groups.”
As BMSG reports, by recognizing the long-term health impacts of traumatic events in childhood, the city of Memphis, Tennessee has implemented programs to help parents address their own trauma to avoid passing it on to their children. "It's not 'what's wrong with you', it's 'what happened to you,'" says Robin Karr-Morse of the Parenting Institute.
Health Equity
A new study from the University of Virginia demonstrates that racial bias produces inequitable medical practices and health outcomes. Alternet argues that the dehumanizing effect of ignoring African-Americans’ pain carries implications for black people throughout society -- such as experiences of police violence and access to mental health services. The piece also contends there are unintended consequences for other communities, such as the overprescribing of pain drugs to white patients, which has heavily contributed to the current opiate epidemic primarily affecting white rural and suburban communities.
The Austin American Statement reports on how city health leaders are calling racism a root cause of ill health. For years, health officials have released data showing that residents of low-income neighborhoods suffer more disease and early death than people in more affluent neighborhoods. But now the conversation has shifted — from what’s happening to why?
Colorlines published a two part series on gentrification in Portland, Oregon. Part 1 lays out the case that the city is one of the worst examples of African-American displacement and gentrification in the country. Part 2 of the report looks at how multi-racial coalitions are trying to come up with their own solutions.
New ACA data shows how the struggles for economic justice and racial justice are connected. This piece uses data, statistics, and visuals to demonstrate how universally aimed policies that take an intersectional approach to race and economics are "a crucial tool to shrink racial inequities."
According to findings from the 39th annual edition of HHS' assessment of the health of Americans (PDF), there's been progress in narrowing the gap in health disparities between blacks and whites, while Hispanics continued to experience better health outcomes than both. Modern Healthcare notes, “The report marks the first comprehensive comparative analysis to examine racial health disparities conducted by HHS since 1985, when then-HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler reported that social determinants such as poverty and lower education caused large health disparities between minorities and whites.”
The Center for American Progress comments on a recent report documenting racism in the Chicago Police department by asking: "Is this news?" The piece argues that the latest report simply confirms what African-Americans have long known. The reality of police racism will only change when "average citizens respond with alarm rather than apathy and demand accountability from the police."
Violence Prevention
NPR interviewed military spouses on their experiences with PTSD and domestic violence, including the barriers military wives face in leaving abusive relationships. Affording to Dr. Casey Taft, a researcher with the Department of Veterans Affairs, vets with PTSD are three times more likely to be violent than other veterans.
Two female sportswriters highlighted the online harassment and abuse they experience in a powerful new video.
According to a new phone survey by a prominent Democratic polling firm, African-American voters think most Americans simply do not care about urban gun violence. But for them, it’s a crucial issue – and a more serious one than police misconduct. The poll found that 80% of the registered black voters surveyed described gun violence in communities of color as an “extremely serious” problem, compared with 50% who called police misconduct an “extremely serious” problem, and 69% who called the incarceration rate an “extremely serious” problem. Writing for the Washington Post, Todd C. Frankel argues that injuries and homicides are a poor way to measure the issue of gun violence. As BMSG notes, “Frankel says that using technology to measure "shots fired" would widen the lens on gun violence and provide a more complete picture of how common gun violence is.” Meanwhile, this week Minnesota legislators debated a bill that would require background checks on all gun purchases made in the state. The legislation is not being voted on this year; however, the bill's sponsor called the hearing in response to residents' demands for action on gun violence.
Health Systems Transformation
As the USA Today reports, on Wednesday CMS unveiled its proposed rule on how its new quality payment program will be implemented under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). The new program seeks to simplify and streamline existing value-based payment models that are helping to transition the industry away from the traditional fee-for-service system.
Individuals on probation, parole or in-home confinement who are Medicaid-eligible can get coverage under the program, CMS said in guidance issued Thursday, clarifying the program's ban on covering inmates. CMS wrote that individuals in these circumstances are not considered inmates of a public institution, so states can receive federal Medicaid funds for coverage provided to them.
According to a new Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, 51 percent of Democratic voters now want Congress to expand the law's scope rather than just leave it as is - the highest level of support for ACA expansion in at least a year and a significant increase from 36 percent of respondents in December 2015. The foundation's analysts believe the rhetoric around universal coverage in the Democratic presidential campaign may be the chief culprit.
According to a new analysis from the Health Care Cost Institute, some states pay more than double what others do for healthcare. The authors say they're puzzled by the forces behind such wide disparities. And they call on regulators and researchers to keep exploring why prices for the same service differ markedly across distances of only a few miles, and what amount of that difference is justifiable?
Food and activity environments
The House Education and Workforce Committee is pushing a bill that would lift restrictions on sales of junk foods in schools and raise the threshold for “community eligibility” free-lunch programs, which currently allows schools to provide access to free lunch for all students when more than 40% of students qualify for free lunch. Raising the threshold from 40 to 60%, as the bill proposes, would affect more than 3.4 million students at more than 7,000 schools.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report, The Devastating Consequences of Unequal Food Access: The Role of Race and Income in Diabetes. "This is the first study to show that living near healthy food retailers is associated with lower diabetes rates across all U.S. counties. The impact on diabetes rates is even more pronounced in counties with above average populations of color, which is significant given that communities of color are disproportionately affected by this tragic and costly diet-related disease."
Runoff of agricultural fertilizers may double nearby residents’ risks of bladder, ovarian, and thyroid cancers, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
New rules implemented by the Department of Agriculture require day care facilities to serve more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and reduce added sugars and fats.
California
According to a new report by the California Institute for Rural Studies, nearly half of farmworkers in Yolo County struggle to adequately feed their families, a rate nearly three times higher than national and state averages: "Ironically, the same agricultural workers who are responsible for producing an abundance of food find themselves at serious risk of hunger, diet-related chronic diseases, unsafe living and working conditions, and inadequate access to health care.”
Protestors in San Francisco continue to go on a hunger strike outside the Mission Police Station, following the police killing of a homeless man earlier this month. Their stated goal is to oust the SF police chief and Mayor Ed Lee over a pattern of police violence and misconduct.
According to Politico, a California ballot initiative would have Medicare negotiate the prices of prescription drugs. The referendum, which comes as the public's anger at high drug prices is at a peak, "would require the state to pay no more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs - one of the few federal agencies allowed to negotiate drug prices." The industry has begun recruiting allies, including Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Pfizer and Bayer, who have already raised nearly $67 million to assemble a team to ensure the proposal is defeated.
The California Assembly approved a tobacco-free campus bill that would "prohibit chewing, dipping, smoking or vaping natural or synthetic tobacco products" on all California State University and community college campuses. Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy who sponsored the bill, argues the measure "will promote a safe and healthy environment for students to learn." The bill heads to the Senate next.