PI's Weekly Media Digest: Public housing to go smoke free, Trump admin and health care, and more
Community environments
Traffic-related deaths for vehicle occupants, motorcylists, bicyclists, and pedestrians are on track to reach 38,000 by the end of 2016, a 10% spike over the previous year. Vox reports that, “even before that spike upward, per capital traffic fatalities in the US were already the highest in the industrialized world. No other developed country tolerates the level of carnage on their roads that we do. This national failure has been overlooked for far too long. Studying short-term variations in our safety record is important, but it can also distract us from investigating the forces contributing to our horrendous safety record compared to our peers…” and explores ways European countries have curbed traffic fatalities, such as designing streets to naturally slow the speed of automobile traffic, and building a cultural around shared use of roads.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development finalized a rule making public housing smoke-free, which will affect over 1.2 million households.
A new study found that preschoolers who viewed episodes of Sesame Street interrupted by TV ads for snack foods consumed more food. The average preschooler is exposed to more than three hours of TV per day, and their exposure to snack food ads has risen more than 18% from 2010 to 2014. (via Berkeley Media Studies Group)
A USDA study compares food purchases by families who do and do not receive SNAP benefits and finds that families who receive SNAP benefits do not purchase more junk food than families who do not, contrary to what policymakers often argue. Unhealthy products like soda were among the top purchases regardless of SNAP status.
Cook County (Chicago), Illinois, home to more than five million residents, approved a penny per ounce soda tax this week.
Health equity
The National Employment Law Project puts numbers to the Fight for $15 movement’s impacts on low-wage workers’ paid, totaling $62 billion in raises from state and local minimum wage hikes.
Colorlines shares tweets from immigrants and immigrant-rights organizations calling to #SaveDACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive order that many worry Trump will rescind.
Last week, Trump nominated Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general, raising grave concerns for civil rights, given Sessions’ record of opposing voting rights and civil rights for people of color, opposing the extension of federal hate crime protections to cover LGBTQ+ people, and aggressively opposing immigration reform. Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship in the 1980s, but was rejected after testimony on his racist views. "Mr. Sessions is a throwback to a shameful era which I know both black and white Americans thought was in our past," the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) said on the first day of Sessions' 1986 confirmation hearings. "It is inconceivable to me that a person of this attitude is qualified to be a US attorney, let alone a US federal judge.''
Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Center for Reproductive Rights filed lawsuits against abortion restrictions in North Carolina (law banning abortions after 20th week of pregnancy with narrow exception for medical emergencies), Missouri (law requiring abortion clinics to meet standards for surgical centers and doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals), and Alaska (law banning abortion in outpatient health centers after the first trimester).
Dakota Access Pipeline water protectors – now representing 300 tribes -- pledged to stay at their camp and continue protesting, despite federal and state efforts evacuation orders. In the past two weeks, protesters have been attacked with concussion grenades, tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets, and winter weather has set in. The Standing Rock Sioux, in a statement on Wednesday, said that because "the Governor of North Dakota and Sheriff of Morton County are relative newcomers" to the land, "it is understandable they would be concerned about severe winter weather." They said the camp has adequate shelter to handle the cold weather, adding that the Great Sioux Nation has survived "in this region for millennia without the concerns of state or county governments." More than 2,000 US military veterans – members of Veterans Stand for Standing Rock -- are converging in North Dakota to form a “human shield” to protect protesters from law enforcement and call attention to the violent conduct of law enforcement toward protesters.
Violence and injury prevention
A new report, “Matter of Life and Death,” finds that violent hate crimes targeting transgender people are “disturbingly common,” with at least 74 murders of transgender people in the last three years. This is almost certainly an underestimate, since violence against transgender people is frequently underreported or misreported.
The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report on hate crimes in the 10 days following the presidential election, finding more than 867 hate crimes targeting Muslims, Jews, immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ people, and/or women.
In the wake up Trump’s win, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre vowed that the gun lobby would work to reverse the “tyrannical erosion of gun rights,” including overturning state policies that restrict gun and ammunition purchases (such as California’s new background check requirement for all ammunition purchases), pushing for a federal law to preempt state-level restrictions on gun-carrying permits, and getting rid of gun-free zones.
A New York Times op-ed argues that Trump’s election condones sexual assault and diminishes fear of punishment from authorities.
Project Know conducted a survey of college students’ alcohol consumption. An estimated 1,825 college students ages 18-24 die from alcohol-related injuries every year, while approximately 696,000 are physically assaulted by another student who has been drinking, and 97,000 students report alcohol-related sexual assault or rape.
The Star Tribune reports that Minneapolis city and law enforcement officials have announced a “Group Violence Intervention” plan to identify potential chronic offenders and offer an ultimatum: “clean up your act or face extra police scrutiny.” Identified individuals will be assigned an advocate and receive supports such as help finding a job. “From a public health approach, we want to make sure that trauma, particular community trauma, is a major part of the work that we’re doing,” said Sasha Cotton, the city’s youth violence prevention coordinator, who is spearheading the effort. “We know that trauma motivates people to behave differently.” Some community members say that officials have not done enough to involve the community in developing the plan and that funds should instead be dedicated to addressing community conditions such as unemployment, drugs and access to weapons.
Mental health
The Center for the Study of Social Policy released a new report on community approaches to addressing toxic stress, with a focus on preventing adverse childhood experiences.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a report on substance abuse (“Facing Addiction in America”) and declared substance abuse a chronic disease and public health emergency. The report found that in 2015, approximately 48 million Americans used or abused illegal or prescription drugs, with 21 million Americans currently suffering from addiction and 300,000 inmates currently incarcerated for convictions related to substance abuse. Key findings include:
- 78 people die every day in the United States from an opioid overdose
- Only one in five people who currently need treatment for opioid use disorders is actually receiving it.
- The economic impact of substance misuse and substance use disorders is $249 billion for alcohol misuse and alcohol use disorders and $193 billion for illicit drug use and drug use disorders a year.
- There’s a “treatment gap’ between substance misuse disorders and other health problems, due in part to “inability to access or afford care, fear of shame and discrimination, and lack of screening for substance misuse and substance use disorders in general health care settings.”
- “Importantly, interventions at the environmental or policy level can also be effective at reducing substance use…Evidence-based prevention interventions can also address a wider range of potential problems beyond just substance misuse…In summary: Prevention works. However, it must be evidence-based, and there is a need for an ongoing investment in resources and infrastructure to ensure that prevention policies and programs can be implemented faithfully, sustainably, and at sufficient scale to reap the rewards of reduced substance misuse and its consequences in communities.”
An editorial in The Guardian highlights increasing levels of psychological distress among young people due in part to “unprecedented levels of social pressure.” The authors, from Tavistock and Portman specialist mental health trust, note, “It is estimated that only 25-35% of young people who need help for mental health difficulties receive it” because the need exceeds available mental health services.
Stigma and distrust of government are among the primary obstacles that prevent Latinos from receiving mental health treatment, the Press-Enterprise reports. An additional barrier is a lack of bicultural and bilingual therapists. The article cites a 2012 study from UC Davis that finds a majority of adults of Mexican origin with mental health problems do not receive needed treatment.
Health systems transformation
On Wednesday night, the House of Representatives passed legislation known as 21st Century Cures Act that would cut $3.5 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Fund. Regardless of the purpose of this or any other bill, Prevention Institute remains opposed to any legislation that repeals, cuts, or diverts current or future allocations of the Prevention Fund.
A new study by the Comonwealth Fund finds that 33% of Americans still report cost-related barriers to accessing needed healthcare services.
Trump nominated Representative Tom Price for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Politico broke down key areas where Price could change health policy. Price could take steps to dismantle the Affordable Care Act more quickly than Congress could do so by, for example, withdrawing from the Obama administration’s appeal of a lower court ruling striking down ACA insurance subsidies. He can also revise essential benefits that ACA plans are currently required to cover, such as birth control. Price could create more waivers for states that want to experiment with Medicaid, including states that want to cut benefits and raise costs for recipients, and alter Medicare programs like Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D. The Department also spends billions every year on research grants, and Price could direct research and attach new conditions to grant awards. Price will also have power to affect policy decisions at the FDA.