PI's Weekly Media Digest: WHO calls on countries to adopt plain packaging of tobacco products; in seven Democratic debates no questions asked about poverty; and more
Welcome to our media digest for the week of June 3, 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.
Community environments
This week, the WHO called on countries adopt plain packaging of tobacco products to push back against industry marketing. "Plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco products," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. "It kills the glamour, which is appropriate for a product that kills people."
Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the California Department of Education, a new study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health explored the potential impacts of the recession on health and weight. They found that children’s BMI closely tracked county-level unemployment. "We think that unemployment — resulting in decreased income — could render fruits and vegetables and other more healthful foods unaffordable," Vanessa Oddo, one of the Johns Hopkins researchers, said. "This would likely lead to increased consumption of cheaper, highly process convenience foods like boxed macaroni and cheese or fast food."
Via BMSG: As part of their 'Share a Coke and a Song' marketing campaign Coca-Cola is featuring the lyrics of Latino musical artists on their bottles and cans -- including those of Enrique Iglesias, Elvis Crespo, and Prince Royce. While the article lauds the campaign as "making a strong statement about inclusion at a time when the Latino community is experiencing prejudice in America," it neglects to consider the prejudicial effects that the soda giant's products have on consumers’ health.
A new report from The Brookings Institution analyzes data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Consumer Expenditure Survey, finding that low-income households now spend a greater share of their budgets to meet basic needs (defined as housing, food, transportation, health care and clothing) than at any point in the last 30 years.
The FDA proposed new sodium reduction targets for processed and prepared foods. CSPI noted, “Most of the salt you consume doesn’t come from your salt shaker: 75 percent of it comes from packaged and restaurant foods. Gradually reducing the sodium in those foods will put [consumers] back in control of your sodium consumption.”
Health Equity
A FAIR analysis of all nine Democratic debates over the past seven months shows that not one question was asked about poverty in comparison to 30 questions about ISIS or terrorism. Yet, Americans are a million times more likely to live in poverty than to have been killed by Islamist terrorists since 9/11.
Harvard public health researcher David Williams elucidates the life expectancy gap, and recounts the startling number of premature deaths that occur due to racial health disparities every year, writing that the amount of deaths is equivalent to "a jumbo jet - with 265 passengers and crew - crashing at Reagan Washington Airport today...every day next week and every day next month."
Ally Boguhn in Rewire analyzes how the pushes for voting restrictions and abortion restrictions use similar tactics, with the result of eroding the rights of women, people of color, and those with low incomes in particular.
A new study reported in Reuters found that middle-class callers trying to schedule appointments with therapists are twice as likely to get one as working-class callers, and that white callers are 10% more likely to have success scheduling than their black counterparts -- pointing to what could be inherent bias on behalf of some psychotherapists.
Community Catalyst discusses the hundreds of discriminatory proposals still pending in state legislatures across the country, many of which explicitly target transgender people. As the Fenway Institute and the Center for American Progress point out in a recent report, stigmatizing and alienating the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender individuals, damages health and fractures any gains made in ensuring equal access to healthcare.
The Guardian reports on rising reports of women taking dangerous steps to terminate their own pregnancies as more states make abortions inaccessible.
California
Mass transit use in Los Angeles County continues to decline, with a 10% drop in ridership between 2006 and 2015. A closer look reveals that ridership declines over the past 30 years have followed fare hikes and service cuts. When the LA Metro system agreed to stop raising fares to 10 years and add more than one million hours of bus service in response to a law suit filed by bus riders, ridership soared, but services declined during the Great Recession (including bus service cuts of 900,000 hours/year).
A review by the Bureau of State Audits focused on four counties – Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange and Santa Clara – and found that female employees’ total pay was between 73% and 88% of what male employees earned.
Undocumented immigrants will be able to buy health coverage on California’s insurance exchange under a bill that passed the state Assembly on Tuesday. The bill moves to the State Senate, which approved identical legislation last year.
Violence Prevention
June 2nd was Gun Violence Awareness Day. The #WearOrange campaign achieved record success: over 150 buildings, bridges, and landmarks around the country, including the Empire State Building in New York City, Caesars Palace and the Las Vegas Welcome sign in Las Vegas, the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, and both the American and Canadian sides of Niagara Falls were lit up in orange; over 167 mayors, 137 national, state and local organizations, and 100 cultural influencers signed on as partners; and community leaders in 47 states have taken the pledge and hosted over 200 events to raise awareness of gun violence in their neighborhoods. This op-ed sheds light the implications of gun violence for children and teens – including the way guns are marketed to young people. The groups MomsRising.org and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence used the day to encourage people to wear orange to honor victims of gun violence. And Vox used data, statistics, social math, and visuals to "show what that violence looks like compared with the rest of the world, why it happens, and why it's such a tough problem to fix."
In other gun violence related news, the LA Times reported on the California State Assembly’s passage of gun control bills on Wednesday, with members invoking the same day’s fatal shooting on the UCLA campus. The bills now head to the state senate. This New York Times op-ed explores a gun control measure passed in 1934 that placed the kinds of limits on gun ownership that the NRA argues endanger the second amendment -- such as requiring registration, and background checks. The author states that the 80-year success of the measure "forcefully undermines" the "N.R.A.'s nonsensical claims that reasonable limits on gun ownership are a serious burden to law-abiding gun owners." In response to rising gun violence and murder rates, San Bernardino is partnering with community groups to test innovative violence prevention tactics. The article describes one such strategy, noting, “The program marshals public and nonprofit resources to identify the small group of young men — disproportionately from communities of color — most at risk of shooting someone or being shot. Civic leaders, including law enforcement agents, then sit down with the high-risk young men and attempt to steer them away from crime.“ Meanwhile, the NRA is now advocating keeping guns in children’s bedrooms for safety. As ThinkProgress notes however: “the U.S. has one of the highest rates of unintentional child gun deaths in the world. At least 265 people were accidentally shot by kids in 2015, and so far in 2016, there have been at least 96 accidental shootings by children. In one week in April, four toddlers accidentally shot and killed themselves, according to a New York Times report.”
Human Rights Watch released a new report on how many veterans have faced discharge and lost benefits like health care after reporting sexual assault. ThinkProgress interviewed a veteran, Liz Luras, about her experience of rape in the military, and her struggles to change her discharge status and continue to receive access to health care. Luras said, “When you enlist for the military, you don’t realize that the system of justice warriors are fighting for doesn’t apply to them.”
Mental Health
STAT reports on a study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior that finds that “racial minorities and working class individuals seeking mental health treatment may face discrimination...Researchers recruited people of a variety of races, classes, and genders to phone in appointment requests with 320 psychotherapists in New York City. Among middle-class people seeking an appointment, 28 percent of white individuals received one. Just 18 percent of black individuals in the same economic group were offered an appointment. Just 8 percent of working-class individuals were given a session. …Only about 50 percent of middle-class individuals received a return call — whether they received an appointment or not — with that rate falling to 34 percent for working-class black individuals.”
ACEs Too High looks at how Home on the Range, an animal therapy ranch for young people in North Dakota, is integrating ACEs-informed care into its work.
The New York Times looks at the challenges of vets returning from multiple tours of duty: "An analysis of Army data shows that, unlike most of the military, these soldiers’ risk of committing suicide actually drops when they are deployed and soars after they return home. For the 85 percent of soldiers who make up rest of the service and were deployed, the reverse is true." Their problems tend to be less related to exposure to trauma and more to unlearning the skills that enabled them to thrive in the military, such as hyper-vigilance.
Health Systems Transformation
According to new research from the California Health Care Foundation, state residents with individual coverage spent 33% less on healthcare in 2014 - which credits the change to the ACA taking effect. All told, the median out-of-pocket spending for families with individual coverage fell by nearly $2,500 between 2013 and 2014. Researchers' believe the ACA's tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies helped lower individuals' spending - and declining spending in California pulled down national averages, too.