Prevention
lborkowski | April 5, 2013by Kim Krisberg
If you serve it, they will eat it. That's one of the many lessons gleaned from a new report on the national Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.
In the first really rigorous study of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), researchers found that fruit and veggie consumption was higher among students in FFVP schools. In fact, such students ate about one-third of a cup more of fruits and veggies than students in comparable schools that were not taking part in FFVP. Designed to improve kids' diets, FFVP reimburses elementary schools…
lborkowski | March 18, 2013by Kim Krisberg
When it comes to public health law, it seems the least coercive path may also be the one of least resistance.
In a new study published this month in Health Affairs, researchers found that the public does, indeed, support legal interventions aimed at curbing noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. However, they're more likely to support interventions that create the conditions that help people make the healthy choice on their own. They're less likely to back laws and regulations perceived as infringing on individual liberties. It's a delicate…
lborkowski | March 8, 2013by Kim Krisberg
In a little less than a month, public health workers and their community partners in Macomb County, Mich., will set up at the local Babies"R"Us store to offer parents a free child car seat check. The Macomb County Health Department has been organizing such car seat checks for years now, knowing that proper child vehicle restraints can truly mean the difference between mild and severe injuries, or between survival and death.
The car seat check is taking place April 4 in observance of the fourth day of this year's National Public Health Week (NPHW) celebration, which officially…
lborkowski | March 1, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Texas construction workers who've lost their lives on unsafe worksites may be gone, but they certainly haven't been forgotten. Earlier this week, hundreds of Texas workers and their supporters took to the streets to demand legislators do more to stop preventable injury and death on the job. They took their demands and the stories of fallen workers all the way the halls of the state capitol.
Just two days ago, workers from every corner of the Lone Star state made their way to Austin to take part in the Day of the Fallen, a day of action to memorialize construction workers…
lborkowski | February 22, 2013by Kim Krisberg
For many migrant farmworkers, the health risks don't stop at the end of the workday. After long, arduous hours in the field, where workers face risks ranging from tractor accidents and musculoskeletal injuries to pesticide exposure and heat stroke, many will return to a home that also poses dangers to their well-being. And quite ironically for a group of workers that harvests our nation's food, one of those housing risks is poor cooking and eating facilities.
A group of researchers and advocates recently decided to take a closer look at such facilities among migrant farmworker…
esiegel | February 10, 2013"To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill." -Aristotle
"I think suicide is sort of like cancer was 50 years ago. People don't want to talk about it, they don't want to know about it. People are frightened of it, and they don't understand, when actually these issues are medically treatable." -Judy Collins
The fall of 2007 wasn't so long ago; maybe you can remember where you were clearly for yourself. For me, I had recently finished graduate school, had even more recently met…
lborkowski | February 8, 2013by Kim Krisberg
A couple years ago, two Johns Hopkins University public health researchers attended a public hearing about the possible expansion of an industrial food animal production facility. During the hearing, a community member stood up to say that if the expansion posed any hazards, the health department would surely be there to protect the people and alert them to any dangers. The two researchers knew that due to limited authority and resources, that probably wasn't the case.
"We felt like there was this false sense of comfort among the public," said Roni Neff, one of the two…
lborkowski | February 1, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Texas may boast a booming construction sector, but a deeper look reveals an industry fraught with wage theft, payroll fraud, frighteningly lax safety standards, and preventable injury and death. In reality, worker advocates say such conditions are far from the exception — instead, they've become the norm.
Such conditions were chronicled in a new in-depth report released earlier this week. Researchers, who surveyed nearly 1,200 construction workers in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Austin and El Paso, found that one in five construction workers experienced a workplace injury…
lborkowski | January 25, 2013by Kim Krisberg
When it comes to good health, America is far from top dog.
Yes, we may spend the most, we may have some of the most advanced medical technologies and we may produce some of the best doctors. But when it comes to the ultimate measure of a health care system's success — the health of people and populations — it seems we are losing a winnable battle.
"There's hardly anything more consequential than Americans dying earlier and being sicker," Dr. Steven Woolf, chair of the Institute of Medicine's and National Research Council's Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health…
lborkowski | January 18, 2013by Kim Krisberg
"To know you participated in building something in your city — it's just an experience, you know?"
Those are words from Austin, Texas, native Christopher McDavid, 22, a graduate of the city's newly established Construction Career Center. During his time at the center, McDavid got certified in flagger safety (flaggers direct the safe passage of traffic through construction areas), first aid and CPR, and basic concrete work and received his OSHA 10 certification, which he said "has opened my eyes to actually see the things that can be harmful to me."
Now, McDavid is looking for…
lborkowski | January 11, 2013by Kim Krisberg
Amidst discussions of new gun control measures, a study finds that adding new settings where people can bring concealed weapons could increase the risk of some crimes.
The study authors note that while that risk is pretty small, it's still a risk and one that policymakers should take into consideration. Published in the January issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the study examined 2001–2009 data from the Texas Department of Public Safety on criminal convictions associated with holders and nonholders of concealed handgun licenses (CHL). It found that concealed…
lborkowski | January 7, 2013by Kim Krisberg
It's often noted that immigrants to the United States experience a decline in health after adopting American lifestyle habits. However, a recent study has found that new immigrants might not be arriving in such good health after all.
Published in the December issue of Health Affairs, researchers put this hypothesis to the test: Are immigrants truly in better physical health than native-born Americans and does that reported health advantage erode after living in the U.S. or is it a product of undetected disease that's discovered after immigration? It's not only an interesting…
lborkowski | December 7, 2012by Kim Krisberg
The collective experience of domestic workers — house cleaners, nannies and caregivers — often remains hidden from view. For all practical purposes, they work in regulation-free environments without the benefits of labor, wage and health protections or oversight. There are no HR departments in people's homes.
But a new survey released in November has pulled back the curtain on the conditions and experiences domestic workers face, documenting issues such as wage exploitation, preventable on-the-job injuries and the little — if any — power domestic workers have in improving…
lborkowski | December 5, 2012This is a bonus addition to a series exploring the intersections between effectively caring for people living with chronic pain and the rise in unintentional poisoning deaths due to prescription painkillers. To read the three-part series, which explores the science of pain management as well as physicians' and public health workers' roles in preventing opioid abuse and overdose, click here, here and here.
by Kim Krisberg
"If you really look at how pain affects people and what it means to have pain...you start to view it more as a social phenomenon."
These are words from Dr. Daniel Carr, a…
lborkowski | November 30, 2012This is the last in a series exploring the intersections between effectively caring for people living with chronic pain and the rise in unintentional poisoning deaths due to prescription painkillers. This week's story looks at the role of public health in curbing the opioid abuse and overdose problem. Read the previous stories in the series here and here. (We'll be publishing a bonus addition to the series next week — a discussion with Dr. Daniel Carr, director of the Pain Research, Education and Policy Program at Tufts University.)
by Kim Krisberg
A decade ago, only about 10 percent of the…
lborkowski | November 26, 2012by Kim Krisberg
It's often said that hard work never hurt anybody. It's a cliché with which occupational health folks and thousands of injured workers would undoubtedly disagree. And while tragic and often preventable physical injuries may be the easiest to see and document, other work-related health risks are much harder to pick up on. One such risk is depression.
Exploring reliable links between work and depression, which is a significant health and economic burden for individuals as well as society, is somewhat murky, as such research is often based on self-reporting methods that can leave…
cmonforton | November 2, 2012I was eight years old on the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. "Give a hoot, don't pollute!" was the slogan for us kids. When we'd see a newscast with factory stacks spewing thick gray smoke we'd say "yuck." We'd hold our noses when tailpipes of junker cars belched exhaust. In our minds, air pollution was a bad thing because of what we could see and smell. We sure didn't think about it as something that was cutting short people's lives.
One of the first prospective U.S. studies to demonstrate an association between air pollutants and premature mortality was published in the New England…
lborkowski | October 26, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Earlier this year, federal officials put their foot down: New Hampshire could no longer use federal preparedness money to supports its poison control efforts. The directive sent state lawmakers scrambling to find extra funds so New Hampshire residents would still have access to the life-saving service. Without new money, New Hampshire callers to the Northern New England Poison Center would get a recording telling them to call 911 or go to the emergency room.
Fortunately, New Hampshire officials found enough funds to keep the service up and running for state residents this year…
lborkowski | September 7, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Another study, another support beam in the argument that access to insurance coverage matters — a lot.
In a study published this month in the journal Health Affairs, researchers took a look at rates of amenable mortality deaths — in other words, deaths that shouldn't happen in the presence of timely and effective care — between the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Their conclusion? The U.S. — home to the world's highest rate of health care spending — is lagging behind.
Between 1999 and 2007, amenable mortality rates among men fell by 18.5 percent in the U…
oracknows | September 5, 2012Long, long ago, seemingly in a galaxy far, far away, I first encountered quackery on the Internet. Because I am a cancer surgeon, naturally I gravitated towards cancer quackery at first. Believe it or not, it was quite some time after that before I started to take an interest in what has become a major focus of this blog, the antivaccine movement and the misinformation it spreads. Both are equally damaging in their own way. True, these were back in the deep, dark days when I used to cruise various Usenet newsgroups, ranging from alt.revisionism (Holocaust denial), sci.skeptic (of course!),…