Public Health - General
egrossman | February 25, 2014On January 9, 2014 a leak was reported at Freedom Industries’ storage tanks on the banks of the Elk River just upstream of a water treatment plant that services tap water for about 300,000 residents in and around Charleston, West Virginia. The resulting release of at least 10,000 gallons of toxic chemicals used to clean coal contaminated the community’s water supply, making it unfit for use. More than a month later, it remains unclear if this water is truly safe to drink and what the health consequences of exposure to these chemicals may be.
But this is far from the only disastrous toxic…
kkrisberg | February 21, 2014Last weekend, construction worker Jose Perez stood up and spoke about life as a construction worker in one of then nation’s most prosperous cities. In front of him were hundreds of supporters who had gathered in downtown Austin, Texas, to call on a local developer to treat its workers better. Looming behind him was the new Gables Park Tower, an unfinished luxury apartment complex where construction workers have reported dangerous working conditions and frequent wage violations.
Austin’s Workers Defense Project, a worker-led nonprofit that helps low-income workers fight for better working…
lborkowski | February 19, 2014By Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA
Every day we see and hear another grim and gruesome story from Bangui, but perhaps that is because we are working in Paris this winter, and there are French soldiers who been into the old colonial domain. Yesterday The New York Times captured the horror on its Editorial Page, under the title “As Genocide Looms”: “The Central African Republic is on the verge of being torn apart by the rampages of Christian and Muslim militias and civilian mobs… In Bangui, the Muslim population has largely fled. Christian militias have taken advantage of the chaos to engage in…
lborkowski | February 18, 2014by Kim Gilhuly
The quality of public housing is a key determinant of health among low-income populations. Substandard housing – where mold, pest infestations, fire hazards, or other health risks are present – is associated with a wide range of health problems, including respiratory infections, asthma, lead poisoning and mental health issues. Nor is illness the only concern: Each year millions of Americans are injured, and tens of thousands killed, by accidents in and around their homes that may be linked to housing conditions. Access to safe and affordable housing is not just an economic…
kkrisberg | February 14, 2014Most people infected with mosquito-borne West Nile virus don’t experience any symptoms at all. However, the tiny percentage of cases that do end up in the hospital total hundreds of millions of dollars in medical costs and lost productivity.
Published earlier this week in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, researchers estimated that the cumulative cost of reported hospitalized cases of West Nile virus between 1999 and 2012 totaled $778 million. The study is the first to examine the economic burden of West Nile on infected patients who were hospitalized with conditions such…
kkrisberg | February 7, 2014Higher insurance rates don’t mean people stop seeking care at publically funded health centers, found a recent study of family planning clinics in Massachusetts. The findings speak to serious concerns within public health circles that policy-makers may point to higher insurance rates as a justification to cut critical public health funding.
Published in the Jan. 24 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the study examines trends among uninsured patients seeking care at Massachusetts health centers that receive Title X Family Planning Program funds. (The federal Title X program…
kkrisberg | January 31, 2014In a first-of-its-kind study, a researcher has estimated that the health-related economic savings of removing bisphenol A from our food supply is a whopping $1.74 billion annually. And that’s a conservative estimate.
“This study is a case in point of the economic burden borne by society due to the failure to regulate environmental chemicals in a proactive way,” study author Leonardo Trasande told me.
With evidence mounting that bisphenol A (BPA) exposure is a serious health risk, Trasande, an associate professor in pediatrics, environmental medicine and health policy at New York University,…
egrossman | January 31, 2014“Millions of Americans use antibacterial hand soap and body wash products. Although consumers generally view these products as effective tools to help prevent the spread of germs, there is currently no evidence that they are any more effective at preventing illness than washing with plain soap and water,” wrote the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in issuing a proposed rule last month. “Further, some data suggest that long-term exposure to certain active ingredients used in antibacterial products—for example, triclosan (liquid soaps) and triclocarban (bar soaps)—could pose health risks,…
lborkowski | January 27, 2014I wrote last week about the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which the Affordable Care Act (ACA) created to invest in improving overall population health – with the hope that improved health will help slow the growth of healthcare costs. Another provision of the ACA that aims to reduce future healthcare costs is “Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Programs” (Section 2951). Three studies published in the latest supplemental issue of the American Journal of Public Health address this type of program.
Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) programs send…
kkrisberg | January 24, 2014The day I spoke with Idaho minimum wage activist Anne Nesse, it was quite cold in her hometown of Coeur d'Alene — 29 degrees, to be exact. The harsh winters came up more than once during our conversation about low wages in the northwestern state.
“We’re at the bottom,” Nesse said. “We have the lowest wages in the whole nation and we’re cold up here.”
Staying warm should hardly be a luxury in a state notorious for its cold winters, but keeping up with basic necessities can be a challenge for Idaho’s working families. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Idaho leads the nation in the…
kkrisberg | January 17, 2014“There’s a lot we don’t know about preterm birth and we know even less about the disparities in those births.”
Those are words from Ondine von Ehrenstein, an assistant professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, who recently examined the links between occupational exposures and preterm birth rates among Hispanic women. Perhaps not surprisingly to those in the public health world, von Ehrenstein and her research colleagues did find that Hispanic women are at particular risk for preterm birth associated with certain occupational…
lborkowski | January 15, 2014A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Ken Ward Jr. in the Charleston (WV) Gazette: Why wasn't there a plan? Key players knew of potential for Elk River spill and State ignored plan for tougher chemical oversight (also check out opinions on the West Virginia chemical release from Deborah Blum at Elemental and Tom O'Connor at National COSH)
Jia Tolentino interviews MacArthur "Genius" Grant-winning statistician Susan Murphy at The Hairpin. ("Susan Murphy is a statistician developing new methodologies to evaluate treatments for chronic and relapsing disorders like depression and substance abuse…
kkrisberg | January 14, 2014It’s probably my earliest public health memory — the image of Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and his grandfatherly beard on the television warning my elementary school self about the dangers of smoking. He was the first doctor I knew by name.
But while Koop may be the surgeon general that people of my generation most likely associate with the public health movement to reduce smoking, he wasn’t the first to speak out against tobacco. Koop was carrying on a legacy that began decades before with the nation’s ninth surgeon general, Luther Terry, who on Jan. 11, 1964, released the first surgeon…
kkrisberg | January 8, 2014With so much pressure on the Affordable Care Act to immediately live up to high expectations, and with opponents who seem gleeful at the news that Americans are having a hard time signing up for affordable health care, it’s reassuring to read that the health reform law can readily take a few blows and keep moving forward.
In a December analysis released by the Urban Institute, authors Linda Blumberg and John Holahan write that the “Affordable Care Act is unlikely to suffer long-term damage even if the marketplaces experience low enrollment and some adverse selection in the first year.” (…
lborkowski | January 8, 2014By Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA
I am always just a little skeptical about public health education. Do students learn to apply the principles they learn? Recently, I was able to answer in the affirmative, at least about a single occurrence.
When I walked into the restroom of a Cambridge restaurant, one of the two urinals was occupied by a man in a white cook's uniform. Familiar with the observational studies that suggest that restaurant staff often ignore hand washing, I waited to see what he would do before returning to the kitchen. I was ready to say something were his hand washing cursory…
lborkowski | December 30, 2013While we’re on vacation, we’re re-posting content from earlier in the year. This post was originally published on March 12, 2013.
By Liz Borkowski
On March 12, 2003, the World Health Organization issued a global health alert for an atypical pneumonia that was soon dubbed SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. The coronavirus had a high fatality rate; it emerged in China's Guangdong province and within a month affected 8,000 patients, killing 774 of them in 26 countries. Toronto was one of the cities hit hard by the disease, and ace health reporter Helen Branswell of the Canadian Press has…
lborkowski | December 26, 2013While we’re on vacation, we’re re-posting content from earlier in the year. This post was originally published on March 8, 2013.
by 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…
kkrisberg | December 20, 2013People who hold down more than one job not only experience an increased risk of injury at work, but while they’re not at work as well, according to a new study.
Published in the January issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the study found that multiple job holders had a “significantly” higher injury rate per 100 workers for work- and nonwork-related injuries when compared to single job holders. The study, which was based on 1997-2011 data from the National Health Interview Survey, examined nearly 7,500 injury episodes reported during the 15-year study period, of which 802 were…
kkrisberg | December 13, 2013On average, eating healthy costs about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy diets, a new study finds. The extra cost seems insignificant at first — a small cup of coffee often costs more — but it all adds up to be a considerable barrier for many low-income families.
Researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health set out to find the evidence behind the conventional wisdom that healthier foods cost more, conducting the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date of price differences between healthy and unhealthy foods. In examining data from 10 high-income nations, researchers found…
lborkowski | December 11, 2013A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Andrea Elliott in the New York Times: Invisible Child: Dasani's Homeless Life
Matthieu Aikins in Wired: The Surge: "In 1988 there were 350,000 cases of polio worldwide. Last year there were 223. But getting all the way to zero will mean spending billions of dollars, penetrating the most remote regions of the globe, and facing down Taliban militants to get to the last unprotected children on Earth."
Maryn McKenna at Superbug: MRSA in UK Turkeys Raises Questions of Communication, Transparency and Risk
Elizabeth Weise in USA Today: Diseases on the move…