Research
lborkowski | November 2, 2015The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has long been a key source of funding for medical research, but it wasn’t until 1986 that the agency formally established a policy of including women in clinical research. For decades, women received drugs and therapies that had been tested only on men, even though the same diseases can affect men and women differently, and women may metabolize drugs differently than men do.
In 1993, the NIH Revitalization Act put into law the requirement for women’s inclusion in NIH-funded clinical research. In 2010, the Institute of Medicine reported, “women’s health…
kkrisberg | October 28, 2015The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released the first nationally representative estimates of electronic cigarette use among U.S. adults, finding that more than 12 percent had ever tried the aerosol nicotine products in 2014. So, as is the unfortunate case with many emerging and potential public health threats, it seems like e-cigarette use is outpacing the ability of regulatory bodies to protect the public’s health and educate consumers about possible risks.
The new data is from CDC’s National Health Interview Survey, which first began collecting data on e-cigarette use…
kkrisberg | October 22, 2015More good news from the Affordable Care Act: Since it became the law of the land, uninsurance disparities between white, black and Hispanic residents have narrowed significantly.
In a study published this month in the journal Health Affairs, researchers found that by the fourth quarter of 2014, the uninsurance rate for Hispanic adults had fallen to 31.8 percent from about 40 percent in the third quarter of 2013. During the same time period, uninsurance among black adults declined from 25.5 percent to 17.2 percent, while uninsurance among white adults fell from 14.8 percent to 10.5 percent.…
kkrisberg | October 21, 2015Flame retardants aren’t just found in your furniture. It’s likely you also have detectable amounts of the chemical in your body too, which is pretty worrisome considering the growing amount of research connecting flame retardants to serious health risks. Researchers have linked to the chemicals to reproductive health problems, adverse neurobehavioral development in kids, and endocrine and thyroid disruption. And so the question arises: Do the risks of today’s flame retardants outweigh the benefits?
Chemical engineer Christopher Ellison, an associate professor in the University of Texas-Austin…
kkrisberg | October 6, 2015Americans with lower incomes and educational attainment often live shorter, sicker lives than their wealthier, more educated counterparts. Contributors to these disparities can include access to care, hazardous living conditions, nutrition in early childhood, and personal behaviors. But what about workplace conditions? Do certain groups of people get sorted into jobs that exacerbate inequalities in life expectancy?
That’s the question a study published in this month’s issue of Health Affairs confronted. The researchers noted that while previous research shows that a “variety of working…
kkrisberg | October 5, 2015Anyone who’s lived in a big, dense city is familiar with the sight of bicycle messengers weaving their way in between metro buses and taxi cabs, down side streets and around packed crosswalks, pedaling at impressive speeds and often with remarkable agility. Surprisingly, however, there’s little data on these workers, even though it seems they’d be particularly susceptible to injuries on the job.
To fill in that knowledge gap, a group of researchers from New York University School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center decided to take a deeper look. Hypothesizing that those commercial…
kkrisberg | September 25, 2015The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers it one of five neglected parasitic infections in need of targeted public health action. And while its transmission is still considered rare in the U.S., it seems residents of Texas may be at greater risk than scientists previously thought.
The disease is American Trypanosomiasis, more commonly known as Chagas disease. Chagas is a vector-borne disease in which the parasite is transmitted to animals and people by blood-sucking insects known as “assassin bugs” or “kissing bugs” (here’s what the bugs look like). However, the parasite isn’t…
kkrisberg | September 24, 2015In the U.S., the gap in life expectancy by income is getting wider. To be even clearer: Life expectancy for people with higher incomes has gone up over time, while life expectancy for people earning lower incomes has actually declined.
In “The Growing Gap in Life Expectancy by Income: Implications for Federal Programs and Policy Responses,” which the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released last week, authors analyzed life expectancy patterns among Americans born in 1930 and compared them with projections among a group of Americans born in 1960. They found that top-…
kkrisberg | September 23, 2015For years, scientists have described climate change as a slowly emerging public health crisis. But for many, it’s difficult to imagine how a complex planetary phenomenon can impact personal well-being beyond the obvious effects of natural disasters, which climatologists say will happen more frequently and intensely as the world warms. That disconnect is what piqued my interest in a new study on old infrastructure, heavy rainfalls and spikes in human illness.
Drinking water quality is among the many adverse effects that climate change is expected to have on human health. But what exactly does…
kkrisberg | September 16, 2015Investigative reporter Mark Collette at the Houston Chronicle interviewed more than a dozen former employees with a combined 213 years of experience on the production lines of Blue Bell’s flagship ice cream plant in Brenham, Texas, finding stories of routine food safety lapses and failures to protect worker safety. The company made headlines over the summer after a national listeria outbreak was traced back to the well-known ice cream manufacturer.
Among the former workers interviewed was Sabien Colvin, who lost parts of three of his fingers after a machine he was cleaning unexpectedly turned…
kkrisberg | September 10, 2015When it comes to protecting workers, advocates often turn to science. Whether it’s research on the effectiveness of an intervention, new injury surveillance data or novel methods for pinpointing particularly vulnerable workers, science is key to advancing workplace safety. In our fourth edition of “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety,” we highlight some of the most interesting and noteworthy research of the past year.
On the topic of occupational asthma, researchers examined state-based trends and if patients talk with their doctors about whether their asthma is related to work…
kkrisberg | September 2, 2015It’s perhaps not surprising that single parents face a higher risk of living in poverty. However, a new study finds that such risk is much higher for single mothers than for single fathers, even when they both have similar jobs and education levels and work the same number of hours.
Recently published in an edition of Gender Issues, the study found that single mothers make significantly less than single fathers. In addition, single mothers seem to be financially penalized for each additional child they have, while income for single fathers remains the same or even increases with each…
kkrisberg | August 28, 2015Sociologist Jennifer Laird was researching unemployment among Mexican immigrants when she came upon some interesting numbers on black workers in the public sector and employment effects of the Great Recession. It piqued her interest and so she decided to keep digging.
She found that while public sector employment had long served as a source of stable employment among black Americans, often enabling mobility into the middle class, downsizing during the Great Recession disproportionately hurt black workers and resulted in greater racial disparities in the public sector. Specifically, Laird, a…
kkrisberg | August 21, 2015With national school nutrition standards up for reauthorization in Congress, a new survey finds that most Americans support healthier school meals.
Earlier this week, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation released the findings of a national survey in which 86 percent of respondents said they support today’s school nutrition standards and 88 percent support government-funded farm-to-school programs that provide schools with fresh, local produce. In 2010, the signing of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act ushered in the first update of school food and drink nutrition standards in 15 years, and as of June…
kkrisberg | August 20, 2015More than 1,000 U.S. workers have died due to job-related events in the first seven months of 2015, according to new data from the U.S. Worker Fatality Database. Researchers estimate that total fatalities will likely reach 4,500 by the end of the year, which would mean that the nation’s occupational death rate experienced little, if no, improvement over previous years.
The database, which launched last year and represents the largest open-access data set of individual workplace fatalities ever collected in the U.S., also breaks down 2015 data by state. So far, Texas leads the pack, followed…
kkrisberg | August 11, 2015One of the big criticisms that opponents of the Affordable Care Act love to trot out is its impact on the economy — one phrase you often hear is “job killer.” In fact, in 2011, Republicans in the House actually introduced legislation officially titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” That bill didn’t make it far. However, a new report finds that “job-killing” isn’t just hyperbole; it’s just plain wrong.
Earlier this month, the Urban Institute released a new report on the ACA and employment, asking “Has the ACA been a job killer?” Authors Bowen Garrett and Robert Kaestner noted…
kkrisberg | July 31, 2015Superstorm Sandy came ashore nearly three years ago, pummeling the New England and Mid-Atlantic coast and becoming one of the deadliest and costliest storms to ever hit the U.S. This week, the Sandy Child and Family Health Study released two new reports finding that the health impacts of Sandy continue to linger, illustrating the deep mental footprint left by catastrophic disasters and the challenges of long-term recovery.
Led by researchers at Rutgers University and New York University, the Sandy Child and Family Health Study is based on 1,000 face-to-face interviews with adults in the nine…
kkrisberg | July 24, 2015Technically, the recession is over. So it may come as a surprise to learn that more U.S. children are living in poverty right now than during the Great Recession. To be more specific: About 1.7 million more children live in low-income working families than just a few years ago.
The new and troubling numbers come from the 2015 Kids Count Data Book, which was released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation earlier this week. The book measures four domains of child well-being in the post-recession years: economic well-being, education, health, and family and community. It also ranks states by overall…
kkrisberg | July 21, 2015Because there can never be enough research to illustrate the positive impact of public health policy on people’s health, here’s another one. This one found that comprehensive smoke-free indoor air laws resulted in a lower risk of asthma symptoms and fewer asthma-related doctor’s visits.
Based on 2007–2011 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, researchers set out to evaluate whether comprehensive statewide indoor smoking bans are effective in reducing secondhand smoke exposure among nonsmoking U.S. adults. (Comprehensive smoking bans are defined as eliminating smoking in…
kkrisberg | July 17, 2015Every day in the U.S., more than 40 people die after overdosing on prescription painkillers. Deaths from a more notorious form of opiates — heroin — increased five-fold between 2001 and 2013. Addressing this problem — one that’s often described as a public health crisis — requires action on many fronts, from preventing abuse in the first place to getting those addicted into treatment. But when it comes to overdoses, there’s one answer we know works: naloxone.
Naloxone is a safe prescription medicine that’s highly effective in reversing an otherwise deadly opioid overdose. Typically, emergency…