Poverty News and Research

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Longer looks: Lithium in the water; controlling cancer; recovering from brain injury

There are many kinds of cancer, but treatments have typically combatted them in one way only: by attempting to destroy the cancerous cells. Surgery aims to remove the entire growth from the body; chemotherapy drugs are toxic to the cancer cells; radiation generates toxic molecules that break up the cancer cells' DNA and proteins, causing their demise.

19 Sep 2014

Health law's ripple effects on hospitals, schools, uninsured

The Kansas City Star reports that some uninsured patients fall through the cracks as hospitals cut back on charity care to persuade people to sign up for coverage. Some schools, meanwhile, are turning to private substitutes to avoid having to pay for their health coverage next year. In Colorado, Denver Health is back in the black, partly due to a dramatic decrease in uninsured patients.

19 Sep 2014

Census shows health insurance coverage winners, losers

Among the 25 biggest cities, uninsured rates last year ranged from almost 25 percent in Miami and 23 percent in Houston to just more than 4 percent in Boston and 7.5 percent in Pittsburgh, according to Census data.

19 Sep 2014

States' efforts to customize their Medicaid expansion efforts could complicate reform

Some conservative states have won concessions from the administration in exchange for moving forward on expansion, and other states are carefully weighing those choices.

18 Sep 2014

High impact health interventions reduce maternal and child mortality in poor countries

New studies have uncovered the specific interventions and advances that have led to the success with these at-risk populations in the poorest countries.

17 Sep 2014

Young girls in poor households more likely than their male counterparts to become obese in midlife

Adolescent girls living in economically disadvantaged families are more likely than their male counterparts to become overweight or obese, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin.

17 Sep 2014

Socioeconomic inequalities influence overall outcomes for children with asthma

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 6 percent of children younger than five have been diagnosed with asthma, the fastest-growing and most common chronic illness affecting children in the United States.

17 Sep 2014

Viewpoints: Crediting the health law for modest premium increases; Hollywood misses the mark on sick teens

The rate of growth on premiums for employer-based health coverage in the first five months of this year was one of the lowest in 16 years. Despite longstanding concerns that employer-sponsored coverage might become too costly to sustain, that market seems to have stabilized for now .... Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, federal tax credit subsidies - available for people earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($95,400 for a family of four) - are helping to make these policies affordable and cushioning the impact of premium increases in some cities (9/14).

16 Sep 2014

Research roundup: Prevention services for seniors; drug shortages

This policy brief reports the findings of a systematic review conducted by the Community Health Innovations in Prevention for Seniors (CHIPS) project. ... Clinical preventive services such as colorectal cancer screening and pneumococcal immunization can help reduce rates of premature death and disability. Yet, many older adults are not receiving the full set of clinical preventive services that have been proven effective and are considered "high value" in terms of their costs per life saved. Rates are particularly low among racial and ethnic minority older adults compared to national goals.

15 Sep 2014

Some Calif. consumers who bought exchange plans are being dropped or transferred to Medicaid

The shifts, which often happen without warning, come as the state works to verify incomes and make sure consumers are in appropriate health plans, the Associated Press reports.

11 Sep 2014

Gates Foundation pledges $50 million to support emergency efforts to control Ebola epidemic

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that it will commit $50 million to support the scale up of emergency efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and interrupt transmission of the virus.

10 Sep 2014

Most prevalent form of discrimination is due to mental illness and homelessness

Vulnerable populations in ethnically diverse Toronto reported more discrimination by health care workers based on their housing status, mental health or substance abuse issues than race, a new study has found.

9 Sep 2014

New Series highlights that child deaths in England are still potentially preventable

Child deaths have fallen to very low rates in all industrialised countries, but many deaths in children and adolescents are still potentially preventable, and much more could be done to cut future deaths, according to a new three-part Series on child deaths in high-income countries, published in The Lancet.

8 Sep 2014

Financial hardships identified as potential predictors of health risk behaviors

Financial hardship, or feeling that one can't make ends meet, may be more predictive of health risk behaviors than actual income levels for people with low-incomes, finds a recent study in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

5 Sep 2014

3 billion people worldwide at risk of early death due to household air pollution

Household air pollution, caused by the use of plant-based or coal fuel for cooking, heating, and lighting, is putting nearly three billion people worldwide at risk of ill health and early death, according to a new Commission, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal.

4 Sep 2014

Study: Sexual risk behaviors of young Hispanic people vary with degree of acculturation

A new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health finds that the sexual risk behaviors of young Hispanic people living in the U.S. vary considerably with their degree of acculturation (as defined by where they were born and the language they speak).

3 Sep 2014

Pennsylvania's Corbett becomes 9th GOP governor to expand Medicaid

Gov. Tom Corbett reached a deal with the Obama administration to use federal funds to put about 500,000 low-income residents into managed care plans already used by the state. There were conflicting reports about the details of the federal waiver, but Corbett's original plan to include work incentives was not approved.

30 Aug 2014

First Edition: August 29, 2014

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about the Obama administration and Pennsylvania reaching an agreement to expand Medicaid in that state.

29 Aug 2014

High uptake of US infant vaccination in 2013

The recently published National Immunization Survey (NIS) conducted by the CDC, shows that the majority of infants in the US were vaccinated against potentially serious diseases in 2013. Fewer than 1% of children were unvaccinated in 2013.

29 Aug 2014

International consortium to accelerate collaborative multi-site trials of potential Ebola vaccine

A candidate Ebola vaccine could be given to healthy volunteers in the UK, The Gambia and Mali as early as September, as part of an series of safety trials of potential vaccines aimed at preventing the disease that has killed more than 1,400 people in the current outbreak in West Africa.

29 Aug 2014

Poverty News and Research

Longer looks: Lithium in the water; controlling cancer; recovering from brain injury

Health law's ripple effects on hospitals, schools, uninsured

Census shows health insurance coverage winners, losers

States' efforts to customize their Medicaid expansion efforts could complicate reform

High impact health interventions reduce maternal and child mortality in poor countries

Young girls in poor households more likely than their male counterparts to become obese in midlife

Socioeconomic inequalities influence overall outcomes for children with asthma

Viewpoints: Crediting the health law for modest premium increases; Hollywood misses the mark on sick teens

Research roundup: Prevention services for seniors; drug shortages

Some Calif. consumers who bought exchange plans are being dropped or transferred to Medicaid

Gates Foundation pledges $50 million to support emergency efforts to control Ebola epidemic

Most prevalent form of discrimination is due to mental illness and homelessness

New Series highlights that child deaths in England are still potentially preventable

Financial hardships identified as potential predictors of health risk behaviors

3 billion people worldwide at risk of early death due to household air pollution

Study: Sexual risk behaviors of young Hispanic people vary with degree of acculturation

Pennsylvania's Corbett becomes 9th GOP governor to expand Medicaid

First Edition: August 29, 2014

High uptake of US infant vaccination in 2013

International consortium to accelerate collaborative multi-site trials of potential Ebola vaccine

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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