Chocolate contains lead?

Posted on February 27, 2013 by

Find out if that’s a problem by watching the new video, “Chocolate, Lead, and the Measurement Conundrum” from our friends at Risk Bites.

RiskBites_Chocolate

As always, watch, learn, and join the conversation here or on Linked In.

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Washtenaw County Health Improvement Plan – New resources

Posted on February 27, 2013 by

WashCty_HIPTwo new resources have been added to the HIP website.

The final copy of the HIP Year 2020 Health Objectives Progress Report is now available. It includes all 52 of the HIP objectives and the progress on each through 2010.

Did you know that nearly 1 in 3 low-income preschoolers in Washtenaw will be overweight by their 5th birthday? Learn about the trends in overweight and obesity, CDC prevention recommendations, and local best practice examples in their newly published brief.

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Affordable Care Act – Final rules for essential benefits and market reform

Posted on February 26, 2013 by

From the Health Affairs blog:

Implementing Health Reform: The Final Market Reform Rule

The time is quickly approaching when health insurers must file the rates and forms they will need to put in place for 2014. The Department of Health and Human Services is rapidly releasing the final rules that insurers will need to determine the coverage and price of those plans, and that the states and exchanges will need to approve or disapprove them. On February 22, 2013, HHS released the final market reform regulations, which establish the ground rules under which insurers will market their products in the reformed health insurance market. (The fact sheet is here.)

Whereas health insurance underwriting in the individual and small group market is currently based heavily on health status and gender, health insurers in the reformed market will only be able to consider age, tobacco use, geographic area, and family unit size in setting premiums. Insurers will also have to guarantee the availability and renewability of coverage. Proposed rules implementing these reforms were published on November 26, 2012 and were covered by this blog. This post discusses the final version of these rules.

On February 22, 2014, the Department of Labor also issued interim final regulations on procedures for addressing complaints by employees that they have suffered retaliation from their employers because they reported violations of the ACA’s consumer protections, or because they have received advance premium tax credits. (See the press release here.)

Implementing Health Reform: The Essential Health Benefits Final Rule

The Department of Health and Human Services issued on February 20, 2013 a final regulation covering the essential health benefits, actuarial value, and accreditation requirements of the Affordable Care Act. (See a fact sheet on the rule here.)

The ACA requires non-grandfathered health plans in the individual and small group market to cover ten categories of essential health benefits (EHBs). The EHB requirement is intended both to ensure that consumers in these markets have adequate coverage and to improve competition among health plans by standardizing coverage choices. Most of the EHBs are services already covered by most health plans, such as hospitalization or pharmaceuticals, but some, such as habilitative services or pediatric oral and dental care, are not commonly covered and thus represent a coverage expansion. The EHB requirement will also improve mental health coverage in the individual and small group market, as noted in a separate issue brief released with the final rule.

The proposed regulation now finalized was published on November 26, 2012, and was discussed in an earlier post.

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CDC Twitter chat on global health threats – February 28

Posted on February 26, 2013 by

CDCsomedia_logoJoin CDC Director Dr. Frieden for a live Twitter chat about CDC’s 24/7 work around the globe to protect people from health threats.

CDC works to help build capacity and strengthen a country’s ability to improve global health security. A memorable example of global health security in action is CDC’s work with the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population and our partners to rebuild and strengthen the country’s public health systems following the devastating January 2010 earthquake. Almost 300 CDCscientists and other staff have deployed to Haiti to assist with disease and injury surveillance, strengthen Haiti’s laboratory capacity, develop and implement clinical and community health training, and respond to the cholera outbreak in Haiti.

Dr. Frieden will be joined by an expert from CDC’s Center for Global Health to discuss the public health achievements in Haiti over the past three years, and answer your questions about how CDC’s work around the world protects the American people from health threats, wherever they arise.

Join the conversation:

Follow Dr. Frieden on Twitter@DrFriedenCDC and use the hashtag #CDCchat to participate, 1-2:00pm EDT.

 

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Counting the sick and dead: Surveillance and society in contemporary Europe

Posted on February 22, 2013 by

From the Center for European Studies:

Modern states use surveillance to watch the bodies of citizens, monitoring them for illness, infection, and threats to public health. Public health surveillance is, however, a poorly understood service and its importance, intrusiveness, and rate of technological change are rarely matched by administrative resources or academic understanding. We know remarkably little about how surveillance works and how it should work.

This event will feature a lecture by Peter Donnelly, professor of public health medicine at St. Andrews University, followed by a round table discussion of the many unknowns in this important area. Who is responsible for public health surveillance in different European countries? What diseases concern them? How do they find and monitor diseases—that is, how deeply into their citizens’ lives can they look, and, above all, why do they do it that way? What configurations of technical expertise, politics, history, and culture shape the different ways European states track their peoples’ health?

Convener: Scott Greer, associate professor of health management and policy, U-M.
Speaker: Peter D. Donnelly, professor of public health medicine, University of St. Andrews.
Discussants: Rachel Kahn Best, Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research and assistant professor of sociology, U-M; Daniel M. Fox, president emeritus, Milbank Memorial Fund; Peter Jacobson, professor of health law and policy, U-M.

  • Date:  26 March
  • Time:  4:00pm
  • Location:  1636 International Institute

Co-sponsored by International Institute, School of Public Health, Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia.

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Minority health program brief

Posted on February 21, 2013 by

The Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) has released a new program brief that summarizes recent findings (2008-2012) from published articles and other reports sponsored by AHRQ that focus on minority health and disparities reduction focusing on cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic diseases, and more.

The overall health of the American population has improved over the past few decades, but not all Americans have benefitted equally from these improvements. Minority populations, in particular, continue to lag behind whites in a number of areas, including quality of care, access to care, timeliness, and outcomes. Other health care problems that disproportionately affect minorities include provider biases, poor provider-patient communication, and health literacy issues.

Improvements in preventive services, care for chronic conditions, and access to care have led to a reduction and in some cases elimination of disparities in access to and receipt of care for some minority populations in areas such as receipt of mammography, timing of antibiotics, counseling for smoking cessation, and pediatric vision care. On the other hand, disparities in care continue to be a problem for some conditions and populations. For example, blacks, Asians, American Indians/Alaska Natives, and Hispanics continue to lag behind whites in the percentage of the population over 50 who receive colon cancer screening, and this gap has widened in recent years. Disparities also have increased for blacks and Hispanics, compared with whites, in the percentage of adults diagnosed with a major depressive disorder who received treatment for their depression in the 12 months following diagnosis.

Find the complete program brief here.

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PainTrek – A new app from the UM

Posted on February 21, 2013 by

PainTrekEver have a headache or facial pain that seemingly comes and goes without warning? Ever been diagnosed with migraines, TMD or facial neuralgias but feel that your ability to explain your pain is limited?

PainTrek is a novel app that was developed to make it easier to track, analyze, and talk about pain. Using an innovative “paint your pain” interface, users can easily enter the intensity and area of pain by simply dragging over a 3D head model. Pain information can be entered as often as desired, can be viewed over time, and even analyzed to provide deeper understanding of your pain.

The PainTrek application measures pain area and progression using a unique and accurate anatomical 3D system. The head 3D model is based on a square grid system with vertical and horizontal coordinates using anatomical landmarks. Each quadrangle frames well-detailed craniofacial areas for real-time indication of precise pain location and intensity in a quantifiable method. This is combined with essential sensory and biopsychosocial questionnaires related to previous and ongoing treatments, and their rate of success/failure, integrating and displaying such information in an intuitive way.

For more information and to download the free app, click here.

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Diet and health: A progess report

Posted on February 21, 2013 by

Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., from Harvard University, will present the 37th Annual Thomas Francis, Jr. Memorial Lecture, “Diet and Health:  A Progress Report”.

For much of the last 25 years the focus of nutritional advice has been to reduce total fat intake and consume large amounts of carbohydrate.  However, this advice was inconsistent with many lines of evidence indicating that unsaturated fats have beneficial metabolic effects and reduce risk of coronary heart disease.  More recent evidence has also shown that the large majority of carbohydrates in current industrial diets, consisting of refined starches and sugar, have adverse metabolic effects and increase risks of obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.  Also, red meat consumption is associated with increased risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, some cancers, and total mortality, and replacement of red meat with nuts and legumes is strongly associated with lower risk of these outcomes.  Thus, in an optimal diet, most calories would come from a balance of whole grains and plant oils, and proteins would be provided by a mix of nuts, beans, fish, eggs, and poultry. Higher intake of fruits and vegetables (not including potatoes) is associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease, although the benefits for cancer prevention appear to be less than anticipated. A shift from the current US diet to a more optimal way of eating would have a profoundly beneficial effect on health and wellbeing of Americans.

  • Date:  26 February
  • Time:  3:00pm
  • Location:  Rm 1755 SPH 1 (please note room change)
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World Day of Social Justice - February 20

Posted on February 21, 2013 by

Reblogged from THL News Blog:

Tune in for this special guest post by SPH student Alyssa Mouton, who spends some of her time working with our Global Health Coordinator at the Taubman Health Sciences Library:

What comes immediately to mind when you hear the phrase “social justice”? Is it land rights for indigenous peoples in South America? Anti-stigmatization campaigns for HIV positive people in South Africa?

Read more… 406 more words

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The New England blizzard of 2013

Posted on February 20, 2013 by

From the CDC’s blog, Public Health Matters:

Many of you followed the historic blizzard that hit the Northeast last weekend.  Sure, it was fun to watch the weather reporters with yardsticks ready to measure the torrents of accumulating snow.  For me, what quickly became apparent in the February nor’easter is how many ways public health touches lives in a disaster and how the public health response is affected by factors beyond our control.

As a field assignee (FA) from CDC’s Division of State and Local Readiness, I am attached to the Massacusetts Department of Public Health’s Emergency Preparedness Bureau.  I support the Bureau’s development of medical countermeasure preparedness and response capabilities as outlined in the PHEP (Public Health Emergency Preparedness) agreement between the State and CDC. Field assignees are the “on the ground” eyes and ears of CDC.

Public health was at the forefront of concern in this historical storm. Without power, homes, businesses, and healthcare facilities all lost heat. At my house it was 16 degrees below zero at 8:00 a.m. this past Sunday!

Unfortunately, there were casualties from carbon monoxide poisoning. Without heat, people turned to generators, stoves, and grills to heat their homes. People were also warming themselves up in their cars, but the exhaust pipes were clogged with snow and the CO gas backfilled into the car interior.  Prevention and education are core pieces of what public health does and even though the State and the media got the word out, we tragically still had victims of CO poisoning.

Read the complete post here.

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