News Archive
The Promise Of Prevention [March 31, 2010]
New Medical Schools Open, But Physician Shortages Persist [March 30, 2010]
PubMed Extends Database Back To 1947 [March 29, 2010]
Is A Poorly Functioning Health Care System to blame For Low Life Expectancy In The U.S.? [March 26, 2010]
Health Literacy Training For Health Professionals [March 25, 2010]
A Comparison Of Out-Of-Pocket Health Care Expenditures [March 24, 2010]
Health Care And Education Reconciliation Act Materials [March 23, 2010]
NIH Genetic Testing Registry [March 22, 2010]
CBO Estimates Of Healthcare Reform Reconciliation Act [March 19, 2010]
Cost Of Failure To Enact Health Reform [March 18, 2010]
Higher Education And The Common Core State Standards [March 17, 2010]
Needs Assessment For Data And Methods In Public Health Systems Research [March 16, 2010]
State-By-State Look At How Health Dollars Are Spent [March 15, 2010]
Registered Nurse Job Satisfaction And Career Plans [March 8, 2010]
Physician Efforts To Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities [March 5, 2010]
Population-Based Approach To Prevent And Control Hypertension [March 4, 2010]
Health, United States, 2009 [March 3, 2010]
County Variations In Health Status: Patients’ Residence Matters [March 2, 2010]
How Will Comparative Effectiveness Affect The Quality Of Health Care [March 1, 2010]
Cumulative Effects Of Job Characteristics On Health [February 26, 2010]
Connecting The Dots Between Learning And Resources [February 25, 2010]
Who Will Be Hurt If Health Reform Fails? [February 24, 2010]
Top 10 Health Industry Issues In 2010 [February 23, 2010]
Long-Term Care Financing Lessons From Abroad [February 22, 2010]
The Business Cycle And Health Behaviors [February 19, 2010]
Guidance For Developers Of Health Research Reporting Guidelines [February 18, 2010]
Harsh Public Judgement On How Colleges Are Operated [February 17, 2010]
Obesity Has Reached Epidemic Proportions Globally [February 16, 2010]
Training New Dental Providers To Ease Dental Care Crisis In The U.S. [February 12, 2010]
Health IT Use In The U.S. [February 11, 2010]
Perspectives On Geographic Variation In Health Care Spending [February 10, 2010]
Economic Burden Of Health Inequalities [February 9, 2010]
Health Spending Projections Through 2019 [February 8, 2010]
Surgeon General’s Vision For A Healthy And Fit Nation [February 4, 2010]
Contributions to Nation’s Colleges And Universities Decline in 2009 [February 3, 2010]
Demography And Economics Of Aging [February 2, 2010]
Higher Education Learning Outcomes [February 1, 2010]
An article by Goodarz et al in the March 23, 2010 issue of PLoS Medicine indicates that life expectancy (a measure of longevity and premature death) and overall health have increased steadily in the United States over recent years. Yet, some Americans live much longer and much healthier lives than others. Health disparities—differences in how often certain diseases occur and cause death in groups of people classified according to their ethnicity, geographical location, sex, or age—are extremely large and persistent in the US. On average, black men and women in the US live 6.3 and 4.5 years less, respectively, than their white counterparts; the gap between life expectancy in the US counties with the lowest and highest life expectancies is 18.4 years for men and 14.3 years for women. Disparities in deaths (mortality) from chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (for example, heart attacks and stroke), cancers, and diabetes are known to be the main determinants of these life expectancy disparities. In this study, the researchers estimate the effects of smoking, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and adiposity on US life expectancy and on disparities in life expectancy and disease-specific deaths among the “Eight Americas,” population groups defined by race and by the location and socioeconomic characteristics of their county of residence. Reduced exposure to preventable risk factors through the implementation of relevant policies and programs should reduce life expectancy and mortality disparities.
The article can be accessed by clicking http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000248.
New Medical Schools Open, But Physician Shortages Persist
Not a single allopathic medical school opened its doors during the 1980s and 1990s, but since 2007 more than a dozen allopathic schools have started the Liaison Committee on Medical Education accreditation process. Another 10 are under discussion and five osteopathic medical colleges have opened. The surge in new medical schools is taking place as the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts a shortage of at least 125,000 physicians by 2025. New schools and expansion at existing schools will increase first-year enrollment by 21% in 2013, according to a May 2009 Center for Workforce Studies report, but the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 capped the number of new Medicare-paid residents that each teaching hospital can claim.
A list of the new schools can be accessed by clicking http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/site/media/newschools.htm.
PubMed Extends Database Back To 1947
When the original MEDLINE database made its debut in 1971, it contained citations to journal articles mostly published from approximately 1966 forward. The National Library of Medicine began to expand the retrospective coverage of the database in 1996 when more than 307,000 citations originally published in the 1964 and 1965 Cumulated Index Medicus were made available as OLDMEDLINE. The Library has been moving steadily backward in time ever since. With the addition of the 1947 citations, the MEDLINE/PubMed subset now contains over 20 million citations produced during 63 years of indexing of the biomedical literature.
PubMed can be accessed by clicking http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ .
Is A Poorly Functioning Health Care System to blame For Low Life Expectancy In The U.S.?
Life expectancy in the U.S. lags below that in other industrialized countries. The U.S. also spends more on health care than other nations. The coincidence of these two facts has led some policy makers and health analysts to wonder if a highly inefficient U.S. health care system is to blame for poor health outcomes, a question examined by researchers Samuel Preston and Jessica Ho in a recent National Bureau of Economic Research publication (NBER Working Paper 15213). They note that one reason to be cautious in drawing a causal inference from the coincidence of high spending and poor health outcomes is that health outcomes do not depend solely on what transpires within the health care system. Personal health behaviors such as diet, exercise, smoking, and compliance with medical protocols play a critical role. The authors focus on two diseases - cancer and cardiovascular disease. It is useful to focus on treatment and outcomes for those with the disease, rather than disease incidence rates, since health behaviors are likely to play a bigger role in incidence. To the question "does a poor performance by the U.S. health care system account for the low international ranking of longevity in the U.S.?" the authors answer no.
Information on how to obtain the paper can be accessed by clicking http://www.nber.org/papers/w15213.
Health Literacy Training For Health Professionals
As a means of helping public health professionals respond to limited health literacy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched a free, online training program: "Health Literacy for Public Health Professionals." Limited health literacy affects nine out of ten adults and has an impact on their capacity to fully manage their health.
The training program can be accessed by clicking http://www.cdc.gov/healthmarketing/healthliteracy/training/.
A Comparison Of Out-Of-Pocket Health Care Expenditures
An article in the February 2010 issue of The Monthly Labor Review that examines aggregate out-of-pocket health care expenditures from the CE, MEPS, and the NHEA for the 1996–2006 period indicates that methodological differences account for the lack of agreement among estimates.
The article can be accessed by clicking http://stats.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2010/02/art1full.pdf
Health Care And Education Reconciliation Act Materials
Various materials on the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are now available on the Web. The following items can be accessed by clicking the appropriate links.
Summary of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act
http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill61.pdf
Summary of Health Care and Revenue Provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act
http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill62.pdf
Section-by-Section Analysis of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act
http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill63.pdf
Immediate Benefits
http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill64.pdf
Implementation Timeline
http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill65.pdf
NIH Genetic Testing Registry
The National Institutes of Health announced today that it is creating a public database that researchers, consumers, health care providers, and others can search for information submitted voluntarily by genetic test providers. The Genetic Testing Registry (GTR) aims to enhance access to information about the availability, validity, and usefulness of genetic tests. Currently, more than 1,600 genetic tests are available to patients and consumers, but there is no single public resource that provides detailed information about them. GTR is intended to fill that gap. The GTR project will be overseen by the NIH Office of the Director. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the National Library of Medicine at NIH, will be responsible for developing the registry, which is expected to be available in 2011.
More information about the Genetic can be accessed by clicking http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gtr/.
CBO Estimates Of Healthcare Reform Reconciliation Act
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have completed a preliminary estimate of the direct spending and revenue effects of an amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010; that amendment (hereafter called “the reconciliation proposal”) was made public on March 18, 2010.
The estimate can be accessed by clicking http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11355/hr4872.pdf
Cost Of Failure To Enact Health Reform
A new report from The Urban Institute assesses the changes in coverage patterns and health care costs that will occur nationally if major reforms are not enacted.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412049_cost_of_failure.pdf.
Higher Education And The Common Core State Standards
The Common Core State Standards Initiative published a draft of proposed common standards in math and language arts that are designed to help states reach consensus on what it means to be college ready. The initiative is a joint effort by the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states are committed to the state-led process to develop a common core of college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics for grades K–12.
The standards can be reviewed by clicking http://www.corestandards.org/Standards/index.htm.
Needs Assessment For Data And Methods In Public Health Systems Research
An AcademyHealth study is the first assessment of data and methods needs for the field of Public Health Systems Research (PHSR). It provides insights to guide discussion as well as recommendations for addressing data and methods gaps in PHSR.
The study can be accessed by clicking http://ah.cms-plus.com/files/interestgroups/phsr/FinalPhsrNAjan2010.pdf.
State-By-State Look At How Health Dollars Are Spent
A March 2010 report from the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) found federal spending for public health has been flat for nearly five years, while states around the country cut nearly $392 million for public health programs in the past year. These cuts leave communities around the country struggling to deliver basic disease prevention and emergency health preparedness services. States are expected to cut budgets even more in the coming year, which will further limit the ability of public health departments to carry out services.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://healthyamericans.org/assets/files/TFAH2010Shortchanging05.pdf.
Registered Nurse Job Satisfaction And Career Plans
Nearly one-third of registered nurses (RNs) surveyed last month say they will not be working in their current job a year from now and close to half say they plan to alter their career path in the next one to three years that would either take them out of the nursing field entirely or reduce their contribution to direct patient care by working fewer hours or choosing a less demanding role. These are among key findings from AMN's 2010 Survey of Registered Nurses: Job Satisfaction and Career Plans. The survey, which collected data from 1,399 respondents, was conducted during a period of economic recession and in the course of an ongoing national debate over healthcare reform. The survey reflects how RNs may have altered their career plans due to the recession, how they might respond to an economic recovery, and highlights whether they believe healthcare reform will address the nurse shortage.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.amnhealthcare.com/services-products/whitepapers-surveys-casestudies.aspx#Surveys.
Physician Efforts To Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities
While many U. S. physicians identify language or cultural barriers as obstacles to providing high-quality patient care, physicians' efforts to overcome communication barriers are modest and uneven, according to a new national study released by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Nearly half (48.6%) of all U.S. physicians in 2008 reported that difficulty communicating with patients because of language or cultural barriers was at least a minor problem affecting their ability to provide high-quality care, though less than 5 percent viewed it as a major problem, according to the study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).
The Issue Brief can be accessed by clicking http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/1113/.
Population-Based Approach To Prevent And Control Hypertension
Public health officials and health care providers need to step up their efforts to reduce Americans' increasing rates of high blood pressure and better treat those with the condition, which triggers more than one-third of heart attacks and almost half of heart failures in the United States each year, according to a new report from the Institute of Medicine. Policies that create environments which support healthier eating, lowered sodium consumption, and increased physical activity offer greater promise of reducing the high hypertension rate than merely educating individuals about the dangers of high blood pressure, according to the committee that wrote the report.
The Report Brief can be accessed by clicking http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2010/A-Population-Based-Policy-and-Systems-Change-Approach-to-Prevent-and-Control-Hypertension/Reduce%20and%20Control%20Hypertension%202010%20%20Report%20Brief.ashx. The full report can be accessed by clicking http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12819#toc.
Health, United States, 2009 is an annual report presenting national trends in health statistics. It includes an executive summary, highlights, and 150 detailed trend tables organized around four broad areas: health status and its determinants, health care utilization, health care resources, and health care expenditures. The report contains 36 charts and this year's chart book special feature is on medical technology.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus09.pdf.
County Variations In Health Status: Patients’ Residence Matters
A report detailing the first-ever county breakdown in each state finds wide disparities in health standings and notes factors contributing to those rankings. Residents of rural counties are especially challenged by high poverty and a lack of access to primary care, according to a set of rankings released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The report is the first-ever county-level analysis of the health status of individuals and factors affecting it.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/latest-news/county-health-rankings-national-comparisons.
How Will Comparative Effectiveness Affect The Quality Of Health Care
Comparative effectiveness research (CER)-studies that compare health care treatment options to inform decision-making-is alternately described as the best or worst idea in the ongoing dialogue about how to fix American health care. While health reform proposals recently considered by Congress provide for some level of CER, studies show that much of the CER already being undertaken in the United States is not well coordinated, making it difficult to assess its true utility. A new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation policy paper examines the implications of CER on U.S. health care.
The policy paper can be accessed by clicking http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/20100218qscomparativeeffectiveness.pdf.
Cumulative Effects Of Job Characteristics On Health
There exists a cumulative negative effect of performing a physically demanding or environmentally hazardous job on worker health, but the effects vary substantially across age, race, and education groups. Individuals who work in jobs with the “worst” conditions experience declines in their health. Job characteristics are more detrimental to the health of females and older workers than to men or younger workers and the adverse health effects increase with the length of exposure to job conditions, according to a new Working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Access to the paper can be obtained by clicking http://www.nber.org/papers/w15121.
Connecting The Dots Between Learning And Resources
A paper from the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment presents a conceptual approach for analyzing the relation of spending to student success, followed by an examination of what the existing research says about the topic. Since there is so little work directly on the topic of learning and resource use, this paper searches other areas of work for threads that might be sturdy enough to be woven into a fabric of knowledge about learning and resources. The paper concludes by recapping the research themes and by suggesting directions for future work.
The paper can be accessed by clicking http://learningoutcomesassessment.org/documents/Wellman.pdf.
Who Will Be Hurt If Health Reform Fails?
A brief from the Urban Institute describes the groups with the most to lose if comprehensive health care reform is not enacted such as the self-employed, those working for small employers, those with health problems, older working-age adults and early retirees, the low-incomes, and others without access to employer-based insurance.
The brief can be accessed by clicking http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412037.pdf
Top 10 Health Industry Issues In 2010
Each year PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute publishes a report outlining the key issues facing health industries for the coming year. In 2010, as the United States emerges from recession, health industries have an opportunity to move forward if organizations can effectively leverage relationships, understand the impact of pending reform & potential regulatory changes, and respond to changing consumer demands.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://pwchealth.com/cgi-local/hregister.cgi?link=reg/top-ten-health-industry-issues-in-2010.pdf.
Long-Term Care Financing Lessons From Abroad
Broad health care reform legislation being considered by Congress would effect a major change in the way the United States finances long-term care. A new paper reviews the experiences of France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom and highlights some lessons the United States can learn from each.
The paper can be accessed by clicking http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Fund%20Report/2010/Feb/1368_Gleckman_longterm_care_financing_reform_lessons_US_abroad.pdf.
The Business Cycle And Health Behaviors
In a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research entitled The Business Cycle and Health Behaviors (NBER Working Paper 15737), Xu and Kaestner investigate the effects of wages and working hours on health behaviors of low-educated persons using variation in wages and hours caused by changes in economic activity. They found that increases in hours are associated with an increase in cigarette smoking, a reduction in physical activity, and fewer visits to physicians. More importantly, most of the effects associated with changes in hours can be attributed to changes in the extensive margin of employment. Increases in wages are associated with greater consumption of cigarettes.
For additional information, click http://www.nber.org/.
Guidance For Developers Of Health Research Reporting Guidelines
On any given month about 63,000 new articles are indexed in PubMed, the United States National Library of Medicine's public access portal for health-related publications, but many publications lack clarity, transparency, and completeness in how the authors actually carried out their research. The development of reporting guidelines is to help researchers improve the completeness and transparency of their research reports and limit the number of poorly reported studies. In a paper recently published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the authors update and expand upon an earlier effort to outline a strategy for developing reporting guidelines.
The paper can be accessed by clicking http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000217.
Harsh Public Judgement On How Colleges Are Operated
Six out of 10 Americans now say that colleges today operate more like a business, focused more on the bottom line than on the educational experience of students. Furthermore, the number of individuals who feel this way has increased by five percentage points in the last year alone and is up by eight percentage points since 2007. These results are highlights from surveys tracking public attitudes on higher education conducted by Public Agenda for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The 2009 results are based on a survey of 1,031 Americans conducted in December 2009.
Additional information can be obtained by clicking http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/squeeze-play-2010.
Obesity Has Reached Epidemic Proportions Globally
Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with at least 2.6 million individuals dying each year as a result of being overweight or obese. Once associated with high-income countries, obesity is now also prevalent in low- and middle-income countries. Governments, international partners, civil society, non governmental organizations and the private sector all have vital roles to play in contributing to obesity prevention.
A Fact File on Obesity can be accessed by clicking http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obesity/facts/en/index.html.
Training New Dental Providers To Ease Dental Care Crisis In The U.S.
Searching for ways to ensure dental care for millions living in dentist-shortage areas, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation released a wide-ranging assessment of international and U.S. experiences training and deploying new types of dental health care providers who could be used to help fill gaps in care. In particular, the report suggests that dental therapists, who perform preventive and basic dental services, could provide sorely needed care to millions of underserved Americans, working in collaboration with dentists while expanding their reach. Similar to a nurse practitioner or physician assistant in the medical field, dental therapists are envisioned as members of the dental team that is led by the dentist or dental specialist. Internationally, dental therapists have been used successfully for decades to address inadequate access to dental care.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.wkkf.org/knowledge-center/Resources-Page.aspx.
A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) provides information about Health Information Technology Use Among Men and Women Aged 18-64: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January-June 2009.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/healthinfo2009/healthinfo2009.pdf.
Perspectives On Geographic Variation In Health Care Spending
A paper from the National Center for Policy Analysis indicates that while health care reform is definitely at the top of the domestic policy agenda, it is critical to flesh out a leading rationale, i.e., health care spending varies dramatically from region to region without producing commensurate variation in health outcomes. Lessons to be learned from geographic variation must take into consideration spending measures other than Medicare. Labeling states as high or low spending depends on the basis for the label used. The paper considers the degree to which demographics, income, health conditions and health market controls help explain the regional variation in spending as well as its persistence.
The paper can b e accessed by clicking http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Perspectives-on-the-Geographic-Variation-in-Health-Care-Spending.pdf.
Economic Burden Of Health Inequalities
A study commissioned by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and carried out by leading researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland provides important insight into how much of a financial burden racial disparities are exerting on the U.S. health care system and society at large. The researchers examined the direct costs associated with the provision of care to a sicker and more disadvantaged population as well as the indirect costs of health inequities such as lost productivity, lost wages, absenteeism, family leave, and premature death.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.jointcenter.org/publications_recent_publications/health/the_economic_burden_of_health_inequalities_in_the_united_states.
Health Spending Projections Through 2019
A new article in the Web Exclusives section of the journal Health Affairs indicates that the economic recession and rising unemployment-plus changing demographics and baby boomers aging into Medicare-are among the factors expected to influence health spending during 2009-2019. In 2009 the health share of gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to have increased 1.1 percentage points to 17.3 percent-the largest single-year increase since 1960. Average public spending growth rates for hospital, physician and clinical services, and prescription drugs are expected to exceed private spending growth in the first four years of the projections. As a result, public spending is projected to account for more than half of all U.S. health care spending by 2012.
The article can be accessed by clicking http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.2009.1074v1.
Surgeon General’s Vision For A Healthy And Fit Nation
A new report from the U.S. Surgeon General calls on all Americans to join in a national grassroots effort to reverse the trend of obesity, obesity-related diseases, and premature deaths. A plan includes showing individuals how to choose nutritious food, add more physical activity to their daily lives, and manage the stress that so often derails their best efforts at developing healthy habits.
The report can be accessed by clicking http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/obesityvision/obesityvision2010.pdf.
Contributions to Nation’s Colleges And Universities Decline in 2009
Charitable contributions to colleges and universities in the United States declined 11.9 percent to $27.85 billion, according to results of the annual Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey, released today by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE). The 2009 decline is the steepest in the survey’s history. In 1975, however, the inflation-adjusted decline (11.6 percent) was slightly larger than in 2009 (11.5 percent). Over the past ten years, contributions to higher education institutions have increased an average of 4.1 percent per year.
Additional information can be accessed by clicking http://www.cae.org/.
Demography And Economics Of Aging
The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, has committed more than $36.7 million over the next five years to support and expand its Centers on the Demography and Economics of Aging. The Centers form a network of universities and organizations leading innovative studies on the characteristics of the aging population. The awards renewed support for 11 Centers and established three new ones. Each NIA Demography Center has its own set of disciplinary specializations, although research conducted at the different Centers is often interrelated. All Centers investigate aspects of health and health care, the societal impact of population aging and the economic and social circumstances of older persons. Many Centers also conduct research on global aging and cross-national comparisons.
Additional information can be accessed by clicking http://www.nih.gov/news/health/feb2010/nia-02.htm.
Higher Education Learning Outcomes
The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) has issued a new paper on assessing higher education learning outcomes, Connecting the Dots Between Learning and Resources. The paper examines what kind of resources an institution needs to produce a given level of student attainment and finds that simply investing more money does not appear to produce more or better outcomes.
The paper can be accessed by clicking http://learningoutcomesassessment.org/documents/Wellman.pdf.