Welcome to our media digest for the week of October 21, 2016! Below you’ll find summaries of news coverage on the issues of preventing violence, trauma, nutrition, health equity, mental health, and more. The views expressed in these articles do not reflect those of Prevention Institute.
Health Equity
Aletha Maybank, M.D., MPH, Deputy Commissioner of the NYC Department of Health writes a powerful editorial in support of the Movement for Black Lives platform: “Achieving health equity is not just an intellectual or academic pursuit, it takes action. It is only through relentless advocacy and activism that the necessary social justice advancements will be made to transform the health of Black communities.”
An ACLU lawsuit, filed on behalf of thousands of Flint, Michigan, schoolchildren whose drinking water supply was tainted by lead, alleges that state and local authorities violated three federal education laws that ensure the education of people with disabilities. Sixteen percent of children enrolled in the Flint Community Schools are eligible for special education services due to harmful lead exposure, but schools have not adequately prepared for this increase in special education cases. (via BMSG)
The ACLU is taking legal action on behalf of a Minnesota transgender student, whom a group of parents want to stop from using the school locker room consistent with her gender identity. The ACLU is also involved in a near-identical lawsuit in Illinois, and two similar transgender rights cases in North Carolina and Virginia. The New York Times reports on a breast-cancer survivor and his struggles within the healthcare system as a transgender man.
According to a coalition of education groups leading the GradNation campaign, nearly 700,000 high school-aged kids are not in school, and further efforts are needed to close graduation gaps among minority and poor students, homeless students, and students with disabilities. Unfortunately, the article does not connect educational achievement with health outcomes.
The head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued an apology to communities of color for historical abuses, but he failed to acknowledge that police misconduct is very much an issue, leaving some to wonder about the value of that apology. Rewire argues that while the Department of Justice’s recent announcement that it would provide comprehensive data on police killings starting in early 2017 is welcomed, it’s not enough. The piece notes that data alone will not prevent violent and unjustified attacks, especially on people of color.
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute confirms that unequal pay hits women of color the most, and mothers earn less per hour than women who are not mothers. The authors of the report also note that the gender pay gap costs the average woman more than $530,000 over a lifetime.
According to a new report by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, LGBT youth in middle and high school have lower grades, more attendance problems and are less likely to complete high school than their heterosexual peers. As BMSG notes, “Teachers overwhelming support their LGBT students, but they reported feeling unequipped to handle these cases of bullying. GLSEN suggests that training and development for teachers on LGBT topics is necessary to provide a safe and supportive environment for LGBT youth.”
Violence Prevention and Unintentional Injury
An editorial in Scientific American, co-authored by Baltimore’s City health commissioner and a resident physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, uses Baltimore as a case study for a city that is using public health measures to treat the underlying causes of violence. The authors conclude, “Violence does not happen randomly or in isolation. It is one tragic, final result of inequities that continually build if left unaddressed. By treating it as a public health issue, it can be prevented—and, perhaps one day, even cured.”
This article examines how cleaning up abandoned lots can reduce shootings. According to an APHA study, on average, in the year after a clean-up, the areas around remediated lots saw 5 percent fewer shootings than the areas around un-remediated lots, and remediated houses experienced 39 percent less gun crime.
While the U.S. is safer today than in the 1970s and 1980s, America remains far more violent than other industrial democracies. Bloomberg features residents of Roseburg, San Bernardino, and Charlotte and their outlooks on the gun debate after experiencing mass shootings so close to home.
As reported by CBS News, a new investigation by the Associated Press and USA Today found that 320 minors died in accidental gun shootings between 2014 and June 2016. Most of these deaths occurred at home by a legally owned handgun. The investigation also found that counter to mainstream media portrayals, the Deep South, not urban cities, leads the way in accidental child deaths.
California
ThinkProgress reports on the hidden poisoning of families living in a public house complex in Los Angeles. The housing complex was built on an old industrial site (first a steel factory, then an auto repair shop), contaminated with lead, cadmium, arsenic and other undetermined health threats. While the LA housing authority agency plans to rebuild the complex, there are no plans to clean up these environmental toxins, and residents worry about threats to their health as well as the risk of displacement (“One study found that just 14 percent of the original residents of public housing complexes that were rebuilt through a government grant were still living in them after redevelopment”).
For the first time, California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation is proposing buffer zones for pesticide spraying near schools, banning spraying within a quarter mile of all public schools and day care facilities Monday-Friday from 6AM-6PM, but advocates interviewed by Mother Jones say the proposed regulations don’t go far enough. “A host of studies have shown that pesticide poisonings occur at distances well beyond a quarter mile. And part-time buffer zones do little to reduce long-term, chronic exposure,” said Californians for Pesticide Reform co-director Sarah Aird, in a statement. In fact, according to the California Environmental Health Tracking Program (CEHTP), not one of the top 10 pesticides used within a quarter of a mile of California schools lasts less than eight hours in the air, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) criteria. “In communities that don’t have adequate recreational facilities, school grounds are used very heavily on the weekends,” California League of United Latin American Citizens state president Dave Rodriquez told Civil Eats. Rodriguez described a high school where he lives in Ventura County that is “surrounded by agriculture on all sides.” One-quarter mile, especially when the wind is blowing, “is not very far away,” he explained.
The Bay Area News Group reports on Oakland’s strategy to address homeless encampments – not clearing encampments as SF does, but providing the basics to help clean up the camps, such as cleaning services, trash cans and portable toilets.
Oakland North reports on the ways the food environment in Oakland creates barriers for low-income neighborhoods and communities of color in accessing healthy foods, and interviews Oaklanders about anti-soda tax arguments being disseminated by the soda industry ahead of the November vote on Measure HH. The soda industry has already spent more than $20 million in California alone to defeat soda taxes on the November ballot in Oakland, Albany, and San Francisco.
Community environments
Hacked internal emails from Coca-Cola outline the company’s strategy to fight local initiatives to tax and otherwise regulate the marketing and sale of sugary drinks. “What I think nobody understands is the level of manipulation the companies that make these products engage in, and that’s why I think these [Coca-Cola] revelations are so important,” said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor and author of “Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning).” Topics discussed in the leaked emails, including lobbying efforts and attempts to manipulate dietary guidelines and the news media, “aren’t usually talked about in public,” Nestle said. “But they’re certainly talked about in private.”
Berkeley Media Studies Group raises the likely health ramifications of a marketing proposal to more effectively target Latino customers outside of their homes. “The article places increased emphasis on methods for targeting products to Latino consumers at corner stores. This is especially concerning because corner stories are less likely to carry healthy food options in first place.”
By 2030, researchers predict that four in 10 people worldwide will not have access to drinking water. Already, “in Africa and Asia, women and children must walk 3.7 miles on average to get their water. Collectively, women spend over 200 million hours every day just collecting water. That's more than just a major inconvenience, it’s an incredible amount of lost economic potential. This time-consuming, physically exhausting endeavor prevents women from working at jobs and keeps children away from school, impacts that continue a cycle of poverty and socioeconomic exclusion. For the women and children who live in one small village in Kenya, their walk to water is more than five miles. And the water they gather isn’t even clean; it comes from a dirty river containing harmful bacteria.”
Mental health
In the Huffington Post, social worker Marline Francois writes about the consequences of failing to recognize Black girls’ experiences with trauma and offers ideas for what we can do to help girls heal.
A retired businessman writes in the Seattle Times about his experience with heroin addiction: “I maintained a high level of functioning and productivity despite my struggles. I had good health insurance and financial resources, which are not available to many addicts. However, I was fearful about accessing help through my employer due to the stigma of being a “junkie” and the anticipated backlash. This led to extended shame and fear for far too long.” He highlights the need for greater openness and awareness and community-based efforts to address the problem. “…more of us must advocate more vocally for those who fall into the trap of opioid addiction — often due to undiagnosed mental-health issues — overuse of prescribed opioids or self-medicating.”
After moving its global headquarters to Boston, General Electric condcuted a statewide listening tour to guide its philanthropic investments around community health. “Time and again, clear and chilling, the answer was opioids.” Their $15 million investment will include $700,000 to help community health centers respond to the crisis. This will include a training to help health center workers understand the “medical and lifestyle needs” confronting opioid abusers.
A Mendocino County therapist provides training on her “Community Resiliency Model, which trains community members not only to help themselves but to help others within their wider social network.” The model focuses on understanding and addressing the effects of trauma on the nervous system.
Vox looks at how shrinking mental health resources have left police as first responders to mental health crises, and the problems that result. “Someone with an untreated mental illness is 16 times more likely to be killed by police than other civilians approached or stopped by law enforcement, according to a 2015 report by the Treatment Advocacy Center.” And if people with mental health problems end up in jail or prison, they often lack access to necessary treatment.
Health Systems Transformation
In ACA news, The New York Times provides a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the law. The Hill reports that enrollment in exchange plans could level off or even decline in 2017, according to a Standard & Poor's analysis released last week. In addition, a growing number of people are finding out their health insurance plans will disappear from the ACA program next year, forcing them to find new coverage even as options shrink and prices rise. At least 1.4 million people in 32 states will lose the plan they have now, according to state officials contacted by Bloomberg. That’s largely caused by Aetna Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and some state or regional insurers quitting the law’s markets for individual coverage. Meanwhile, the Washington Post argues that reports of Obamacare’s demise are greatly exaggerated, noting “Since Obamacare passed, health prices have been rising at the slowest rate in 50 years, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s index of health-related personal consumption expenditures….Where would premiums be today had earlier, more rapid price-growth trends continued? These premiums rose on average “only” 2.9 percent in 2016, compared with an average annual increase of 7.1 percent in the decade leading up to Obamacare’s passage in 2010.”
This article by APHA member Deborah Walker argues on behalf of investing more in prevention to stop the spread of Zika and other infectious diseases in the U.S., as well as address the health outcomes for those who are infected. Meanwhile, NBC News reports that hundreds of millions of dollars approved by Congress last month to fight Zika won’t go anywhere until the beginning of next year — almost a full year after it was first requested.
In CMS news, the final rule for CMS’ Quality Payment Program has been released. Community Catalyst poses four “burning” questions and tentative answers about the program. Modern Healthcare reports on Monday’s announcement by CMS detailing progress made under the agency's Comprehensive Primary Care initiative. According to CMS, 95 percent of participating provider practices met quality of care requirements under the program, while four of seven participating regions shared in savings with CMS.
Modern Healthcare covers the efforts by local health officials to expand preventive, coordinated primary-care services to undocumented immigrants as an effective means of achieving effective population health management by ensuring equitable health outcomes for the entire populace.