Football Players Dominate Research On CTE, But One Woman Wonders If Victims Of Domestic Violence Wouldn’t Show Same Symptoms
As many as 31 million women might have had a traumatic brain injury and 21 million might have had multiple mild ones. Yet there's little research on the lasting effects in women. In other public health news: worker safety, burnout, genetic testing, wildfires, heart attacks, menstrual products, and anger.
The New York Times:
Do Brain Injuries Affect Women Differently Than Men?
In 1994, the National Football League formed a Committee on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury to study an alarming trend: Players were retiring early because of what seemed to be concussion-related problems, including persistent headaches, vertigo, cognitive impairment, personality changes, fatigue and difficulty performing ordinary daily activities. Around the same time, Eve Valera, then a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at the University of Illinois, began to volunteer in a domestic-violence shelter and wondered how many of the women there might be experiencing comparable post-concussive symptoms as a result of head injuries inflicted by their partners. (Tingley, 6/26)
The Washington Post:
USDA Deregulation Plan In Hog Plants Raises Concerns About Worker Safety
The Office of Inspector General is evaluating whether the U.S. Department of Agriculture concealed information and used flawed data to develop and promote a new hog inspection system that would shift many food-safety tasks from federal inspectors to pork industry employees. The USDA’s inspector general, Phyllis Fong, notified 16 members of Congress on Friday that her office has launched the probe in response to concerns the lawmakers raised in March, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post. (Kindy, 6/25)
Modern Healthcare:
Shorter Clinical Rotations Reduce Burnout, Study Finds
Burnout decreases and job fulfillment improves when physicians work shorter rotations in the hospital, according to a new study. The results, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, found burnout was substantially lower among critical-care physicians at Penn Medicine who opted to shorten their clinical rotations from 14 consecutive days to seven days. The study shows 24% of physicians screened positive for burnout in an intensive-care unit that switched to seven-day rotations, while 61% of physicians in an ICU with both seven-day and 14-day rotations screened positive for burnout. (Castellucci, 6/25)
Stat:
Consumer Genetic Testing Companies Team Up To Lobby On Privacy Policy
Anticipating more federal scrutiny of genetic privacy policies, three leading consumer genetic companies have formed an advocacy group to defend their efforts to safeguard information about their customers’ DNA and separate themselves from perceived bad actors. The Coalition for Genetic Data Protection — launched by Ancestry, 23andMe, and Helix — will provide the companies a “collective voice” in talking to lawmakers, said its executive director, Steve Haro, a principal at Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas. The group is advocating for a comprehensive genetic data privacy bill that aligns with the policies the companies follow and have espoused, he said. (Joseph, 6/25)
Los Angeles Times:
Wildfires Fueled By Climate Change Will Mean Shorter Lives For Many Americans
Climate change in the Western U.S. means more intense and frequent wildfires churning out waves of smoke that scientists say will sweep across the continent, affecting tens of millions of people and causing a jump in premature deaths. That emerging reality is prompting people in cities and rural areas alike to prepare for another summer of sooty skies along the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountains — the regions widely expected to suffer most from blazes tied to dryer, warmer conditions. (Brown, 6/25)
CNN:
Vittorio Caruso, 10th American To Die In Dominican Republic This Year, Died Of Heart Failure
Vittorio Caruso, the most recent American to die in the Dominican Republic, died from respiratory and heart failure after a long history of related-health problems, the country's Attorney General's office said, citing a preliminary autopsy report. Caruso had suffered from hypertension, heart disease and pulmonary disease for a long time, the office said. (Flores, 6/25)
PBS NewsHour:
How Access To Period Products Removes A Barrier To Education
A growing number of states are exempting menstrual products from tax. Advocates for period equity argue taxing these supplies is unfair because periods are a necessity, not a choice. And some schools and universities are now opting to provide these products free in an effort to reduce absences and ensure that low-income students have access to them. Education Week's Kavitha Cardoza reports. (Cardoz, 6/25)
NPR:
Anger Poll: 84% Say We're Madder Than A Generation Ago
Do you find yourself getting ticked off more often than you used to? If the answer is yes, you're not alone. Some 84% of people surveyed said Americans are angrier today compared with a generation ago, according to the latest NPR-IBM Watson Health poll. When asked about their own feelings, 42% of those polled said they were angrier in the past year than they had been further back in time. Anger can have an effect on health. (Hensley, 6/26)
