Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Employee Wellness Programs Fail At Making Workers Healthier, Lowering Costs, Study Finds
Bloomberg: Workplace Wellness Programs Really Don’t Work
Workplace wellness programs have two main goals: improve employees’ health and lower their employers’ health-care costs. They’re not very good at either, new research finds. For the study, 3,300 employees of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were given a year of access to iThrive, a workplace wellness program similar to what many companies offer workers. A control group of 1,534 didn’t get access to it at all. (Greenfield, 1/26)
Stat: This Scientist Is Taking On One Of Neuroscience's Most Notorious Opponents
In her lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Choi-Fong Cho is growing tiny, balled-up versions of the blood-brain barrier, one of neuroscience’s most notorious opponents. The barrier lines blood vessels in the brain to block foreign invaders, but it also stops most drugs from getting into the central nervous system. It’s foiled countless treatments that looked promising in animals, only to never make it into the brains of patients. (Thielking, 1/29)
Kaiser Health News: Treating Domestic Violence As A Medical Problem
Fanny Ortiz, a mother of five who lives just east of downtown Los Angeles, spent nearly a decade married to a man who controlled her and frequently threatened her. Then, she said, his abuse escalated. “He would physically hit me in the face, throw me on the wall,” she recalled. Ortiz, 43, eventually left the marriage, taking her children with her. A few years later, she learned that the East Los Angeles Women’s Center offered domestic violence services at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, near her home. Now she goes to the hospital campus for weekly therapy sessions, which she said have helped stop her suicidal thoughts. (Gorman, 1/29)
The Washington Post: What Should You Do If A Nuclear Bomb Is Heading Your Way?
On Jan. 13, the state of Hawaii spent 38 minutes in terror after a text alert mistakenly warned of an incoming nuclear missile attack. If you heard about the mistake and wondered what you would or should do if you learned a nuclear bomb was heading your way, you're not alone. It has been more than 30 years since schools in the United States had “duck and cover” drills for schoolchildren, and preparing for a nuclear attack isn't something most people are familiar with. Today, nuclear threats are more likely from rogue states and terrorists, not the Soviet Union. But we should still be worried about nuclear threats we’re facing — and, with a president promising to rain down “fire and fury,” the threats we’re making. So if an attack is imminent, what do you do? (Taylor, 1/26)
The New York Times: Cesarean Delivery Can Pose Long-Term Risks To Mother And Child
While a cesarean delivery is sometimes necessary and can be lifesaving, it may have serious long-term disadvantages for both mother and child, researchers report. The analysis, in PLOS Medicine, pooled data from 80 studies including almost 30 million subjects. (Bakalar, 1/26)
The Washington Post: Headaches That Are Regular And Frequent Mean It's Time To Get Help
Headaches are a common ailment — so common, perhaps, that many of us just accept them as part of life. “When I do routine physicals, I’ll ask about headaches,” says Michael Munger, a primary-care physician in Overland, Kan. He is always surprised that many of his patients report frequent headaches when asked but never bring them up otherwise. “Some people just live with it.” Tension headaches, sinus headaches and migraine headaches are among the most common varieties. (Adams, 1/27)
The Washington Post: Hyperbaric Therapy Using Pure Oxygen Is A Treatment For Brain Injuries
Each year, thousands of Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury. In 2013, about 2.8 million TBI-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations and deaths occurred in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of these are what are called mild traumatic brain injuries, or mTBIs — head injuries that don’t cause a coma. People with an mTBI typically get better within a few weeks, but for as many as 20 percent, problems can linger for months or years. (Kohn, 1/27)
NPR: Congenital Heart Defects And Adult Transplants
A few weeks ago, our family gathered for a meeting that we hope will save my sister's life. Our goal was to demonstrate to a hospital social worker that we could take care of her should she get a heart transplant. My sister Sara is now 50. (NPR isn't using her last name to protect her medical privacy.) For her to get on the transplant list, her anatomy needed to be suitable and her antibody levels low despite prior surgeries. She had to show that she could withstand the grueling transplant process; that she could consistently take her anti-rejection medications; didn't abuse drugs or alcohol; and had a stable home life. (Wolfson, 1/28)
The New York Times: On Family Farms, Little Hands Steer Big Machines
Cullen Schachtschneider, 6 years old, lay bleeding beside the barn, tangled up in a 4,600-pound farm machine that had ripped his left leg apart. Like children across America’s two million family-run farms, Cullen had grown up around farm equipment, including the yellow loader now covered in his blood. He rode along as his father hauled calves. He watched his grade-school-age brothers drive the diesel-powered loader, carrying corn and doing chores to help keep their family’s struggling Wisconsin dairy afloat. The work was woven into their childhood. (Healy, 1/29)
The Washington Post: Some Men Have Large Breasts And Get Cosmetic Surgery To Reduce Them
With the music of rapper Jay-Z blaring in the background, Marwan Khalifeh, a Washington-area cosmetic surgeon, vigorously plunged a strawlike metal probe back and forth through the breasts of a patient lying on an operating table, as if he were playing a cello. The goal was to reduce the size of his patient’s breasts, an increasingly common procedure for women who decide to change their lifestyle or address a medical condition. And Khalifeh’s surgical room on the 17th floor of a medical arts building in Friendship Heights is arrayed with state-of-the-art equipment, including a laser machine called the Smartlipo MPX that emulsifies unwanted fat. (Pianin, 1/28)
