Neighborhoods Just One Street Apart Can Lead To Vastly Different Economic Futures For Poor Children

The New York Times: Detailed New National Maps Show How Neighborhoods Shape Children For Life
The part of this city east of Northgate Mall looks like many of the neighborhoods that surround it, with its modest midcentury homes beneath dogwood and Douglas fir trees. Whatever distinguishes this place is invisible from the street. But it appears that poor children who grow up here — to a greater degree than children living even a mile away — have good odds of escaping poverty over the course of their lives. (Badger and Bui, 10/1)

The New York Times: Suicides Get Taxi Drivers Talking: ‘I’m Going To Be One Of Them’
Both men were longtime taxi drivers from Romania. Both were worried about paying their bills as Uber decimated their industry. They were best friends. And both had struggled with depression. Nicanor Ochisor’s wife dragged him to a doctor in March to get help. Two days later, he hanged himself in his garage. “I didn’t know he was so depressed,” his friend, Nicolae Hent, said. (Fitzsimmons, 10/2)

The New York Times: These Cholesterol-Reducers May Save Lives. So Why Aren’t Heart Patients Getting Them?
Heart disease runs in Mackenzie Ames’s family. Her grandfather had a fatal heart attack at age 30 while dancing with her grandmother at the Elks Lodge in Bath, N.Y. Her mother had a quadruple bypass when she was 42. When Ms. Ames was just 9 years old, her LDL cholesterol level (the bad kind) was 400 mg/dL, about four times higher than it should have been. (Kolata, 10/2)

The Washington Post: ‘Sammies’ Honor Government’s Best And Most Innovative Employees
Peggy Honein vividly remembers the day in 2016 when an obscure virus went from a curiosity to a major public health threat. There were disturbing reports out of Brazil of newborns with tiny heads, and the scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were trying to determine why that was happening. “One of the most important moments was when the CDC’s lab first found evidence in some samples that Zika was destroying the brain tissue of newborns,” Honein recalled in an interview. (Bernstein, 10/2)

Stat: African-Americans Are Overrepresented In Studies That Don't Require Consent 
African-Americans are enrolled in clinical trials that do not require patients to give individual consent at a disproportionately high level, according to a study published Monday. Scientists are allowed to conduct these experiments without obtaining consent from each individual participant because they are testing emergency medical procedures, and often the patients physically can’t respond. For example, scientists might be comparing two different methods of CPR, or examining the effect of different drug cocktails to treat a heart attack. So, the Food and Drug Administration allows researchers to test out the treatment anyway, as long as they meet certain conditions beforehand. (Swetlitz, 10/1)

The New York Times: Everyone Should Have A Postpartum Doula
New parenthood — during which ordinary people find themselves abruptly responsible for a brand-new and sometimes famished, inconsolable being — is famously harrowing. It’s good to have supportive family and friends during this time. But increasingly, parents are turning to postpartum doulas, as well. Unlike birth doulas, who assist mothers during pregnancy and childbirth, postpartum doulas step in when the baby is already born, and throughout the first six weeks after birth. (Greenberg, 10/2)

WBUR: When Patients Can't Be Cured: Mass. Med Schools Teaching More End-Of-Life Care
Last year, all four medical schools in Massachusetts agreed to work together to improve the way they teach students to care for seriously ill patients, especially near the end of life. This fall, the schools are gathering data on what students are currently learning about end-of-life care, and some are beginning to change the way they teach. (Burge, 10/1)