Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perspectives: Mobile Vaccine Clinics Can Be Repurposed; Missouri Trying To Defund Planned Parenthood
Scientific American: Mobile Clinics Can Help Reduce Health Inequity
Grassroots organizers in Boston, primary care innovators in Chicago and even an academic medical center in Philadelphia responded to the COVID pandemic by bringing mobile vaccine clinics directly to the neighborhoods most impacted by the virus. As a result, 85 percent of those vaccinated by Philadelphia’s effort were Black, while 81 percent of those vaccinated by Boston’s effort identified as persons of color. COVID mobile vaccine clinics work. As the number of COVID cases falls in the United States, the frameworks used by mobile vaccine clinics should not be abandoned. Instead, these frameworks should be adopted and applied to health conditions that disproportionately impact communities of color. They provide health care delivery one path forward to achieving health equity. (David E. Velasquez, LaShyra "Lash" Nolen and Alister Martin, 6/30)
Kansas City Star: Defunding Planned Parenthood Won’t Make An Abortion Ban Work
Those Missouri lawmakers are a bunch of drama kings, waiting until the last possible hours of the last possible day to renew approval of the completely routine tax on hospitals, ambulance runs and pharmacies that funds Medicaid in our state. Had they not done so, Missouri would have had to make up for the more than $4 billion in lost revenue with deep, across-the-board cuts in state spending. Health care for the poor, the disabled and the pregnant is such a trivial matter for some of the not-poor and not-pregnant guys who run our state that they can’t even work up the will to pretend to care. (Melinda Henneberger, 7/1)
Stat: Hospitals Need To Publicly Report Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The health care industry focuses on healing. Yet its pursuit of that mission can cause harm. The harm caused by medical errors is well known. Largely unknown is the hidden harm caused by the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. An estimated 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from the health care industry. Largely due to fine particulate matter (particles smaller than 2.5 microns, known as PM2.5), which result from burning fossil fuels, the industry’s carbon emissions account for approximately 100,000 US deaths annually and approximately three times that number worldwide. (David Introcaso and Walt Vernon, 6/29)
USA Today: Ageism, Age Discrimination Is Dangerous To Your Health
Older people are discriminated against when it comes to employment and health care. In addition to the obvious ill effects of that discrimination, ageism can also “negatively affect (our) health and well-being,” according to a 2020 study from the National Poll on Healthy Aging. The study describe “everyday ageism,” which is about our insidious exposure to ageist beliefs, assumptions and stereotypes. (Steven Petrow, 7/1)
Stat: A Sister On Watching The Mental Health Care System Fail Her Brother
In this week’s episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” Lizzy Feliciano talks about her brother, Louis, who died after years of suffering from depression, anxiety, and alcohol misuse. She struggled to help him find a program that could treat all of his issues holistically, not just one at a time. In a cruel twist of fate, just hours after moving into a facility with a program would treat his addiction and mental health issues — and do it at no cost — Louis Feliciano died of natural causes at age 51. (Patrick Skerrett, 6/30)
