Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Self-Testing At Home For HIV Yields Positive Strategy For High-Risk People Seeking Privacy, Experiment Shows
The Associated Press: Mailing Free Home HIV Tests Helps Detect More Infections
Mailing free home HIV tests to high-risk men offers a potentially better strategy for detecting infections than usual care. That’s according to a U.S. government study that resulted in many more infections found — including among friends with whom recipients shared extra kits. (11/18)
The Wall Street Journal: P&G Pursues The Do-It-Yourself Health-Care Business
Americans’ growing fixation on self-care has them spending billions to treat conditions from insomnia to itchy skin without doctors or prescription drugs. Now Procter & Gamble Co. is trying to seize on the trend. The maker of Pampers diapers and Gillette razors, a decade after getting out of the drug business, is making a push into wellness and self-care—growing pockets of the health-care industry—with products such as vitamins and supplements, nonprescription sleep aids and all-natural menopause treatments. (Terlep, 11/18)
The Associated Press: Free E-Book Aims To Spark Talk On ‘Culture Of Health’
Roxane Gay, Pam Belluck and Martha Wells are among the contributors to a free e-book story compilation supported by the public health philanthropy the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The e-book is called “Take Us to a Better Place: Stories” and is intended to create a conversation about a “culture of health.” The book is a joint project between the foundation, a public health philanthropy, and the packager Melcher Media. (11/18)
The New York Times: Dread The Holidays? Feasting Together Might Actually Help
Fall-into-winter: the time of year when we come together to light a candle, carve a bird, raise a glass. It’s a season that is cherished and dreaded often in equal measure. But while attending the company holiday party or fa-la-la-ing with family might seem like a chore, social scientists and other experts make a compelling case that there is strength in numbers: Gathering is good for our body and our spirit. (Sethi, 11/18)
Modern Healthcare: AMA, AHA Look To Retrain Physicians To Measure Blood Pressure
Most physicians learn how to measure blood pressure while in medical school, but they never revisit that training during their professional life, which could lead to misdiagnoses, according to two major associations. The American Medical Association and the American Heart Association on Monday launched a 30-minute online course to train healthcare professionals on measuring blood pressure based on 2017 clinical guidelines for preventing, detecting, evaluating and managing adult hypertension. (Johnson, 11/18)
The New York Times: Something In The Man’s Bed Was Making Him Sick
As the chill of the Scottish autumn set in, a 43-year-old man went to see a family doctor in 2016. For about the last three months, he was constantly tired and out of breath. The physician at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland thought the patient — who worked a desk job and didn’t smoke cigarettes — had an infection in his lower respiratory tract. At first the man got better. But then it got so bad that the patient had to take 14 days off work. The doctor looked at the man’s blood count, kidney and liver function, and took a chest radiograph — all of which seemed normal. (Yan, 11/18)
The New York Times: For Some Children With Autism, Dance Is A Form Of Expression
As soon as James Griffin gets off the school bus he tells his mom, “Go dance, go dance.” James is 14 and has autism, and his speech is limited. He’s a participant in a program for children on the autism spectrum at the University of Delaware that is studying how dance affects behavior and verbal, social and motor skills. One afternoon while dancing, he spun around, looked at his mother, smiled and shouted, “I love you.” (Hollow, 11/19)
The New York Times: She Takes A Hands-On Approach To Health Care
In 2014, when Ebola was raging across West Africa and terrifying the world, Sheila Davis had a comfortable desk job in Boston. But Dr. Davis, who holds a Ph.D. in nursing, could not sit and watch from afar. So, she headed to Liberia. She then used her experience in the Ebola wards to help the nonprofit she worked for, Partners in Health, figure out how to rebuild the region’s devastated health care system. (Weintraub, 11/19)
Kaiser Health News: For Newborns With Hearing Loss, Screening Opens Window To A World Of Sound
Four-year-old Betty Schottler starts each morning with the same six sounds: [m], [ah], [oo], [ee], [sh], and [s]. Her mom makes the sounds first, then Betty repeats them to check that her cochlear implant is working. Betty was born profoundly deaf and got her first set of glittery rainbow hearing aids at 6 weeks old. (Bluth, 11/19)
