Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Suicide Attempts Rise 50% Among Teenage Girls
The Texas Tribune: Alarming Number Of Teenage Girls Attempting Suicide During The Pandemic
Growing up, Charley Tennen was rarely alone. The youngest of seven kids in a loud, busy house in El Paso, she was always out at a party, shopping with friends or organizing a road trip. Even after she was diagnosed with a chronic illness and had a feeding tube inserted, she kept her bubbly personality, her mother, Michelle, said. But when COVID-19 hit Texas in March 2020, all of that suddenly went away. Charley went from attending school with a few thousand students to sitting alone in her bedroom, doing virtual classes. She and other family members were immunocompromised, so they fully isolated themselves, terrified of getting sick. (Klibanoff, 2/1)
In other public health news —
AP: Minority Women Most Affected If Abortion Is Banned, Limited
If you are Black or Hispanic in a conservative state that already limits access to abortions, you are far more likely than a white woman to have one. And if the U.S. Supreme Court allows states to further restrict or even ban abortions, minority women will bear the brunt of it, according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press. (Pettus and Willingham, 2/1)
Stat: Could Pap Smears One Day Help Detect Breast And Ovarian Cancers?
Routine screenings have become a powerful tool in catching cervical cancer as early as possible. Now, research suggests the cervical cells collected during these exams could hold the key to efficient screening for other gynecological cancers, too. A new study suggests that by analyzing cervical cells’ genomes, researchers might be able to find genetic signatures that predict the risk of ovarian, breast, and endometrial cancers and flag patients that should be screened more aggressively. If the test proves useful in larger studies, it could offer a simple way to piggyback off of regular Pap smears already used to screen for cancerous or precancerous lesions in the cervix. (Chen, 2/1)
CNN: Using Melatonin For Sleep Is On The Rise, Study Says, Despite Potential Health Harms
More and more adults are taking over-the-counter melatonin to get to sleep, and some of them may be using it at dangerously high levels, a new study has found. While overall use among the United States adult population is still "relatively low," the study does "document a significant many-fold increase in melatonin use in the past few years," said sleep specialist Rebecca Robbins, an instructor in the division of sleep medicine for Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study. The study, published Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA, found that by 2018 Americans were taking more than twice the amount of melatonin they took a decade earlier. Experts worry that the pandemic's negative impact on sleep may have further increased the widespread reliance on sleeping aids, Robbins said. (LaMotte, 2/1)
The Atlantic: What Happens In Your Brain When You Get Dumped
We all know that when love is good, it’s really good. Research shows that romantic attachments, when they’re healthy and supportive, can be immensely beneficial for our health. Married people tend to live longer than single people and seem to fare better when seriously sick. But as poets and pop singers have long told us, when love goes awry, it hurts like nothing else. After my marriage ended—not by my choice—I found some comfort in art, but what I really wanted was science. I wanted to know why we feel so operatically sad when a romantic attachment dissolves. What I discovered is that love changes us so deeply—at a physiological level—that when it’s lost, we hurt more than if we had never loved at all. (Williams, 2/1)
The New York Times: Questions Remain After Highway Crash Involving Monkeys
In the 11 days since a truck hauling 100 monkeys from Mauritius crashed in Pennsylvania, one woman who got close to the scattered crates of monkeys on the highway has been treated for possible symptoms of illness. ... No other reports of possible illness related to the crash have emerged, according to state and federal health officials, who said it was not known whether the Pennsylvania woman’s symptoms were related to the cynomolgus macaques, which were being quarantined and monitored for diseases. Experts said that direct exposure to monkey saliva or feces could be dangerous, but that the risk of a broader outbreak was low. (Levenson, 2/1)
KHN: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Know Your ‘No Surprises’ Rights
On Jan. 1, Americans woke up with some new protections from giant medical bills. Meet the No Surprises Act. It’s a new law that protects patients from one of the worst experiences the U.S. health care system has to offer — surprise out-of-network hospital bills. That’s when a person gets hit with a bill from an out-of-network provider at an in-network hospital. Under the new law, if a person visits an in-network hospital and is seen by an out-of-network provider, that provider and the insurer have to work it out for themselves. Patients are only on the hook for what they would’ve paid an in-network provider. That’s a big deal. (Weissmann, 2/2)
In news about covid's economic toll —
Stateline: Evictions Rise To Pre-Pandemic Levels
Dionna Jackson, 40, sat on a long wooden bench nervously scrolling through old text messages on her phone while waiting for her eviction case to be called Monday. More than 87 people joined her in Harris County Judge Lincoln Goodwin’s packed courtroom. “I’ve found a place for me and my children to stay,” said Jackson, who has three school-aged children. “I just need a few weeks for my income tax [refund] to come in.” Jackson applied for the Texas Rent Relief Program in October when she first lost her job, but her application has not been processed. She found a new job that pays much less, but because she fell behind two months in rent, the late fees have increased her bill by more than $300 each month. (Hernández, 2/1)
Bloomberg: Health, Housing Hit Budgets Of Older Americans Even Before Covid
Older Americans spent a growing share of their budgets on housing and health care in the decade through 2020, according to new data from the Social Security Administration. That squeeze could get worse in the coming years, with some economists warning that prices in those areas -- which haven’t so far risen as much as the overall inflation rate -- may climb. While overall spending by older Americans didn’t change that much from 2010 to 2020, there were shifts in its composition, the SSA found. (Tanzi, 2/1)
Axios: Health Care Inflation Trails Broader Inflation, But Not For Long
Economy-wide inflation has outpaced health care inflation by a wide margin since last April, but Americans should expect health care prices to rise more soon. Companies can raise the prices of food, furniture and other commodities immediately. That's not how it works in health care, where prices are set by government programs or negotiated with private insurers in advance and are reflected in economic data later. Consumer prices are increasing faster than at any other point in the past 40 years. (Herman, 2/2)
Bloomberg: Fewest Americans Ever Are Laid Off In Frenzy To Retain Workers
The fewest number of U.S. workers were laid off in December, highlighting businesses’ desperation to retain talent. Just 1.2 million Americans were dismissed from their jobs, the least in data back to 2001, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed Tuesday. That translated into a layoffs and discharge rate of 0.8%, also a record low. (Wahid, 2/1)
