‘Who Shot You?’ ER Personnel Could Help Fill Gap On Missing Police Violence Data
With little data available on how many people are shot by police, a criminologist sees potential in emergency departments. Meanwhile, news outlets report on other public health developments related to pain management for newborns, new poultry safety standards, problems with the BMI ratings and a $100-million lawsuit related to the Flint water crisis.
NPR:
Could Hospital ERs Provide Missing Data On Police Shootings?
For the past two years, Joseph Richardson has been trying to figure out how to keep young black men with knife and gunshot wounds from turning up again with similar injuries at Prince George's Hospital Trauma Center outside Washington, D.C. Richardson is director of the Violence Intervention Research Project at the trauma center. When these men are admitted, he shows up at their rooms to ask them to take part in his ongoing study on risk factors for repeat violent injuries. Sometimes he finds them handcuffed to a hospital bed, guarded by a police officer or two. Richardson has to walk away. The patients are under arrest and off-limits to him. (Rancano, 2/4)
WBUR:
Calls For Better Pain Relief Measures For Newborns, Premature Infants
What could be more heartbreaking than witnessing some of the smallest, sickest babies undergoing painful medical procedures? Yet that’s precisely the population subject to some of the most intrusive prodding and pricking, the “greatest number of painful stimuli” in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. (Zimmerman, 2/4)
The Des Moines Register:
Poultry Standards Toughened To Prevent Salmonella
Chicken wings, legs and breasts could be safer to eat as part of new standards finalized Thursday by the federal government. The Agriculture Department said the new measures would reduce salmonella and campylobacter in ground chicken and turkey and raw chicken breasts, legs and wings, preventing an average of 50,000 food-borne illnesses annually. (Doering, 2/4)
Los Angeles Times:
BMI Mislabels 54 Million Americans As 'Overweight' Or 'Obese,' Study Says
Good news for some in the high-BMI crowd: A new study from UCLA finds that some 54 million Americans who are labeled as obese or overweight according to their body mass index are, when you take a closer look, actually healthy. The findings, published in the International Journal of Obesity, reveal that employers could potentially saddle people with unfairly high health insurance costs based on a deeply flawed measure of actual health. (Khan, 2/4)
Modern Healthcare:
Flint Hospital, State Hit With $100M Lawsuit Over Legionnaires' Outbreak
A $100 million lawsuit has been filed against McLaren Flint hospital and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on behalf of four patients who allegedly contracted Legionnaires' disease while being treated at the hospital. The plaintiffs in the case (PDF) say they contracted the bacterial pneumonia shortly after being treated at McLaren Flint between 2014 and 2015. In mid-2014 Flint changed its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, whose water is now understood to be so corrosive that it leached unsafe levels of lead from the city's water pipes. (Rubenfire, 2/4)
And in consumer cost news —
Kaiser Health News:
Study: 29 Percent Of Colonoscopy Patients May Have Unneeded Pre-Screening Visits
Nearly a third of patients who get colonoscopies to screen for cancer visit a gastroenterologist before having the procedure, at an average cost of $124, even though such visits may be unnecessary, a new study found. (Andrews, 2/5)
