Kentucky Conference on Health Communication

For those that might have missed it, the Kentucky Conference on Health Communication has posted its call for papers. From the website:

The 10th biennial Kentucky Conference on Health Communication invites competitive papers, posters, and panel proposals to be submitted for its 2008 conference in Lexington, Kentucky. The theme for this year’s conference is The Future of Health Communication: Where Are We Going and How Do We Get There? While this call seeks original contributions in all areas related to issues in health communication, special consideration will be given to those that address issues related to the conference theme.

It looks like it should be a good conference, so mark that December 9th deadline on your calendars!

Family Economic Security in Texas

Yesterday I attended an colloquium sponsored by the Center for Health and Social Policy (CHASP) at UT. It was about family economic security, and how much it costs to live in different metropolitan areas of Texas. Their Family Budget Estimator Project website has a lot of useful information on the topic.

Some of their stats were pretty interesting, and it was particularly enlightening to see some of the incentive systems in place and how (at times) they really discourage people from making a little more money - such as if they make an extra $.50/hour and that pushes them to an income level that would make them lose different types of government support.

I'm sure there are similar reports and websites for other states, that was just a great picture of some of the things that Texas is doing both good and bad.

Rise in Double Mastectomies

There's a great article in The New York Times about the rise in women opting for double mastectomies. From the article:

More women with breast cancer are choosing to have their healthy breast surgically removed along with their affected breast, a new study has found. Almost 5 percent of patients decided to have the radical procedure in 2003, up from just under 2 percent in 1998.

This reminded me of a project I heard a friend talking about, regarding genetic screening for different factors that were more likely to result in breast cancer. There were two groups, those who had the genetic factors that would make breast cancer more likely, and those that wouldn't. One would expect that more women in the group that had the genetic factors would opt to get the preemptive mastectomies. That, of course, wouldn't necessarily make for a great story or project, though... The surprising finding was that the same number of women in each group decided to have preemptive mastectomies.

Just more proof, as far as I'm concerned, that people don't completely understand some of the complicated science behind healthcare advances. It's also a statement of the lack of rational decision making that (at times) is involved in healthcare.

Moratorium on New Fast Food Restaurants in South L.A.

This past Thursday night I was observing a focus group of low-income dads, regarding the challenges they face raising healthy kids. One of the things that popped up near the end of the conversation was one man's desire to have fewer McDonald's (and other similar restaurants) opening up constantly. His view was this was rather unlikely, though.

Well, it might not be if he lived in south Los Angeles. From USA Today:

Believing that a diet heavy on fast food is contributing to a rise in obesity and health problems, the Los Angeles City Council is about to consider a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South L.A.

While it wouldn't close Lopez's restaurant of choice, the plan is to hold off on any new ones while city planners try to find ways to attract restaurants with a wider variety of food offerings to neighborhoods with some of the city's largest concentrations of minority and low-income residents.

I think this is an interesting strategy for addressing the problem, and I hope it works out the way it could. If there's one thing I've pulled out of these focus groups, it's the impact that easy, cheap fast food has on these families. They understand that the food isn't healthy, but a lot of times they just can't manage anything else. If there was similarly-priced healthy options available, I'm pretty sure they'd make that choice.

Pew Report: E-patients With a Disability or Chronic Disease

This morning I was listening to an interview with Susannah Fox, who works on the Pew Internet & American Life Project. She talked about her grandma, who used the Internet as she got older. Her grandma's last words on Earth? "Delete my e-mail." Ah, progress!

The interview was regarding the release of Pew's new E-patients With a Disability or Chronic Disease report. From the summary:

About a fifth of American adults say that a disability, handicap, or chronic disease keeps them from participating fully in work, school, housework, or other activities. Half of those living with a disability or chronic disease go online, compared to 74% of those who report no chronic conditions. Fully 86% of internet users living with disability or chronic illness have looked online for information about at least one of 17 health topics, compared with 79% of internet users with no chronic conditions.

For more information, you can download the entire report as a PDF here.

Manufacturers Remove Drugs for Infant Cold

The New York Times has a good article online about manufacturers removing over-the-counter (OTC) cold and cough medications for infants:

The withdrawal comes two weeks after safety reviewers within the Food and Drug Administration urged the agency to consider an outright ban of over-the-counter cough and cold products for children under 6. Even the industry’s main trade group, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, recommended two weeks ago that the products not be used in infants.

I first heard about this on one of my podcasts (might have been one of the NYT ones focused on health) a few days ago. The podcast was based around an interview with a doctor/researcher that was studying the use of these products in infants. They weren't shown to do anything and could potentially have negative side effects. So it's no surprise that these things are being pulled, with no real proven benefits and potential side effects...

The Cost of Chronic Diseases

A recent report by the Milken Institute finds that chronic diseases cost the U.S. $1.1 trillion per year. There is a great website, Chronic Disease Impact, where users can browse through the results, investigate results by state, etc. A very handy resource, to be sure.

When reading the write-up of the results over at RWJ, though, this line caught my eye:

Funded in part by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America, the study...

I don't think I'm being overly-cynical to suggest that some people might be skeptical of the results when they see who funded the project and report. It's an interesting credibility issue, when news of something like this appears on RWJ (and other well-respected news sources), citing a study funded by an industry group like PhRMA. Does PhRMA have an agenda with the research? Did that agenda influence study results in any way?

I'm not saying that PhRMA had an explicit agenda before this started, because the data from the study would certainly be more useful to them if it was objective. But it points to the potential issues present when the general public reads reports of health research, because some might not believe the study results due to the source of research funding.

Breast Cancer Confusion

The New York Times has a great article about common mistakes in women's understanding of breast cancer. One interesting segment of the article:

Over half of women, for instance, said family history is the most common risk factor for breast cancer. But the truth is that genes known to increase the risk are rare and are estimated to account for only 5 percent to 10 percent of breast cancer cases.

In fact, the biggest risk factor for breast cancer is increasing age — 80 percent of these cancers occur in women over 50. The numbers are important, because every woman needs to be vigilant about early detection, not just those women with a family history of the disease.

There are some other interesting findings in there, including mistakes related to the understanding of statistics and rates of breast cancer. That last is particularly unsurprising, I think, since the general knowledge of statistics and science in the population at large doesn't seem to be sufficient to understand the complicated communication that often comes along with media reports of health issues.

Plenty of interesting issues to study here...