UnitedHealth's Optum has rather quietly assembled ~90,000 physicians into its provider empire
But its acquisition of a 100-provider clinic in Oregon is drawing outsized scrutiny due to Oregon's oversight and transparency laws, which may be the new norm
Yikes. "data released under Freedom of Information laws last year revealed 5,614 people were suspected to have caught #COVID in Victorian public hospitals between 2020 and April 2023, with more than one in 10 confirmed or suspected to have died as a result of their infection. In Queensland, similar data shows an average of 13 people caught COVID in hospital every day in the 18 months to June last year, with one patient dying every two days."
Why a cheap, effective treatment for diarrhoea is underused
write up on Nature.com for Wagner et al, 2024 in Science
“We think of doctors as neutral decision-makers based on what is best for the patient, and that is often not the case. Doctors make decisions based on what makes a patient happy,” he says, which has an underlying financial motive. “If a patient is not happy with you, they are not going to keep coming back.”
Today is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. The H in HIV stands for human. HIV can affect anyone regardless of their sexual orientation, race, gender, or age. Together, we can work to overcome structural barriers to HIV testing, prevention, and treatment. This #NBHAAD, let’s educate ourselves and one another about the facts and #StopHIVStigma. Learn how: https://bit.ly/3FVRYDt
Did you know that circumcision rose to prominence in the English-speaking world due to the belief that masturbation caused all sorts of health problems?
Circumcision's history is detailed in R. Darby's book, "A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain". Chapter 3 covers this in detail, "Pathologizing Male Sexuality: The Masturbation Phobia and the Invention of Spermatorrhea"
Prevalence of Technology-Facilitated Abuse Among Sexual and Gender Minority Youths
Turner et al. 2024, JAMA Pediatrics
"This study demonstrates the risk of technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) among sexual and gender minority youths and the need to target prevention efforts toward these vulnerable groups. ... efforts to lower the risk of early sexual abuse, bullying, and maltreatment are likely to also be effective in decreasing TFA"
New research found that Black and Latina cisgender women have low awareness of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for the prevention of HIV. The women interviewed proposed different ideas for interventions, including support groups, education, community-level programs, and structural interventions. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37796358/ #Health#PublicHealth#Healthcare#MedMastodon@publichealth
Kids with special needs who are in single-parent families, get most of their healthcare in clinics, or have anxiety, autism, or depression are among those less likely to receive family-centered care, finds new research by Paul L. Morgan and colleagues at Penn State University's Population Research Institute and SRI.
Eine neue Methode, die #Tomoelastografie, könnte die Überwachung der #MultipleSklerose verbessern, indem sie nichtinvasiv die Festigkeit der Hirnrinde misst. Das zeigen jetzt Forschende von #CharitéBerlin & @MDC_Berlin Hier erläutern sie ihre Ergebnisse:
New analysis finds that adolescents with moderate nutrition knowledge were less likely to have high body mass index (BMI) compared to those with low knowledge. However, there was no association between parental dietary knowledge and adolescents' BMI. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37872636/
Need academic help. I am writing about asthma in my literature review. Do I need to find a scholarly source for the symptoms of asthma or do I just assume people know what they are? #AcadmicChatter#PhDLife#MedMastodon
How can public #health (PH) battle misinformation? One of the problems (among many) they had during the pandemic is variation in messages and communication from different agencies, and changes in messages over time. Maybe PH agencies should work together, pool their resrouces and hire experts in communication -- a large PR firm such as Hill & Knowlton. They create communications programs that can target different audiences, different regions, they do things like create focus groups to determine the best messaging approaches to get concepts across, and use marketing psychology techniques that I'm pretty sure public health agencies and other scientific groups don't use.
Hiring an agency is expensive, but may have helped reduced some of the issues around #vaccines, #masks and sources of disease.
A story about a #hospital in Boston that went into debt, and lacked equipment that could save lives.
Yet another angle to problems with a non-public #healthcare system.
Another article that further explains how Steward left this and many other hospitals broke.
Hadn't paid enough attention to know if Steward was a "Boston media darling". Would you agree?
"Erstwhile Boston media darling Steward Health Care has been strip-mining hospitals for a decade now. The power elite may finally be paying attention."
Adults who had a household family member with extensive health needs had higher odds of delaying or forgoing their own needed health care.
Being female, uninsured, and having a household income ≤ 400% of the Federal Poverty Level was associated with higher risk of having unmet healthcare needs.
“I have seen the effects of dehumanizing medical care – and the difference it makes when a patient feels they are being respected, not just ‘treated’.”
How “relational medicine” is attempting to provide person-centered solutions - a new name for an old philosophy
Babies Exposed to COVID in the Womb Are More Likely to Suffer Breathing Problems | Scientific American
“COVID vaccination in the mothers conferred significant protection to their baby, the researchers found. Infants whose mother received at least one dose of an mRNA vaccine were 67 percent less likely to experience serious breathing problems than those whose mother was unvaccinated.” #COVID19#RespiratoryDistress#Pregnancy#MedMastodon
"...regarding two bills that are currently pending and on which testimony will be heard on January 25th: HB1683-FN (Children’s Body Autonomy Act stopping Medicaid funding of circumcision) and HB1706-FN (Circumcision Transparency Act requiring that New Hampshire parents be fully informed before agreeing to having their son circumcised)."
Stress in adolescence and early adulthood may contribute to the development of cardiometabolic diseases later in life, according to a new study led by Fangqi Guo at USC.
Researchers looked at the health information of 276 participants from the Southern California Children’s Health Study from 2003-2014 and a follow-up assessment from 2018-2021.
Participants with a consistently high adolescence‐to‐adulthood stress pattern had greater overall cardiometabolic risk, percent body fat, and odds of obesity in adulthood, compared with those with consistently low perceived stress. In adulthood, higher perceived stress was associated with increased overall cardiometabolic risk and higher blood pressure.
Rape-Related Pregnancies in the 14 US States With Total Abortion Bans
Dickman et al., 2024
"...rape exceptions fail to provide reasonable access to abortion for survivors. Survivors of rape who become pregnant in states with abortion bans may seek a self-managed abortion or try to travel (often hundreds of miles) to a state where abortion is legal, leaving many without a practical alternative to carrying the pregnancy to term."
The role of emotion in clinical decision making: an integrative literature review
Kozlowski et al., 2017, BMC Med Ed
"Clinicians’ experienced emotions can and do affect clinical decision making, although acknowledgement of that is far from universal. Importantly, this occurs in the in the absence of a clear theoretical framework and educational preparation may not reflect the importance of emotional competence to effective CDM."
✨Appel à participant·es : dans le cadre d'un essai clinique, le service d’addictologie du CHU de Nîmes recherche des sujets souffrant de trouble lié à l’usage de l’alcool et de signes de dépression.