Prevention Matters

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- which has been participating in daily meetings with members of the Obama administration, Congress and the Treasury Department -- has "found a surprising number of places to agree" with Obama's agenda, including issues such as health care, Politico reports.

Chamber President and CEO Thomas Donohue in an interview with Politico said that there have been "five or six or seven things that everybody can agree to" on health care -- including "wellness, children's diabetes and obesity, (information technology)" -- but that there "are a lot of things (there are) going to be big debates about, and that's reimbursement rates and who's paying and all that."

He said the Chamber hopes to "figure out a way to stay at the table to advance the discussion and to find ways to drive these people to some common agreement, without going over the line." However, Donohue added, "Are we going to stop the world and turn off everything else and do health care? I don't think so."

The state of Ohio’s new obesity prevention strategy was named Partnership for Prevention’s Best Prevention Idea of the Week, while recent cuts in the number of health reporters in the U.S. was named the Worst Prevention Idea of the week.

The Best/Worst Idea awards are a regular feature of Prevention Matters, the blog of Partnership for Prevention. Each week, Partnership for Prevention's staff will choose the designees based on nominations of items in the previous week’s news submitted by members, staff and the public at large. To submit a nomination or for more information, contact Damon Thompson at dthompson@prevent.org .


BEST IDEA

Ohio health plan focuses on obesity prevention

The Ohio Department of Health released a statewide obesity prevention plan that places a priority on promoting more access to healthy food and exercise. It also says state officials should focus efforts on preventing more Ohioans from becoming obese, rather than promoting weight-loss among those already seriously overweight.

WORST IDEA

News Organizations Cutting Back on Health Coverage

At a time when public discussion is sorely needed on health reform issues, a new report examining the state of health care journalism showed that many reporters feel they’re sailing into a headwind at their organizations. Forty percent of respondents said the number of health reporters has gone down since they started at their news organization. More than 9 in 10 health journalists said bottom-line pressures in media organizations were hurting the quality of news coverage of health issues. Nearly 40 percent said it was either very likely or somewhat likely that their position will be eliminated in the next three years.

Hang in there; we value your work.

Tobacco is still the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. today, but we may have some real opportunities to make substantial progress in changing that. Increases in federal and state tobacco taxes combined with mass education campaigns are sending a record number of people to telephone quitlines seeking advice on how to stop smoking. We’ll be discussing these factors with Paul Billings, Vice President for National Policy and Advocacy at the American Lung Association.

Anyone familiar with Partnership for Prevention’s work and activities knows that “real health reform starts with prevention.” Implicit within this assertion is the conviction that the issue is health reform, not just health care reform. Partnership has always promoted this idea-it is the central premise of our Principles for Prevention-Centered Health Reform and all of our health reform recommendations.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America further developed this theme with the release April 2 of its 10 recommendations for improving the nation’s health. By concentrating on evidence-based interventions and programs that are outside the health care system, the Commission emphasizes the need to have a broader view of health to generate a healthier nation.

Three aspects of the recommendations are particularly worth noting:

• The Commission addresses the main causes of poor health. Half of the recommendations deal directly with the three primary actual causes of death in the United States-smoking, poor diet, and physical inactivity;
• The Commission focuses on working as “upstream” as possible in the age continuum. Determinants of health and health behavior habits start early in life, therefore any policy or program implementation must begin with our children; and
• The Commission recognizes the role that non-health factors play in the health of the country. Policies related to transportation, housing, infrastructure, agriculture, and the environment all have a “health impact,” and developing healthy communities requires measuring that impact.

Finally, these recommendations are consistent with Partnership’s emphasis on the significance that community prevention plays in health reform, and we look forward to collaborating with the Commission and other partners to advance interventions that will have a greater impact on health than increased access to medical care, improved health insurance coverage, less medical errors, or health IT. As we say in our principles, “The nation will get a much greater return on investment by focusing on health improvements in communities, schools, and worksites rather than focusing solely on what occurs in traditional healthcare settings, such as doctors’ offices and hospitals.”

Read more on Partnership’s health reform efforts at www.prevent.org/healthreform. The Commission to Build a Healthier America’s recommendations can be found on its website at http://www.commissiononhealth.org/.

- Jason Spangler, MD, MPH

The week of April 5 - April 12 marks the observance of the first-ever "National Workplace Wellness Week." This podcast features Congressman Charles Boustany Jr of Louisiana, one of the original sponsors of legislation passed by Congress last fall to create this week as a way to help "recognize the importance of workplace wellness as a strategy to maximize employee's health and well-being." Boustany, who is also a physician, talks about the significance of this observance, the importance of workplace wellness in general, and his appreciation for the value of prevention. To listen to the podcast, click on the media player below.

Octo-Mom placed the challenges posed by infertility treatments squarely in the public eye, but in this and other discussions of infertility and its treatment, I never remember anyone mentioning that some infertility can actually be prevented.

It turns out that various infections, with chlamydia being the most common especially in young women, can progress to pelvic inflammatory disease which, untreated, can result in infertility and other serious reproductive tract problems. In pregnant women, chlamydia infections may be passed to the newborn. Surprised? I was.

And more alarming, by the time they reach 25, 1 in 2 young people will contract an STD and most will not know it. Chlamydia and other infections can be detected by a simple, non-invasive urine test and treated with an antibiotic. Yet this year, the rates of chlamydia infection continued to climb to record highs according to the CDC.

So why aren’t all sexually active young women routinely receiving this evidence-based preventive medical care? Public awareness is low and some young women incorrectly assume that they are tested for STDs whenever they receive a Pap test. Healthcare providers face barriers from lack of reimbursement for screening tests (as opposed to testing a patient with symptoms), to misperceptions that “my patients” aren’t the type to get this infection, to concerns about being able to confidentially treat a young person whose medical coverage is in a parent’s name.

Partnership for Prevention, working closely with CDC, has convened key groups interested in improving screening rates into the National Chlamydia Coalition and has developed a guide for healthcare providers to make screening a routine part of medical care. Read more at www.prevent.org/NCC.

The U.K.’s plan to offer all residents over 40 a free health screening was named Partnership for Prevention’s Best Prevention Idea of the Week, while the U.S. Border Patrol’s plan to widely spray a chemical herbicide near the city of Nuevo Laredo’s water supply was named the Worst Prevention Idea of the week.

The Best/Worst Idea awards are a regular feature of Prevention Matters, the blog of Partnership for Prevention. Each week, Partnership for Prevention's staff will choose the designees based on nominations of items in the previous week’s news submitted by members, staff and the public at large. To submit a nomination or for more information, contact Damon Thompson at dthompson@prevent.org .


BEST IDEA

UK to Launch Ambitious Health Screening Program

The UK is pressing ahead with plans to give all people in England over the age of 40 a free health screening as part of a new, heavier focus on disease prevention to better the health of the nation, tackle health inequalities, and help the National Health Service cope with the increasing demands of an aging population. The idea behind the health check – plans for which were first touted back in 2006 and then confirmed last year - is that patients at risk of developing serious illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes will be picked up on the radar much earlier, allowing for quicker lifestyle or drug-based interventions to either ward off or better treat potentially life-threatening conditions.

Under the plans, from next month everyone in England will be invited to undergo a free health check in order to identify those at risk of developing serious and expensive to manage/treat illnesses such as coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease, as well as better inform people of these conditions, in a move which the government claims will help to save 650 lives and prevent 1,600 heart attacks every year.

The health check will be centered on questions regarding patients’ general health, lifestyles, family medical history, height and weight measurements, cholesterol and where necessary blood glucose tests, and will be followed up with a personal assessment of disease risk and recommendations on how to best reduce it, at an annual cost of around £330 million.


WORST IDEA

Border Patrol to Spray Chemical Herbicide near City Water Supply

The U.S. Border Patrol intends to employ a chemical herbicide in order to eradicate stands of the Carrizo cane, an invasive plant that grows as tall as 30 feet and provides convenient cover for undocumented border crossers and smugglers. The variety of Carrizo cane that is common in the Laredo-Del Rio borderlands is from the region of Valencia, Spain.

Concerned about risks to public health from possible herbicide spray drift, runoff and leaching, officials from the city government of neighboring Nuevo Laredo are steadfastly opposed to aerial spraying. “I’ve always been respectful of the law and sovereignty,” said Nuevo Laredo Mayor Ramon Garza Barrios. “But herbicides that affect health in both countries can’t be sprayed.”

The zone targeted for spraying is across the Rio Grande from Nuevo Laredo’s Hidalgo neighborhood and only hundreds of yards from the Mexican city’s public water intake system. Carlos Montiel Saeb, general manager for Nuevo Laredo’s water utility, said the Border Patrol advised his office to turn off water pumps a few hours prior to spraying. “If there is no problem, why are they asking us to do this?” Montiel questioned.