What “common sense” knowledge, or even cutting edge science about health has changed since you were in school?
Midwives and the U.S.
As a childfree/childless adult, giving birth is not something that I think about a lot on a personal level, but it is something that most of my clients, many of my friends and family will at some point do, if they have not already.
In college, my friends and I watched The Business of Being Born one night (a wild college rager!) and it made a really big impression. Birth outcomes in the United States are not great. Other countries, with robust cultures of midwives, have much better birth outcomes. What is the relationship there?
I think this video from Vox does a great job showing the racist roots of the decline of midwifery practice in the United States. If you want to learn more – I suggest Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English’s text Witches, Midwives and Nurses: a History of Women Healers (link to PDF), to see how culture has shaped the way women’s health is practiced.
Flint is Still Dealing with the Impact of Poisoned Water
The state of Michigan has just ended the free bottled water program for residents in Flint, Michigan although the process of replacing old lead pipes for thousands of residents continues. Testing shows that lead levels have dropped beneath the federal action limit, but for residents who lived through the state’s mismanagement of the Flint Water Crisis, concerns obviously remain.
Clean, accessible water is essential for human life. Adding to the frustration is that companies like Nestle were granted permission by the state to pump water near Flint:
[T]he governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, announced on Friday that city residents would no longer receive free bottled water from the state.
Instead, residents will have to pay some of the steepest tap water prices in the country: around $200 per month for water they aren’t even sure is safe to drink.
To put all of this into perspective, Nestle pays around $200 per year to pump almost 100,000 times the amount of water that the average Michigan resident uses.
And now, the company has been given the go ahead to pump nearly double that amount – with no additional cost, of course.
I have a hard time putting my frustration and anger about this into words. Devaluing human life and suffering while promoting corporate profits… This is not the best that we can do.
“In 21st-Century America, no woman should die in childbirth.” … But they do
“Maternity care desert is is where there is limited access for women who are pregnant.”
Access to health care is not just as simple as facilities being open. The distance someone has to travel to get to that facility also matters. The people who live in “Maternity Desert” in Washington , D.C. are predominantly African American, making this not just an issue of access but also racial inequality in health care access.
This video does a great job showing the effects of this unequal access on one woman, Amber, whose story demonstrates how the distance she needs to travel for health care impacts her health care and her employment. All of these issues intersect, and make it more difficult to carry a healthy pregnancy. This is unfortunately an issue that women all over the country face, not just in D.C. We should do better for families.
What do you see?
What would a kid see here?
Sesame Street Tackles Adverse Childhood Experiences
A special initiative from Sesame Street, called Sesame Street in Communities, has created videos, worksheets, and educational tools to help children deal with trauma.
A study that began in 1995, the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, established that trauma experience, particularly repeated or multiple sources of trauma, can have long-term health impacts on one’s physical and mental health, and even contribute to shortened life expectancy. Addressing the impacts of trauma early, building resilience, and changing the context to remove children and families from traumatic environments, can really make a big difference in making sure people who have experienced traumatic events can bounce back and live the healthiest lives they can.
I can’t remember when I first heard about the ACEs study, I may have been in high school or college, but it immediately made so much sense to me. I have family members who grew up with a lot of trauma, and it gave so much context to the ways they had learned to cope with the effects of those traumatic events. Now that I work with (mostly adult) survivors of domestic violence, I have an even deeper appreciation for the ACEs research and how research on ACEs can get translated into resources for people who have experienced a lot of trauma.
Whether you work with people who children who have experienced trauma or not, I think the whole resource from Sesame Street in Communities is worth looking at because it does a really good job at explaining how trauma works and really easy, tangible coping mechanisms adults can do with children who have experienced trauma. Often children and adults have experienced trauma together, and the adults may need some coaching themselves on how to best help their kids.
This video in particular, meant for adults, is a good, short and impactful demonstration of how children of different ages may react to traumatic events different, and ends with a positive example of how adults can step in to help children.
Sesame Street in Communities included this information along with the video:
As you watch this video of two children’s different responses, consider these questions: What do you notice that is the same in the children’s responses to the traumatic experience? What is different? How does the grandfather make a difference in the end?
The symptoms of having experienced trauma can be different at every age and for every individual child. Every child’s response is unique. Some children “bounce back” after adversity; others show intense distress. Responses can go beyond immediate reactions to traumatic events and damage the child’s brain and nervous system, as well as overall physical health, creating long-term social, emotional, and physical problems. Trauma affects the whole body and the entire emotional world of the person experiencing it.
It can be very difficult to identify trauma in young children, so it’s important to watch for behavioral changes.
I haven’t looked at the site on a mobile device yet, but it is something I’m really interested in from an academic perspective, but also I think it will be really helpful for families and caregivers who have children who have experienced trauma and will definitely be referring people to this website.
Good Ratings ≠ Good Debate
“Looking back, it’s bananas that anyone included the Tobacco Institute in public health debates.”
While I stand firmly in the camp of gun control, I understand (some) of the reasons why others may want to own guns. However, it is bananas that when gun control debates are presented on television, they’re presented generally between victims of gun violence or advocates against gun violence and a lobbying group for guns. This skewed presentation of opinion influences the way people perceive the debate on gun control. How many times have you faced someone on the opposite side of an issue and felt like there was no possible middle ground?
Americans, including gun owners, have different opinions from the NRA! In fact, the majority of Americans are in favor of common sense gun control measures.
Much like public opinion on abortion, public opinion on gun control is more nuanced than than it is presented in the news. And it’s changed through time!
Going back to the comparison of the tobacco lobby and public health debates on smoking, public opinion and knowledge about the harms caused by smoking changed as people’s awareness changed. I think it is helpful to think about the (former) power of the tobacco lobby when thinking about the current power of the gun lobby because these things do change in time, but there are some key cultural and demographic differences. From a Harvard Political Review article:
In contrast to tobacco—which was used across all of America by all Americans—only a certain subset of Americans owns guns and cares about gun rights. The majority of gun owners fall within specific demographic categories. According to a 2013 Pew Research Center Study white Americans are much more likely to own a gun than Americans of other races… Overall, 61 percent of all gun owners are white men, who comprise just 32 percent of the general population. Gun rights advocates tend to be conservative and vote Republican… Guns don’t cut across socioeconomic, gender, and racial boundaries like tobacco did before 1964; rather, they exist within demographic boundaries.
Unlike tobacco, where the relationship between use and harm was unknown, there are readily available studies linking guns to homicides and violence. Studies have proven a nearly linear relationship between the level of gun ownership and a number of gun deaths…
There is an abundance of material to shock gun owners in the same way that smokers were jolted, revealing the damage that guns can cause… Between 1966 to 2012, nearly a third of the worlds’ mass shootings occurred in the United States, a country with just 5 percent of the world’s population… gun-owners cannot be shocked like smokers were. The equivalent of the Surgeon General’s report—the mass shootings and research—have only caused gun owners to dig in their heels further.
The interpretation of the second amendment that is currently championed by the NRA and many people who are against gun control reform is also relatively new. Legal interpretations of the Second Amendment have changed, and the culture of gun ownership has as well. The Harvard Political Review article also explains [Emphasis mine]:
Prior to the late twentieth century, the Second Amendment was never interpreted as conferring an individual right to bear arms, but rather the right to keep a well-regulated militia. From 1888 to 1959 not a single law articlewas passed advocating such a right. However, in the 1970s, libertarian scholars, often funded by the NRA, began a revisionist history on the Second Amendment, publishing troves of articles arguing that it conferred an individual right to bear arms. Public opinion followed. According to a Gallup Poll, by 2008, 73 percent of Americans believed that the Second Amendment “’guaranteed the rights of Americans to own guns’ outside a militia.” That same year, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court agreed.
The power of the NRA to spend money on political campaigns and advertising also cannot be ignored. Their power to use the media and control how politicians feel obligated to vote is influenced by their spending, and in turn, their priorities are reflected in the way laws are created (or not created), even though their opinions do not match those of the general public.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, special interests like the NRA have been able to flood our elections with money. It’s given them outsized influence and taken the voice away from the American people, who overwhelmingly support commonsense gun safety measures, such as comprehensive background checks or blocking terrorists from buying guns.
The NRA’s political spending has tripled since the Citizens United decision in 2010. In 2014 alone, the NRA spent nearly $30 million to influence elections.
Worse, Citizens United has allowed a handful of billionaires to funnel millions of dollars to groups like the NRA for them to spend in elections. For example, the Koch brothers’ network has given the NRA more than $10 million since 2010.
When lobbies like the NRA have that much power, what is the point of allowing them to debate on national television? Their priorities are connected to their financial interests, not the interests of real citizens.
If we want to experience real debates between people on opposite sides of issues, particularly when they are public health issues, we should stop inviting lobbies to the table and just speak to the people.
Quick hit from Vox: Why eating healthy is so expensive in America
Taxing Our Way to Health
Philadelphia has taxed sugary beverages for just over a year, but regulations and taxes like this are popping up all over the world.
In Chile, policy makers have won one of the biggest battles against powerful sugar, junk food, and soda lobbies. Corporations are prohibited from using cartoon characters in advertising, cannot play commercials during children’s programming, and schools have strict guidelines about what kinds of food can be sold on campus and during the school day. They also have a high tax on soda and will be enacting stricter guidelines for advertising in the next two years.
From the NYT article:
Until the late 1980s, malnutrition was widespread among poor Chileans, especially children. Today, three-quarters of adults are overweight or obese, according to the country’s health ministry. Officials have been particularly alarmed by childhood obesity rates that are among the world’s highest, with over half of 6-year-old children overweight or obese.
In 2016, the medical costs of obesity reached $800 million, or 2.4 percent of all health care spending, a figure that analysts say will reach nearly 4 percent in 2030.
Such sobering statistics helped rally a coalition of elected officials, scientists and public health advocates who overcame fierce opposition from food companies and their allies in government.
“It was a hard-fought guerrilla war,” said Senator Guido Girardi, vice president of the Chilean senate and a doctor who first proposed the regulations in 2007. “People have a right to know what these food companies are putting in this trash, and with this legislation, I think Chile has made a huge contribution to humanity.”
Other countries, are of course, facing similar struggles. I know soda taxes are unpopular and controversial (I work right by City Hall in Philadelphia and was subject to blaring truck horns of soda distributers protesting the soda tax before it was passed) but I think they’re a really interesting and important tool in the fight for better nutrition and fair advertising. That said, I think there are lots of legitimate reasons why people feel icky about soda taxes! While I’m generally in favor of them, it does feel not great that the tax burden of these increase falls disproportionately with low-income shoppers while there aren’t significant efforts to make healthy food more affordable and accessible.
Other articles of interest:
How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food – 9.16.17 from the New York Times
Congress Could Cut Soda and Candy from SNAP, but Big Sugar is Pushing Back – 8.28.17 from Civil Eats
Links Roundup: Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality
Higher rates of maternal death among Black women in the US have been evident in research for a long time but have lately gotten a lot more mainstream coverage. The increase in coverage is important to raising awareness and implementing changes in health care that would improve outcomes, but it has unfortunately come out of tragic deaths and near misses among new mothers, including Erica Garner and Shalon Irving.
Serena Williams’ Birthing Experience Highlights The Danger Of Being Black And Postpartum (1.10.18 via Essence) Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time, experienced a near-fatal blood clot shortly after giving birth. Her own knowledge and self-advocacy helped clue medical professionals in to save her life.
Black mothers are dying: the toll of racism on maternal health (1.11.18 via STAT) This is an op-ed, so it doesn’t go quite as depth as some of the other articles I’m linking, but I think it’s a good one because it gives an overview of many of the factors that contribute to the racial disparity in maternal deaths, from preventative care and the policies that dictate accessibility, to institutional racism in medical professions.
Too many black women like Erica Garner are dying in America’s maternal mortality crisis (1.10.18 via Vox) Activist Erica Garner died within months of giving birth. Her death, particularly in light of her anti-racist activism, highlights the relationship between experience of racism and poor health outcomes for women of color. Vox writes:
Research has shown that a number of factors, including poor access to pre- and postnatal care, chronic stress, and the effects of racism, and inadequate medical treatment in the years preceding childbirth are all likely to play a role in a black woman’s likelihood to suffer life-threatening complications in the months that come before and after childbirth.
These issues might appear to suggest that the disparity between black women and white women dying from pregnancy-related causes is due to economic differences, but research has found that black women in higher economic brackets are still more likely than white women to die from pregnancy- and childbirth-related problems.
How Hospitals are Failing Black Mothers (12.27.17 via ProPublica) This is a really fascinating analysis by ProPublica (an organization that does really fascinating, in-depth reporting, support them!) into the differences in outcomes of maternal hemorrhage at hospitals in New York, Florida and Illinois. They found “that women who hemorrhage at disproportionately black-serving hospitals are far more likely to wind up with severe complications, from hysterectomies, which are more directly related to hemorrhage, to pulmonary embolisms, which can be indirectly related. When we looked at data for only the most healthy women, and for white women at black-serving hospitals, the pattern persisted.”
Nothing Protects Black Women from Dying in Pregnancy and Childbirth (12.7.17 via ProPublica and NPR) This is one you should sit down for and grab a box of tissues. Shalon Irving, a 36 year old CDC epidemiologist studying structural inequality and its relationship with poor health outcomes, died weeks after giving birth in 2017. There’s no pull quote I can find that really captures it, you really should just read the whole thing.
Our Public Health 