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America is trying to fix its maternal mortality crisis with federal, state and local programs
Laura Ungar, The Associated Press, Sept. 4
Across the United States, there are federal, state, and local programs all working towards the same goal of reducing maternal mortality. While none have all of the answers, many are making a difference in their communities. In Oklahoma, the state’s Healthy Start program coordinates prenatal and postnatal care and provides pregnancy and parenting education and referrals to other services. In California, the “maternal quality care collaborative” brings together people from every hospital with a maternity unit to share best practices.
UCSF favors pricey doctoral program for nurse-midwives amid maternal care crisis
Ronnie Cohen, KFF Health News, Sept. 3
One of California’s two programs for training nurse-midwives has stopped admitting students and instead, plans to only offer doctoral degrees. UC-San Francisco’s decision has drawn criticism from alumni, health policy experts, and faculty, who accuse the school of putting profits over public health needs. The doctoral program will require more time and money from students than the master’s program in nurse midwifery. “Instead of adding hurdles, we need to be building and expanding a pipeline of culturally and racially concordant providers to support improved birth outcomes, especially for Black and Latina birthing people,” said California State Assembly member Mia Bonta.
How race became ubiquitous in medical decision-making tools
Usha Lee McFarling and Katie Palmer, STAT News, Sept. 4
In the 1990s the National Institutes of Health started requiring the collection of racial data in its funded research. It was intended to help address health disparities. However, it may have had an unintended opposite effect by enabling the development of algorithms that misused race as a health risk factor. Researchers used the misunderstood correlations between race and outcomes as a way to make disease-risk calculations more precise. But the race data were actually imprecise. For example, many still considered race a biological explanation for differences. Those ideas about race have been repeated across medical specialties.
Trust as a bridge to care: How a New Haven street medical team is serving the city’s unhoused
Sujata Srinivasan, Connecticut Public Radio, Sept. 4
In Connecticut, the number of people experiencing homelessness is increasing. So is the demand for health care for that population. In New Haven, Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center’s street medicine team meets and treats patients where they are. They diagnose patients, prescribe them the medicine they need, and refer them to specialists, bringing their mobile clinic into neighborhoods where there is a need. Their goal is to build trust within the community. “I like to say we are like a rural community medicine practice where we get to know everybody, individually by name,” said Phil Costello, a nurse and clinical director of homeless care at Cornell Scott-Hill.
Coronavirus vaccines, once free, are now pricey for uninsured people
Fenit Nirappil, The Washington Post, Sept. 3
For adults without health insurance, covid vaccines are no longer free and now cost up to $200. The federal program that once covered the cost ran out of funding. Health experts worry that already-low vaccination rates will get even lower and that the roughly 25 million people without health insurance in the U.S. will be especially vulnerable to covid. Low-income adults are now weighing if they can afford the vaccine. “I have so little money, and I have other needs as well, like monthly medications,” said Nicole Savant, a 33-year-old who lost Medicaid coverage last year when her income rose.