Health Links

Topics in the 2020-2021 Report: Heart disease by race and ethnicity; Cancer by race and ethnicity; HIV and STDs by race and ethnicity; Health insurance and access by race and ethnicity; Hospital use by health insurance coverage; Oral health by poverty level; Substance use by education level; Risk factors and mortality by sex. more »

"Waiting for health insurers to authorize care comes with consequences for patients, various studies show. It has led to delays in cancer care in Pennsylvania, meant sick children in Colorado were more likely to be hospitalized, and blocked low-income patients across the country from getting treatment for opioid addiction. In some cases, care has been denied and never obtained. In others, prior authorization proved a potent but indirect deterrent, as few patients have the fortitude, time, or resources to navigate what can be a labyrinthine process of denials and appeals. They simply gave up, because fighting denials often requires patients to spend hours on the phone and computer to submit multiple forms." more »

Most sleep studies included only white men in the early years and other racial and ethnic groups and women and were not included in studies of sleep disorders until the 1990s, says Dr. Andrea Matsumura, a sleep medicine physician at The Oregon Clinic in Portland, Oregon, and a member of the Public Awareness and Advisory Committee at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. But the growing body of literature so far has revealed that sleep plays an important role in human health, and factors beyond an one’s control are linked to sleep problems, which can then affect overall health. Research also shows sleep deficiencies disproportionately impact those who experience other health disparities.To take into account social, environmental and economic factors affecting sleep, researchers and experts use the term “sleep health” to create a holistic view of sleep. more »

"An NIH-funded team of researchers, led by Drs .Jochen Buck and Lonny Levin at Weill Cornell Medicine, pn and fertility. Their findings appeared in Nature Communications on February 14, 2023. A variety of tests in mice didn’t identify any potential safety issues with TDI-11861. The team then treated male mice with a single dose of TDI-11861 before allowing them to mate with females. The treated mice showed no differences in mating behavior from untreated mice. But the sperm from treated mice lost the ability to move on their own. Sperm remained immobile after being deposited in the female reproductive tract..." "Men produce several million sperm per day — about 1,000 per second. To prevent pregnancy, all of these need to be stopped from reaching an egg." more »