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Who Gets Health in Old Age?

September 20, 2017

Rich, White People. Access to insurance isn’t erasing race- and class-based health disparities

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It’s often said that Americans are living “longer, healthier lives,” and while that’s true overall, white wealthy people are still far more likely to enjoy good health than other demographics in old age. A new research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine Monday revealed clear racial, income, and educational disparities in the number of senior citizens who experience good health—and the gaps have only widened over time.

For this report, researchers from the University of Michigan looked at adults older than 65 who reported their health as “excellent” or “very good” at least twice within one calendar year, between 2000 and 2014. As a whole, seniors were feeling healthier by the end of that time period. However, white people and wealthy people were most likely to consider themselves very healthy. The most highly educated seniors consistently felt healthier than those with less education, and as the study went on, the health of that group only improved. In 2000, 57.4 percent of highly educated seniors considered themselves in very good or excellent health, and by 2014, that number had risen to 63 percent.

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The Atlantic

How Affirmative Action Could Cure Cancer and Heart Disease

September 15, 2017

Providing women and minorities with access to our finest educational research institutions is not only morally correct, it makes good sense… Diversity not only improves biomedical research training programs but is essential to them, as a cursory look at medical history shows

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How Affirmative Action Could Cure Cancer and Heart Disease

Friday, September 15th, 2017

Affirmative action programs are designed to provide access to high-quality higher education for underrepresented minorities, but the Trump administration is targeting these essential programs by directing resources toward investigating and possibly suing colleges and universities that use race as a factor in admissions.

Providing women and minorities with access to our finest educational research institutions is not only morally correct, it makes good sense. I know this because I started a program that provides minority students with biomedical research training at Columbia University, and I have witnessed firsthand how dramatically lives can be changed.

Diversity not only improves biomedical research training programs but is essential to them, as a cursory look at medical history shows.

Image: Dr. Charles Drew. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA

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The Conversation

Week One: On Not Watching NFL Football in 2017

September 14, 2017

Longtime Baltimore Ravens fan, and composer of ‘Unseen’, via the JHU Exploration of Practical Ethics Program, Judah Adashi, considers the ethics of NFL fandom in 21st century America

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Week One: On Not Watching NFL Football in 2017

Thursday, September 14th, 2017

It’s the second Sunday in September, Week One in the National Football League. Today marks the first 2017 regular-season game for my hometown Baltimore Ravens, a team I’ve followed quasi-religiously for nearly two decades. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t watch or listen to the game. Not because I had another commitment, or was traveling, or had work to do. I have memorably gone to great lengths to watch games in all of the above situations, usually bringing along a jersey or other talisman for the occasion, or positioning one in front of the TV at home (as my favorite local sports talk radio host often reminds listeners, “fan” is short for “fanatic”).

…

I didn’t tune in because the 29-year-old, free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick — who very nearly completed a brilliant comeback against the Ravens in Super Bowl 47 as a member of the San Francisco 49ers — was not signed by a team (including the Ravens, who demonstrated both need and interest) this offseason. Kaepernick is not in the NFL right now for one reason: he engaged in a silent, peaceful protest by sitting or kneeling during the national anthem that opens every sporting event in our country…

Image via Flickr Some rights reserved by Brook-Ward

Honors for Racist Scientists

September 7, 2017

As debate over statues and building names moves from Confederate generals to researchers, editorial in Nature receives intense backlash

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Honors for Racist Scientists

Thursday, September 7th, 2017

Historians like to say that everything has a history. Yet the natural sciences remain somewhat removed from academic debates over what to do with monuments tied to dark chapters in American history.

That’s changing, though.

In a twist to discussions about campus memorials linked to slavery and racism, the natural sciences are facing new questions about monuments tied to eugenics and to individuals who denied basic rights to those nonwhite people on whom they did research.

In one example, scientists and other academics lit up social media Wednesday in a response to an editorial in Nature called “Removing Statues of Historical Figures Risks Whitewashing History.” Some critics objected to the term “whitewashing” itself, saying that leaving memorials to eugenicists and other problematic figures unchallenged is the real whitewashing.

Image: By ESO/M. Kornmesser (photo displayed on the magazine cover) – https://www.eso.org/public/images/ann16056a/ (photo displayed on the magazine cover), CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50998461

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Inside Higher Ed

Striking a Balance

July 24, 2017

Between Safe Spaces and Physician Skill in Medicine

Relatives of the Men Who Endured the Syphilis Study Speak Out

April 6, 2017

It has been 45 years since the nation learned that more than 600 African-American men from rural Alabama were experimented on without their consent, and left untreated in a notorious federally funded syphilis study

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Relatives of the Men Who Endured the Syphilis Study Speak Out

Thursday, April 6th, 2017

The participants in the “U.S. Public Health Study of Untreated Syphilis in Negro Males in Macon County, Ala.,” have all since died. Ernest Hendon, who passed away in January 2004, was the last survivor. But this week, in the town where these husbands, fathers, brothers, and great-great grandfathers were recruited, they lived again through a great crowd of witnesses who gathered to tell stories.

The lives and fate of these men are now well-known through countless books and movies. And every first-year medical student learns about the syphilis study conducted from 1932 to 1972, in which a group of black men, some with syphilis, were given a placebo treatment and monitored while their health declined.

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NBC News

Last Words

March 1, 2017

“Last Words” is an excerpt from a larger piece entitled “Unseen,” a musical composition about Kalief Browder. The composition by Judah Adashi was created as part of the JHU Exploration of Practical Ethics Program.

Why Is It So Hard to Close the Racial Health Gap in the US

January 6, 2017

Improvements in the health care system have increased life expectancy for most Americans, but the group that has gained more is white Americans. The larger health gain of whites than blacks results in widening of racial gap in health

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Why Is It So Hard to Close the Racial Health Gap in the US

Friday, January 6th, 2017

The racial health gap in the United States is well-documented. The gap starts with the infant mortality rate (11.1 blacks vs. 5.1 whites per 1,000) and extends to almost any health domain. Compared to whites, blacks live shorter and live fewer years free of illness. Blacks develop chronic disease on average one decade earlier than whites. Although the life expectancy gap between black and white Americans has narrowed, disparities are still persistent.

As a researcher, I’ve looked into black-white differences in determinants of health. What I’ve found is that some interventions may even widen the gap.

Image: By National Cancer Institute – This image was released by the National Cancer Institute, an agency part of the National Institutes of Health, with the ID 4544 (image) (next).This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information.English | Français | +/−, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24034615

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The Conversation

Page 1 of 312 3 »

Who Gets Health in Old Age?

Who Gets Health in Old Age?

How Affirmative Action Could Cure Cancer and Heart Disease

How Affirmative Action Could Cure Cancer and Heart Disease

Week One: On Not Watching NFL Football in 2017

Week One: On Not Watching NFL Football in 2017

Honors for Racist Scientists

Honors for Racist Scientists

Striking a Balance

Relatives of the Men Who Endured the Syphilis Study Speak Out

Relatives of the Men Who Endured the Syphilis Study Speak Out

Last Words

Why Is It So Hard to Close the Racial Health Gap in the US

Why Is It So Hard to Close the Racial Health Gap in the US

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