New study finds Medicaid expansion boosted the financial health of low-income Michigan residents

Low-income Michigan residents who enrolled in a new state health insurance plan didn't just get coverage for their health needs ---- many also got a boost in their financial health, according to a new study led by Sarah Miller, Ph.D., assistant professor of business at the Ross School of Business.

People who gained coverage under the state's expanded Medicaid program have experienced fewer debt problems and other financial issues than they had before enrollment, the analysis of thousands of individuals shows.

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Focus on aging eyes: Poll finds primary care providers play a key role in vision care after 50

A new poll suggests that primary care providers could play an important role in promoting vision care for adults age 50 and older, especially for those most in need of eye exams, and those most sensitive to the cost.

In all, 18 percent of respondents to the National Poll on Healthy Aging said they hadn't had their eyes checked by an eye doctor in three years or more, or were not sure when they had their last eye exam by an optometrist or ophthalmologist.

The poll of 2,013 adults between the ages of 50 and 80 was conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and sponsored by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M's academic medical center.

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1 in 4 older adults prescribed a benzodiazepine goes on to risky long-term use, study finds

They may start as well-intentioned efforts to calm anxiety, improve sleep, or ease depression. But prescriptions for sedatives known as benzodiazepines may lead to long-term use among one in four older adults who receive them, according to new research.

The new study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine by a team from the University of Michigan led by Lauren Gerlach, D.O., M.Sc., assistant professor of psychiatry, two VA hospitals and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, looked at benzodiazepine use by low-income older adults in a Pennsylvania program that helps with drug costs.

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Nearly 2.3 million times last year, Americans learned they had a sexually transmitted disease. But despite these record-high infection rates for chlamydia and gonorrhea, most patients only receive treatment for their own infection ---- when they probably could get antibiotics or a prescription for their partner at the same time.

In a new paper in the American Journal of Public Health, Cornelius Jamison , M.D., M.S.P.H., M.Sc., clinical lecturer of family medicine, Tammy Chang , M.D., M.P.H., M.S., assistant professor of family medicine, and Okeoma Mmeje , M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, describe the barriers that stand in the way of getting expedited partner therapy to more people.

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Why polluted air may be a threat to your kidneys

There is good evidence that polluted air increases the risk of respiratory problems such as asthma ---- as well as organ inflammation, worsening of diabetes and other life-threatening conditions.

But new research suggests air pollution can also fuel something else: chronic kidney disease, or CKD, which occurs when a person's kidneys become damaged or cannot filter blood properly.

Recently published in PLOS One, the study co authored Rajiv Saran, M.D., a Michigan Medicine nephrologist, highlights the lesser-known connection.

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The University of Michigan School of Public Health will house a new, multi-institutional center focusing on modeling and predicting the impact of tobacco regulation, funded with an $18 million federal grant from the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

The center will provide evidence-based and expert-informed modeling projections of the behavioral and public health impacts of tobacco regulations to support the FDA in regulating the characteristics, marketing and sale of tobacco products, said Rafael Meza, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health and co-principal investigator for the center.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office Christopher Friese, Ph.D., M.A., M.S., R.N. to serve as a member of the Governing Board of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. It oversees the appointment of half a dozen health care advisory committees, including PCORI's governing board. The PCORI board represents various health care stakeholders including patients, researchers, clinicians, insurance organizations, and government agencies.

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National guidelines support immediate post-partum long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) as a best practice for increasing contraceptive access, recognizing its potential to prevent unintended and rapid repeat pregnancies, while the National Quality Forum has identified access to this service as a metric of high quality contraceptive care.

But despite evidence that this service is associated with excellent outcomes for patients, improved population health and decreased healthcare costs, in practice it remains rarely available. Michelle Moniz, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, discusses what the evidence shows about the potential benefits of making immediate postpartum LARC more accessible to interested women, and the policy changes necessary to make that happen.

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Related: Medicaid Expansion Improves Access to Family Planning

Staff at the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County began noticing an upswing in clients overdosing in the bathrooms in 2013.

What, the staff wondered, could be done to curb this potentially deadly problem? With help from Chin Hwa (Gina) Dahlem, Ph.D., FNP--- C, clinical assistant professor of nursing, the shelter association became the first homeless shelter in Michigan to complete Dahlem's training program in administering naloxone, the antidote that reverses opioid overdoses.

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Women in Big Data at Michigan Symposium

Date: November 12, 2018
Time: 8:30 a.m. --- 4:30 p.m.
Location: Michigan League
Keynote Speaker: Xihong Lin, Ph.d., Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Biostatistics, and chair, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health