How the CDC used consumer mapping tech in Haiti
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
Writing for Government Health IT, Carolyn Duffy Marsan explores the CDC’s reliance on free and open source mapping software and web applications in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. It seems at first almost incongruous, a colossal federal agency working to save lives in the wake of a great disaster using the same Google Maps tools we’d use to plot the shortest route to Costco, but, as Marsan explains, there are fantastic reasons to rely upon free consumer technology in such a situation.
The most obvious, of course, is accessibility. Even in the decentralized chaos that reigned in the hours following the quake, thousands of people on the ground had access to Google Maps, or at least to messaging services that would connect them to people with access to the maps. Likewise, Google Earth’s satellite imagery helped officials in the United States rapidly locate health services, as well as water sources and open areas where displaced locals were likely to congregate, and thus to coordinate first responders and organize on-site data, even from their remote location.
Another advantage, officials told Marsan, was that the data accumulated by American and international agencies in such formats was highly transferable and simple to combine, mash up and eventually hand over to the Haitian government. Furthermore, this data portability has allowed the myriad agencies and individuals involved in the recovery efforts to quickly adopt slightly more specialized tools such as wiki-like OpenStreetMap and the well-known crisis crowdsourcer Ushahidi.
Ushahidi takes data supplied via just about any available format and turns it into something useful through a blend of high technology and human effort.
Ushahidi maps were also used to display field hospitals, pharmacies and medical supplies. Now the group is working with a team of doctors in Boston to create the ability to track the spread of infectious diseases. Ushahidi Haiti has a network of 300 volunteers that help create maps from the thousands of text messages and emails received from the field. Sewell says the data provided by the diaspora has been more accurate than the media in some cases.
In a mapless world like post-quake Haiti, consumer mapping tools helped document the new geography and coordinate efforts, both through OpenStreetMaps, which supplied the first usable maps of the affected areas, and through mobile devices.
“You can’t say, ‘Let’s meet at a particular street,’ because the streets have been destroyed,” (Antonio Zugaldia, an information officer with the Pan American Health Organization’s Emergency Operations Center in Washington DC) said. “Instead, you offer a real-time location using GPS on your BlackBerry and you can share that with your colleagues with Google Latitude. You can then easily divide your team into sub-teams and keep track of them. It’s a very simple tool that provided an excellent service.”
AHCJ members’ work honored by Journalism Center on Children & Families
Filed under: Children, Health journalism, Member news
Congratulations to the AHCJ members who earned 2010 Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism for “distinguished coverage of disadvantaged children, youth and families.” Entries from AHCJ members who won are summarized below, with member names in bold and include comments from the Journalism Center on Children & Families.
PROJECT/SERIES: Over 200,000 circulation
Honorable mention: “Dubious Medicine,” Chicago Tribune, Trine Tsouderos, Patricia Callahan and George Papajohn
The Chicago Tribune courageously challenges doctors who peddle alternative autism remedies to parents desperate for help. Through inquisitive, fact-based reporting, the series exposes the flimsy science behind the anecdotal testimonials that underpin uncontrolled experimentation on children.
This piece also won an Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. See a tip sheet prepared by the reporters and the contest questionnaire in which the reporters write about how this story was written.
PROJECT/SERIES: Under 200,000 circulation
Winner: “Fatal Care,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Gina Barton, Crocker Stephenson and Kristyna Wentz-Graff
This team went beyond the story of one child’s death in foster care to discover that 22 additional children died as a result of systemic neglect. The series features in-depth reporting matched with a strong analysis. The sidebars, graphs, photographs and a review of thousands of records add to the stories’ impact. It’s a series that got results, including a new state law that holds welfare officials accountable for the children under their watch.
MAGAZINE
Honorable mention: “School of Second Chances,” The Washington Post Magazine, Karen Houppert, Sydney Trent, Lisa Frazier and Beth Chang
A well-reported and powerfully written account of the Washington, D.C., Oak Hill Correctional Facility’s charter school and its efforts to overcome myriad challenges.
NONDAILY
Winner: “For Their Own Good,” Houston Press, Chris Vogel and Margaret Downing
Who knew that sheriff’s officials in Harris County, Texas, were placing children as young as 15 in solitary confinement, bereft of counseling, physical activity and education? No one, apparently – not even the judges who sent them there. With dogged reporting and compelling writing, Vogel exposes a justice system that seems to have given up on its most vulnerable. The project prompted outrage and action, among legislators, academics and advocates.
MULTIMEDIA
Runner-up: “The Price of Miracles,” The Providence (R.I.) Journal, Felice J. Freyer, Kathy Borchers, Susan Areson, Beth Heaney, Michael Foran, Maria Caporizzo, Tony LaRoche and Cecilia Prestamo
Each installment of this series on the costs and consequences of premature births is captivating and masterfully executed. The story flows from print to video to user-friendly charts and graphics, and the diversity of subjects presents a broad spectrum of perspective and effect.
Waiting period affects 2 million disabled Americans
Filed under: Health care reform, Health policy, Hot Health Headline
Nearly 2 million disabled Americans “fall into a twilight with the first monthly Social Security disability payment, for they then must wait two years to become eligible for Medicare,” according to The Oregonian’s Anne Saker.
With at least 15,000 in that position in Oregon, Saker tells the story of Sue Sherman, diagnosed last year with pancreatic cancer, who discovered she must wait two years for Medicare to cover her. “Only 20 percent of pancreatic cancer patients live more than a year past diagnosis,” Saker reports.
Saker outlines the history of the waiting period, statistics about how many people in that situation go without insurance and the machinations in Washington, D.C., over the waiting period, but weaves it all into Sherman’s story, keeping a human face on the issue.
She looks at how Sherman’s illness and lack of coverage affects her family and includes an observation by Sherman’s daughter that the costs of her care will be passed on to everyone else.
As Trudy Lieberman says in her blog at CJR.org, “Her plight illustrates the traps that snare the disabled in every state.” Lieberman explains how people get caught in this waiting period and will be stuck with another waiting period with today’s launch of high-risk insurance pools.
With 2 million people affected, this is a story that should be told in every state. Lieberman wrote in 2008 about putting a human face on the proposed health reform plans. Reporters would be smart to heed that advice as they report on how the new law will be enacted.
Related
Health care reform has passed: What’s next?
July 1 marks a big day for health reform
Scott Hensley, on NPR’s Shots blog, has a nice rundown of the health care provisions that go into effect today, including the so-called tanning tax, high-risk insurance pools and the new healthcare.gov website.
For reporters writing about the tanning tax, we remind you to look carefully at the numbers and be sure to accurately report the data behind this policy decision. Much of the reporting we’ve seen cites numbers presented by the World Health Organization: “use of sunbeds before the age of 35 is associated with a 75% increase in the risk of melanoma.” But that statistic represents the relative risk, while the absolute risk – the chance of something happening – is far different. Reuters Health Editor Ivan Oransky, M.D., has written about the subject for Covering Health:
“You can see how if someone is lobbying to ban something – or, in the case of a new drug, trying to show a dramatic effect – they would probably want to use the relative risk.”
For a detailed explanation, be sure to read Oransky’s post about the statistics on tanning.
If you’re reporting on the high-risk insurance pools that go into effect today, don’t miss our tip sheet on the topic, with story tips, suggestions and resources from four experience reporters. Apart from being a policy story, it’s of great interest to all your readers, viewers or listeners who have pre-existing conditions and are struggling to find coverage.
Another tip sheet addresses what needs to be covered now that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been passed and begins to be implemented.
A recent briefing, “Reporting on health reform between now and 2014,” offers further advice and resources from some top Washington, D.C.-based journalists on implementation deadlines, how to cover local issues, Medicare reimbursement rates, what reporters should look for in their states and more.
How NASA came to work with a children’s hospital
Filed under: Children, Government, Hot Health Headline
Brian Ahier, writing for Government Health IT, tells the story of how NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories ended up collaborating with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles on a seven-year project focusing on the detection of pediatric cancer through a “a collaborative approach to the discovery and development of early detection biomarkers.” It sounds like a goofy match but, when Ahier breaks it down, it’s easier to see how and why these strange bedfellows ended up together.
Photo by nasa1fan/MSFC via Flickr1. JPL presents a paper on a software framework used for planetary science that functions as ” a kind of search engine that allows scientists working with data in one expression or format to find and compare their data with another.”
2. National Cancer Institute representatives involved with the Early Detection Research Network see the presentation, understand the framework’s potential and hire JPL to consult.
3. The project evolves and CHLA’s Virtual Pediatric Intenstive Care Unit joins the effort to “build a distributed data-sharing network to drive the next generation of clinical decision support for pediatric cancer treatment and research.”
Here’s Ahier’s explanation of why the NASA system makes a difference for the hospital:
The VPICU connects emergency rooms, community hospitals and intensive care units worldwide in a virtual network, extending consultations to even the most remote areas. Using (the JPL technology), clinicians can access data from a network of pediatric hospitals to build an evidence-based foundation for research into childhood cancers.
“The variability in patients in a pediatric ICU is enormous with regards to age, weight and other factors,” says David Kale, a research engineer in the VPICU. “So the question is can we build clinical decision support tools that will help clinicians by augmenting their experience by providing data.”
Butcher, Rosenthal win APEX Awards
Congratulations to AHCJ members Lola Butcher and Eric Rosenthal, who won APEX Awards for Publication Excellence for work that appeared in Oncology Times.
Butcher won in the category of “How-to Series Writing,” for her articles about Twitter and cancer care:
- “How Twitter Is Transforming the Cancer Care Community“
- “Oncologists Using Twitter to Advance Cancer Knowledge.”
Rosenthal was reconized in the News Series category for his “Economy Watch” series:
- As the Economy Turns, Cancer Centers Employ Watchful Waiting
- American Cancer Society Eliminates Exhibitions at Major Oncology Meetings
- Some of This Season’s Oncology Society Meetings May be Scaled Back
- Recessional Updates Reported from AACR’s Annual Meeting
More information about the awards and a complete list of winners is online (PDF).
Send us your latest news
Got a new job? Earned a promotion? Won an award or fellowship? Just published a book? AHCJ members are encouraged to share your news by sending it to info@healthjournalism.org. Member news items are posted on Covering Health and in HealthBeat, AHCJ’s newsletter.
Airplane food caterers cited for health violations
After finding critical health violations at airport restaurants last year, USA Today reporters are at it again. This time, Gary Stoller has reviewed FDA documents that show violations by the catering companies that prepare the food served on the planes themselves.
Photo by Mr. Mystery via Flickr
According to Stoller, “the inspections were at U.S. facilities of two of the world’s biggest airline caterers, LSG Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet, and another large caterer, Flying Food Group.” Between them, they provide 100 million meals to U.S. air travelers each year and run 91 separate kitchens.
The FDA reports say many facilities store food at improper temperatures, use unclean equipment and employ workers who practice poor hygiene. At some, there were cockroaches, flies, mice and other signs of inadequate pest control.
“In spite of best efforts by the FDA and industry, the situation with in-flight catered foods is disturbing, getting worse and now poses a real risk of illness and injury to tens of thousands of airline passengers on a daily basis,” says Roy Costa, a consultant and public health sanitarian.
ACCME reverses stand on industry presentations
The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education has released new guidance that will allow industry scientists to present “product-related research at for-credit talks” as long as “provider controls ensure they have zero control over the content.”
Covering Health readers might remember that John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported on policy changes that would not allow industry representatives to make presentations at the American Health Association’s annual meeting and would likely block them from presentations to other medical associations.
Fauber reports the changes come after the ACCME said that “some accredited providers have an intensive process of peer review that ensures importance, accuracy, and validity and, therefore, the restriction was not needed.”
Marc Iskowitz of Medical Marketing and Media reports that the “guidance means other accredited providers, many of whom have been struggling with the same issue when planning meetings, can include new science that mentions therapeutic options or interventions.”
Survey: Freelance writers leaving the business
Rebecca Rosen Lum, an independent journalist, writes in the California Progress Report that the pool of veteran freelancers – a group many publications have used to extend coverage despite shrinking budgets – is shrinking as experienced journalists transition to more lucrative (or at least more stable) careers.
“Most say they still love the news business and would love to keep reporting and editing,” Rosen writes. “But falling freelance rates, coupled with skyrocketing costs for health insurance and other basic living expenses, are making continued careers in journalism feel increasingly unrealistic.”
Her observations are based on a relatively small sample: The results of a survey of freelancers in northern California, most of them laid-off or bought-out veterans with more than 20 years in the business. The kind of folks who “are now feeling the heat as COBRA and unemployment benefits end, and are augmenting their earnings with work outside the field,” she writes.
GuildFreelancers, a unit of California Media Workers designed to support the self-employed, surveyed 116 independent writers and journalists throughout Northern California. While not a scientific sample, the responses offer a snapshot of a profession in flux, focusing on quality of life, the nature and pace of work, and the freelance marketplace. Respondents include writers, photographers, designers, filmmakers, authors, instructors and multi-media producers.
Respondents aired many gripes which have become depressingly commonplace in today’s freelance circles, including rapidly plunging rates, an explosion of ultra-low-cost content, and the constant struggle to find work and health insurance coverage.
“A dollar a word was the gold standard for three decades (no cost-of-living raises, of course),” writes one respondent. “Then online publishing came into the mix and the bottom dropped out. I’ve been asked to write for as little as a dime per word. Hourly rates offered for copywriting and editing services have dropped as low as $10 an hour. Most online outlets won’t go over 50 cents per word. How can anyone make a living this way? I’ve been in the biz for 30 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it.”
Lum does not address the freelance health writing market in depth, and we are interested in hearing from AHCJ freelancers (especially in the comment section below). Has the decline in health freelance rates been as severe as in other markets? Has increased competition come from laid-off professionals and desperate freelancers branching out from other specializations? How do you see the market evolving in the coming years? Will you be part of it, or are you already looking at alternate careers?
The California Progress Report is published by the Consumer Federation of California Education Foundation.
McKenna on A. baumanii, the latest resistant bug
On her Superbug blog, AHCJ board member Maryn McKenna works her explanatory magic on Acinetobacter baumanii, a drug-resistant bug whose profile (and incidence) is, in McKenna’s words, “rocketing.”
A. baumanii is a nasty bug, causing not just wound infections but pneumonia, urinary tract infections, meningitis and bacteremia. Even more nasty, it collects resistance factors like baseball cards, and is commonly resistant to at least 4 antibiotic classes.
To make the outlook even bleaker, the antibiotic development pipeline for A. baumanii’s class of bacteria has dried up and only super-toxic colistin can take out the nastiest strains of the bacteria. It looks like A. baumanii, whose resistant strains have spread explosively in the past decade, has a particular knack for spreading resistance.
The only real hope for containing A. baumanii, McKenna writes, may be cooperation between all the different local institutions in the fragmented American medical system.
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