As school starts, so do youth sports injuries
Filed under: Children, Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
The University of Michigan’s new Michigan NeuroSport Concussion Program seems to be cropping up everywhere, and as far as I can tell, it’s all part of a coordinated effort by the University. They already claim to have one of the only pediatric sport programs in the country, and now they’re expanding it with a clinical and research focus on “neurological sports injuries.”
In related news, the latest CDC Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report includes an analysis of the numbers for “Heat Illness Among High School Athletes” from 2005 to 2009. The study examined 100 schools and nine sports, and found that heat-related illness was most common in football, and that August was the worst month for such afflictions.
AHCJ has a rich pool of resources for journalists looking to report beyond the press releases on stories like these, including:
Tip sheets
Concussions in young athletes
Reporting on sports injuries in school-age children
Health and education: Two intersecting beats
Health and education: Reporting resources
Blog posts
Tougher concussion rules from high school assn.
GAO evaluates youth concussion databases
Concussion more likely when hit is unexpected (Youth hockey study)
Attention focuses on football’s neurological effects
AP story: Hundreds of PTSD soldiers likely misdiagnosed
State snapshots make it easy to spot disparities in children’s health care
The Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health has broken the 2007 NSCH Child Health and System Performance Profile into what it calls “state snapshots.” These snapshots make it particularly easy to compare all 50 states (and D.C.) across 21 categories, including dental health, access to care, insurance and several chronic conditions. Below, I’ve mapped an indicator of child access to preventative care, one which would appear to correlate strongly with population density.
The Data Resource Center is a project of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), housed at the Oregon Health & Science University.
Update
In the comments, AHCJ board member Felice Freyer noted that it “Would be interesting to compare these numbers with info on percentage of children who have coverage in each state.” So, that’s just what I did. I put together another map, again using 2007 NSCH data and attached it below.
Workshop explored health needs of rural residents
Filed under: Health journalism, Health policy, Public health, Studies
Dennis Berens, president of the National Rural Health Association, called media coverage of health reform a failure – but not the only failure in framing the issue for the public.
Kansas psychiatrist Roy Menninger said barriers to mental health services in rural have changed little over the past three decades, with serious consequences.
And while a growing population of seniors are drawing on health resources, soaring childhood obesity rates are another drain in the often impoverished areas, experts on aging and childhood said.
Those were some of the highlights of Rural Health Journalism Workshop 2010 in Kansas City, Mo., on June 4. More than 50 people attended the event, part of the Association of Health Care Journalists’ Midwest Health Journalism Program.
With 15 speakers and other topics including health disparities and oral health, attendees of the free, daylong event left with story ideas and new resources to enhance their reporting.
Read more about the workshop …
Package spotlights maternal health in 5 countries
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
The team at the Pulitzer Gateway (a site from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting) have turned their focus toward worldwide maternal health and produced “Dying for Life,” a package that spans five countries and three continents. Here are its components:
Nigeria
A reminder that despite a slight improvement in global maternal health, the situation in some countries is still deteriorating. The end result will be “Edge of Joy,” a documentary set to be released this summer.
Ethiopia
Hanna Ingber Win visits maternal health programs administered by the UN Population Fund. She filed five dispatches.
Mexico
Samuel Loewenberg investigated the social, medical, economic and political factors behind the “health crises” affecting two impoverished Mexican states. He filed three stories.
Guinea-Bissau
Marco Vernaschi photographed the everyday realities of a region with critical health care access and delivery issues.
India
Hanna Ingber Win investigated maternal health disparities and efforts to improve the situation in India, particularly the province of Assam. She posted five stories.
Lead poisoning hurts Detroit kids’ academics
Detroit Free Press reporters Tina Lam and Kristi Tanner-White report that data compiled by the city shows that “More than half of the students tested in Detroit Public Schools have a history of lead poisoning, which affects brain function for life.” Lead poisoning is bad news, but it gets much worse:
Now, a landmark study by the city health department and Detroit Public Schools of lead data and test scores shows that the higher the lead level, the worse a student’s scores on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program exam, or MEAP.
Overall, 58% of roughly 39,000 DPS students tested – 22,755 children – had a history of lead poisoning, according to the study.
Perhaps more startling: Of the 39,199 students tested as young children, only 23 had no lead in their bodies.
There are confounding factors, of course, but this chart shows the correlation between lead exposure and weaker academic skills. It’s yet another blow for a school district whose students were already some of the worst performing in the nation.
The story ran with an excellent graphic on lead poisoning levels throughout the city over time, as well as a school-by-school database of lead poisoning statistics.
GAO evaluates youth concussion databases
Filed under: Health data, Hot Health Headline, Public records, Studies
In a recent report, the Goverment Accountability Office reviewed national efforts to track concussions in youth sports (highlights). The report evaluates local and national laws designed to keep young athletes safe, but the most immediately useful component may be the identification and evaluation of three incomplete national databases now being maintained.
High School Reporting Information Online database
Provides national estimates of occurrence of concussion, it covers only 20 sports for high schools with certified athletic trainers. It may underestimate occurrence because some athletes may be reluctant to report symptoms of a possible concussion to avoid being removed from a game.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s National Electronic Injury Surveillance System
Provides national estimates only on concussions treated in an emergency room.
The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research database
Provides information only on cases of concussion with serious complications and cannot provide national estimates of the occurrence of all concussions.
Related
- Last week, the House of Representatives’ Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to examine the prevalence of concussions among high school athletes and how the injury can impact academic achievement.
- Previous coverage of concussions
In 2008, fewer preterm babies, more cesareans
Births in the United States went down nearly 2 percent in 2008, according to new figures [PDF] from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Among the report’s highlights:
- The birth rate for U.S. teenagers fell 2 percent, reversing a two-year increase.
- The birth rate for Hispanic teenagers declined to an historic low.
- The cesarean delivery rate rose for the 12th straight year, to 32.3 percent of all births.
- The percentage of births born preterm declined 3 percent.
Health Journalism 2010
Learn more about “Pregnancy and childbirth trends: Issues of safety and choice,” a panel featuring Mark R. Chassin, M.D., president of The Joint Commission; Julie Deardorff, health and fitness reporter at the Chicago Tribune; Alan M. Peaceman, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and chief of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital; and moderated by Deborah L. Shelton, a Chicago Tribune health reporter.
Collaboration brings Calif. hunger into focus
Food insecurity is on the rise throughout the country, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating that one of every seven American households struggled to put food on the table last year.
A 20-part, multimedia series from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, in collaboration with California Watch, looks at the problem in that state, finding that the numbers of Californians who are struggling to have enough food is rising at an unprecedented rate.
The stories look at food deserts, how a lack of food affects children’s learning ability, struggling food banks, what it takes to eat on a “food stamp budget,” how food is wasted in restaurants, the difficulties of distributing food to those who need it and much more.
The project was produced over several months by 13 graduate students with contributions from members of the California Watch staff, Annenberg professors and staff, and staff from the Los Angeles Times and KQED’s The California Report.
Study: C. diff. on the rise among children
A study published in the April 2010 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases finds the incidence of Clostridium difficile appears to be increasing in children. Other studies have found the diarrhea-causing bacterium is becoming “more severe and complicating many hospitalizations” among adults but this study found that “between 1997 and 2006, the rates of hospitalization for C. difficile in children nearly doubled.”
Researchers reported a low rate of C. diff. among newborns, which they say supports the concept that the bacteria does not cause disease among newborns.However, the study concludes that “In contrast, the relatively high rate of CDI-related hospitalizations among non-newborn infants indicates an urgent need for studies to determine how often C. difficile causes true disease in this population.”
Clostridium difficile Infection among Hospitalized Children, United States, 1997-2006
M.D. Zilberberg et al.
Related
CDC’s Overview of Clostridium difficile Infections
MedlinePlus information
CDC: Nearly 1 percent of U.S. kids have autism
An average of one in 110 children have an autism spectrum disorder, according to a new study of the health and education records of 8 percent of 8-year-old children in the United States. In its release, the CDC says “These results reflect data collected in multiple communities throughout the U.S. from 2006 showing an estimated prevalence of ASDs to be about one percent of 8-year-olds in the U.S.”
The study, from the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, looked at the records of 307,790 children in 11 study sites and identified 2,757 with an autism spectrum disorder. ASD prevalence was higher in boys than in girls and varied by race and ethnicity. The study also found that the overall prevalence of ASD has increased since earlier studies.
“These results indicate an increased prevalence of identified ASDs among U.S. children aged 8 years and underscore the need to regard ASDs as an urgent public health concern.” In the report, the CDC acknowledges the need to “understand how complex genetic and environmental factors interact to result in the symptoms which make up the autism spectrum.”
The CDC reports that, based on its examination of the records, most children with an ASD are getting special education services in the public schools, though not all were categorized as having an ASD. Other reasons for them receiving special education included specific learning disabilities, speech and language impairments, other health impairments and intellectual disabilities.
Interestingly, the Age of Autism blog reported the news from this study as early as Wednesday, despite the CDC’s embargo that didn’t lift until noon Eastern time on Friday, bringing to mind earlier questions about embargoes. More about that here.
Media briefing
The CDC is having a telephone-only briefing with Catherine Rice, Ph.D., a behavioral health scientist with the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, to discuss the data at noon Eastern time. The briefing will be available via listen-only audio web site. The CDC will make a transcript of the briefing available on its Web site.
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New at HealthJournalism.org
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- Southeast journalists eligible for regional fellowship program
- AHCJ-NLM Health Journalism Fellowship offers hands-on medical research training
- AHCJ announces 2011 winners of top health journalism awards
