Resources: Latest Reports/Studies

A Guttmacher Institute analysis and report shows that state officials have demonstrated creativity and entrepreneurship in designing and implementing Medicaid family planning expansions. 

CDC data analyzed by the Violence Policy center shows that states in the south and west with weak gun laws and high rates of gun ownership lead the nation in overall firearm death rates.

Testimony and report conclude "Leadership Needed from HHS to Prioritize Prevention Practices and Improve Data on These Infections" (March 2008)

The Institute of Medicine has released "Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce," a report that finds the nation's health care system is not equipped to meet the needs of an aging baby boomer population.

The data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality offers state-by-state health care quality information, including strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement from the National Healthcare Quality Report.

This report from the CDC presents data for 2005 on selected items from the revised U.S. Standard Birth Certificate of Live Birth in 12 states (Fla., Idaho, Kan., Ky., Neb., N.H., N.Y. (excluding New York City), Penn., S.C., Tenn., Texas and Wash.). Information is shown in the following categories: risk factors in pregnancy, obstetric procedures, characteristics of labor and delivery, method of delivery, abnormal condition of the newborn and congenital anomalies of the newborn. (Feb. 29, 2008)

The Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization "dedicated to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illnesses," has released a report (March 17, 2008) that finds a shortage of public psychiatric beds across the United States.

In the March-April 2008 issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, researchers documents MRSA-positive surgical site infections after face-lift surgery - the authors believe this is the first such study.

This March 6, 2008, statement provides information on how hospitals collect and submit quality data to CMS and how CMS works to ensure the reliability of the quality data submitted.

An article from the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, re-posted with permission, that discusses whether ride-alongs are permissible and how EMS programs can ensure they don't violate HIPAA. The article, written by two lawyers, specifically discusses reporters on ride-alongs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and partners have issued the National Action Agenda for Public Health Legal Preparedness as a resource that public health officials, policy makers, and partners may use in assessing and improving their jurisdictions' legal preparedness for public health emergencies.

The Government Accountability Office looks at a computer-based tool used by the Veterans' Administration to screen returning veterans for mild traumatic brain injury, beginning in April 2007.

A study by the Association of American Medical Colleges looks at challenges and strategies for increasing enrollment in medical schools. (Jan. 31, 2008)

On Dec. 6, 2007, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) co-sponsored a government-industry roundtable called "Driving for Quality in Long-Term Care: A Board of Directors Dashboard."

A GAO report (Jan. 29, 2008) reveals the FDA has not met the statutory requirement to inspect certain domestic establishments manufacturing high-risk medical devices every two years, and the agency faces challenges inspecting foreign establishments. It also finds that two FDA databases with information about foreign medical device establishments and their products contain inaccuracies that create disparate estimates of establishments subject to FDA inspection. Additionally, although comparing information from these databases could help FDA determine the number of foreign establishments marketing medical devices in the United States, these databases cannot exchange information and any comparisons must be done manually.

This Jan. 11, 2008, report outlines NIMH's initiatives, budget, research and updates on its programs.

This research looks at how military doctors could best maintain the types of clinical skills needed during deployment, which are significantly different from the skills they normally practice during peacetime at military treatment facilities.

Scott Hode, an attorney specializing in information and privacy law who previously worked at the Department of Justice, reviews the OPEN Government Act of 2007.

The Traumatic Brain Injury Task Force, a group of experts chartered by the Army Surgeon General, released a report making recommendations to improve the clinical, administrative and research processes involved with providing medical care and services to soldiers and other service members.

A study published in the Jan. 15, 2008, edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine concludes that there is scant evidence on whether or not publicly releasing performance data influences patients decisions.

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has issued its work plan for fiscal year 2008. This 111-page publication describes activities the Office of Inspector General plans to continue or initiate with respect to the programs and operations of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The National Center for Health Statistics has released data on hypertension awareness, treatment and control. The data, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, shows that 29 percent of adults had hypertension and that there are various age, gender, and race/ethnic disparities in hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment and control. (January 2007)

In a study in the open access journal PLoS Medicine, Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin make the case for a new estimate of promotional expenditures in the pharmaceutical industry. They used databases to make a revised estimate and compared their results with those from other data sources to argue in favor of changing the priorities of the industry.

A study by the Government Accountability Office examined how 10 states that cover adults under SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) structured their programs, what their experiences were with enrollment and expenditures and how they approached outreach. The study was based on data from 2006.

In Preventing Chronic Disease, Nancy Aldrich writes about the importance of addressing the needs of older adults in the event of a disaster and steps to do so. The article says that about "80 percent of older adults have at least one chronic condition that makes them more vulnerable than healthy people during a disaster."

The CDC reports that deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning are highest during the month of January. The report analyzes death certificate data from the National Vital Statistics System. Nebraska has the highest rate of death from carbon monoxide poisoning, and rates were highest among adults over 65, men, non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks.

The Department of Defense has released the final report of the Task Force on the Future of Military Healthcare. The 204-page report includes recommendations that include better integration of direct and contracted care, collaborate with other payers on best practices, conduct an audit of financial controls, implement wellness and prevention guidelines, change incentives in the pharmacy benefit and revise enrollment fees and deductibles for retirees.  (Dec. 20, 2007)

The Department of Health and Human Services has posted an updated FOIA Implementation Status Report. HHS's goals were to reduce backlog, improve processing and improve public awareness. The department says it achieved the great majority of its goals, but acknowledges that there was an increase in the backlog as a result of an increase in FOIA requests.

This report from the American Cancer Society has information and data about cancer, including basic facts about what cancer is, risks, genetic factors, numbers of people diagnosed and information about specific kinds of cancer.

Trust for America's Health released its report, "Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health from Disease, Disasters, and Bioterrorism, 2007," finding that while preparedness efforts have improved there are still serious problems. The report breaks down its findings by state and looks at vaccination plans, liability for health care workers, disease surveillance systems and more.

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights held a hearing on “The Sunshine in Litigation Act: Does Court Secrecy Undermine Public Health and Safety?” on Dec. 11, 2007.

In a poll of infection control professionals, half said their facilities are not doing as much as they could or should to stop the spread of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections.

A GAO report finds that Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities have challenges in recruiting and retaining VA CRNAs for their workforce. (December 2007)

A November 2007 report concludes that "science at the FDA is in a precarious position: the Agency suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet current or emerging regulatory responsibilities."

A recent study released by the Center for Studying Health System Change finds that hospitals are having greater problems obtaining emergency on-call coverage. It is increasingly a problem for patients requiring specialty consultations. The study is based on site visits to 12 communities where HSC has been tracking change since 1996.

"A High Performance Health System For the United States: An Ambitious Agenda for the Next President," outlines strategies to contain costs and organize the U.S. health care delivery system to address its failings.

AHCJ member and independent journalist Irene M. Wielawski recently completed this report about Massachusetts’ new health reform law that would provide access to affordable health insurance for virtually all residents. The report is broken into six sections to highlight aspects of the Massachusetts process that are potentially adaptable to other states, even those with different health care systems and percentages of uninsured residents.

Researchers have discovered a class of secreted staphylococcal peptides that have the ability to recruit, activate and subsequently lyse human neutrophils, thus eliminating the main cellular defense against S. aureus infection.

A government study finds that 7 percent of veterans aged 18 or older experienced serious psychological distress in the past year, 7.1 percent met the criteria for a substance use disorder, and 1.5 percent had co-occurring serious psychological distress and substance use disorder. The data comes from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

This report from the Government Accountability Office discusses efforts by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to provide mental health care to children through schools.

While many of the existing mental health services for children are provided in schools, the extent and manner of school mental health service delivery vary across the country and within school districts. Federally led initiatives have identified schools as a potentially promising location for beginning to address the mental health needs of children.

This study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, suggests that about 3.4 million Americans age 71 and older have dementia, and 2.4 million of them have Alzheimer's disease. The study is the first to estimate rates of dementia and Alzheimer's using a nationally representative sample of older adults across the United States.

The Government Accountability Office analyzed data from 1997 through 2004 from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) and interviewed officials from pediatric transplant centers for this report on kidney transplant failures and costs to Medicare.

This October 2007 JAMA article reports on the incidence and distribution of invasive MRSA disease in nine U.S. communities.

This report, released Oct. 30, 2007, by the National Association of County and City Health Officials focuses on 31 indicators of health and compares the 54 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

One of every 20 (or 5 percent) of the roughly 368,600 patients treated in U.S. hospitals in 2005 for Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, died, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Most of the patients who died of this highly dangerous antibiotic resistant staph infection were elderly or low income.

Many psychotropics prescribed to children are unlicensed or off-label. This article uses the two most prescribed psychotropics (MPH and SSRIs) to illustrate various concerns about their impact on youth. It addresses five myths that may influence prescribing.

The National Women's Law Center and the Oregon Health & Science University have released the 2007 National Report Card on Women's Health. Findings are presented as a national report or as state-by-state reports.

Quarterly, peer-reviewed journal publishing original articles by Cuban and international researchers on Cuban population health.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that just half of adults with chronic conditions use the Internet; but once online, they are avid consumers of health information.

"PEPFAR: From Emergency to Sustainability" (Sept. 28, 2007) is a report from the Congressional Research Service on the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. This report focuses on some of the key issues that Congress might consider as it faces the issue of whether, and at what level, to reauthorize PEPFAR.

Medicare's Part D standard drug benefit has a gap in coverage - the so-called doughnut hole. At 2007 benefit levels, coverage ends after $2,400 in pharmaceutical spending, including copays but excluding premiums, and resumes again when total drug costs reach $5,451. Between 24 and 38 percent of Medicare enrollees are expected to reach the coverage gap in 2007. While it is too early to assess the effects of Part D, Rand researchers looked at how retirees fare under private insurance plans with similar benefit caps.

Researchers at UCLA reviewed six hospital comparison Web sites and found that they display inconsistent results and use inappropriate or incomplete standards to measure quality, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Surgery.

This report, released Sept. 19, 2007, looks forward to the development of "personalize health care" - using genomics, information technology and scientific information to provide effective and individualized care. The report includes Information about challenges and how to achieve personalized health care as well as details about HHS programs supporting the initiative.

This report includes information from the most recent database containing discharge records for all patients treated in a sample of approximately 1,000 hospitals in 2005. The report has information about length and reasons for hospital stays, most frequent diagnoses, most frequent procedures, as well as costs and charges for most frequent conditions and diagnoses. Uninsured inpatient hospitals stays is a special topic covered in the report.

This report from the CDC summarizes 2007 West Nile virus surveillance data reported to CDC through ArboNET as of 3 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, Sept. 11, 2007. A total of 38 states have reported 1,395 cases of human WNV illness to CDC. A total of 770 (56%) cases for which such data were available occurred in males; median age of patients was 49 years (range: 15 months-96 years). Dates of illness onset ranged from Jan. 8 to Sept. 7; 38 cases were fatal.

The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General issued a guide on corporate responsibility and health care quality that offers questions related to health care quality requirements, measurement tools, and reporting requirements.

The National Association of County and City Health Officials has released a report, "Federal Funding for Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Implications and Ongoing Issues for Local Health Departments," that describes the results of two surveys conducted by the association that examine the local impact of changes in federal funding for public health preparedness. Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, local health departments have significantly increased their capacity to prepare for and respond to emergencies with the support of funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health has released its Interim Statement, outlining its vision and goals, the problems it seeks to ameliorate, and the intellectual foundation for a social determinants approach. Recommendations for action will be made in the Final Report in May 2008.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, have issued this this brief comparing estimates of health insurance coverage from three national surveys sponsored by the federal government, identifying the differences in their estimates of uninsurance and identifying two common themes.

The World Health Organization released this report about how the world is at increasing risk of disease outbreaks, epidemics, industrial accidents, natural disasters and other health emergencies which can rapidly become threats to global public health security.

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS), sponsored by the National Institute on Aging under a cooperative agreement with the University of Michigan, follows more than 20,000 men and women over 50, offering insight into the changing lives of the older U.S. population.

More than 100,000 lives would be saved annually if U.S. residents increased the use of five preventive services, according to a report by the Partnership for Prevention, Reuters reports. [Aug 08, 2007]

The report also found racial disparities in the use of preventive care. Hispanic smokers were 55% less likely than white smokers to receive help to quit smoking, and Asian-Americans were less likely than all other racial groups to take aspirin and get screened for colorectal and breast cancer, according to the report.

This toolkit from the Alliance for Health Reform offers links to resources that will help people understand the relationship between the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and state-level health reform.  While many policy experts believe that experimenting at the state level is the most politically feasible way to achieve health reform, many state reforms may be in conflict with the federal statute known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA. (Aug. 10, 2007)

WHO project finds venous thromboembolism risk higher after long travel, but still relatively low (June 29, 2007): Results from Phase I of the WHO Research Into Global Hazards of Travel (WRIGHT) project indicate that the risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) approximately doubles after travel lasting four hours or more. However, the study points out that even with this increased risk, the absolute risk of developing VTE, if seated and immobile for more than four hours, remains relatively low at about 1 in 6,000.

The 2006 NHQR, from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, includes 211 performance measures that can be used to monitor the nation's progress toward improved health care quality for all Americans. This report focuses on a group of 42 "core" measures representing the most important and scientifically sound measures of quality.

A study by Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine found that older people with inadequate health literacy had a 50 percent higher mortality rate over a period of five years than those with adequate literacy.

States reported that the citizenship documentation requirement resulted in barriers to access to Medicaid for some eligible citizens. Twenty-two of the 44 states reported declines in Medicaid enrollment due to the requirement, and a majority of these states attributed the declines to delays in or losses of Medicaid coverage for individuals who appeared to be eligible citizens.

A quarter of adult New Yorkers have elevated blood mercury levels, according to survey results released July 23, 2007, by the New York City health department. The findings are from New York City's Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NYC-HANES), the first such survey conducted by a U.S. city.

Hospital stays for a type of antibiotic-resistant infection have more than tripled since 2000, and since 1995 have increased nearly 10-fold, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

A national survey of 3167 physicians in six specialties (anesthesiology, cardiology, family practice, general surgery, internal medicine, and pediatrics) in late 2003 and early 2004 finds that most doctors  (94 percent) report some type of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System released the first comprehensive comparison of health system performance in all 50 states.

Examines current law and FDA's proposed revisions to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which will expire on Sept. 20, 2007, unless Congress reauthorizes it. Published by the Rapid Health Policy Response Project of the School of Public Health and Health Services at The George Washington University.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation compares estimates from four national surveys conducted by the federal government used to estimate the size of the uninsured population, identifies the differences between them, and points out two common threads.

In its report, The Future of Drug Safety: Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public (Sept. 22, 2006), an IOM committee considered the drug safety system, including drug review, safety surveillance, and related activities of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).

The Commonwealth Fund's National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance finds the nation falling far short on many measures of health system performance. At an Oct. 11, 2006, Alliance for Health Reform briefing, a panel of policy experts reviewed the Scorecard findings. An archived webcast of this event, along with speakers' presentations and source materials, is available through the Alliance Web site.

On Nov. 14, 2006, the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council released a report on hospital-acquired infections. Consumers Union says this report is the first of its kind to tell consumers how many patients picked up infections at each of the state's hospitals, and how many died from them.

Health, United States is an annual report on trends in health statistics. The report consists of a chartbook containing text and figures that illustrates major trends in the health of Americans and a trend tables section that contains 147 detailed data tables. With Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans and a special feature on pain.

The California HealthCare Foundation tracks home health care in California, focusing on agency utilization, quality measures, inspection and investigation results, and payment sources. As Americans live longer and face more health problems, many opt to get care from home health agencies. (Dec. 19, 2006)

Health Information Technology: Early Efforts Initiated but Comprehensive Privacy Approach Needed for National Strategy - This GAO report describes the steps HHS is taking to ensure privacy protection as part of its national health IT strategy and identifies challenges associated with protecting electronic health information exchanged within a nationwide health information network.