Drexel News Blog For current and former members of the military who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one of the central difficulties of the disorder is the ability to manage, or down-regulate, their negative emotions. Among other symptoms, people with PTSD are prone to being … Continue reading Can Music Therapy Help Soldiers with PTSD?
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
Banning sodas from school vending machines, building walking paths and playgrounds, adding supermarkets to food deserts and requiring nutritional labels on restaurant menus: Such changes to the environments where people live and work are among the growing number of solutions that have been proposed and attempted in efforts to stem the rising obesity epidemic with viable, population-based solutions. But which of these changes actually make an impact?
To answer that question, many public health researchers take advantage of “natural experiments”—looking at people’s calorie consumption or physical activity levels, either comparing before and after a policy or environmental change, or comparing against a similar group of people not affected by that change. But not all natural experiments are created equal.
“Rigorous science is needed to evaluate these natural or quasi–experiments,” said Amy Auchincloss, PhD, an associate professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health who was a member of a research team that authored a new study published online ahead of print in Obesity Reviews: “Impact of policy and built environment changes on obesity-related outcomes: a systematic review of naturally occurring experiments.” The review was led by Stephanie Mayne, a doctoral student supervised by Auchincloss, and also co-authored by Yvonne Michael, ScD, an associate professor and associate dean for academic and faculty affairs in the Drexel University School of Public Health.
The Drexel team reviewed the state of the science on this topic, evaluating the results and methods of all previous such studies published in the medical literature, in particular:
This is the first review that has examined the use of natural- or quasi-experiments to evaluate the efficacy of policy and built environment changes on obesity-related outcomes (body mass index, diet or physical activity). The review included PubMed (Medline) articles published 2005–2013; 1,175 abstracts and 115 papers were reviewed and ultimately 37 studies were included in the review.
The review identified certain types of interventions that are more successful than others in improving obesity-related outcomes, and identified areas where more research is needed to draw conclusions about obesity-related outcomes:
| Diet & Food Policy Changes | Physical Activity Focused Changes |
|---|---|
Changes with strong impacts were ones that improved the nutritional quality of foods:
Changes that had smaller or no impacts in the research to date included:
|
Changes with stronger impacts included:
More research is needed to look at physical activity effects (not just use of amenities) for built environment changes including:
|
The researchers noted that a common shortcoming in many studies is that they only measured process outcomes such as food purchases or use of bike/transit infrastructure, rather than measuring the desired health outcomes, such as weight loss.
“Research suggests that people will use new amenities like bike shares, and limit purchases of unhealthy foods in specific contexts like schools,” said Mayne. “But it is less clear whether these changes translate into overall improvements in diet and physical activity.”
Likewise, only a few studies directly assessed impacts on BMI or weight; thus, the authors concluded that evidence is lacking on whether environmental and policy modifications are successful in maintaining healthy weight or reducing excess weight.
A key value of a natural experiment is that it can narrowly focus on the direct impact of a change in policy or infrastructure on an affected population—making natural experiments an important way to check on what kinds of public policies and investments make real-world impacts on health, and to what degree. The authors concluded that more natural experiments are needed to strengthen the evidence base about obesity-related policies and interventions. They also recommend more natural experiments to explore whether the timing of a change or repeated exposure to the changed condition enhances or reduces impacts on obesity-related outcomes.
The authors generally found stronger results in studies that had longer follow-up periods after a policy change or other intervention.
Both Auchincloss and Michael are members of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics as well as principal investigators of Drexel’s Urban Health & Design team, an interdisciplinary effort to evaluate the impact of design projects on public health. The team’s work encompasses multiple research projects that are embedded within community-based design projects in Philadelphia that are believed to impact health, such as an urban greenway, community gardens and a school playground.
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2015/March/Which-Natural-Experiments-Reduce-Obesity
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
As the epidemic of community violence swells in U.S. cities, one promising place for intervention and prevention of future violence is the emergency departments of hospitals. More than 25 hospitals nationwide have adopted a public health approach to helping victims of violence with programs that aim to prevent future violent injuries, not just treat them.
In Philadelphia, that public health approach is about to reach a much larger public: Healing Hurt People, a trauma-informed hospital-based violence intervention program developed at Drexel University, is expanding its reach at an unprecedented city-wide level. Efforts are underway to offer the program soon at Temple University Hospital in North Philadelphia, with further expansion planned for Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania later in 2015-2016. The program currently operates in partnership with the emergency departments of Hahnemann University Hospital and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.
“No other city has expanded hospital-based violence intervention in this way,” said Ted Corbin, MD, an associate professor in Drexel’s College of Medicine and School of Public Health and director of Healing Hurt People. “What’s especially valuable about Healing Hurt People is that our approach to violence intervention is trauma-informed, meaning the program is built on principles recognizing how traumatic stress and past exposure to violence affect clients and their needs.”
Healing Hurt People, a program of Drexel’s Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice in the School of Public Health and College of Medicine, has previously been replicated at two hospitals in Chicago and one in Portland, Oregon, with a second Portland site under development.
“Research has shown that more than 60 percent of young people who are victims of violence show symptoms of PTSD at a diagnosable level after their injuries, and many more experience symptoms of hyperarousal,” said John A. Rich, MD, a professor in Drexel’s School of Public Health and co-director of the Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice. “We see that people who live with chronic traumatic stress in an unsafe environment are more likely to seek safety by resorting to carrying a weapon and in some cases retaliating, or to self-medicate with drugs—all behaviors that put them at continued risk and perpetuate the cycle of violence.”
Intervention programs like Healing Hurt People offer services to victims at a critical moment when their thoughts may turn to retaliation or to changing their lives. The programs’ case management services and behavioral health interventions offer clients a personalized path to safety from future violence, including access to health care and education.
The emphasis on trauma-informed care in Healing Hurt People has engendered its support from Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS). The department provides funding for trauma specific behavioral health, case management and other components of Healing Hurt People at its existing Philadelphia sites; DBHIDS is now funding the expansion to other city hospitals. The department’s commissioner, Arthur Evans, PhD, has publicly stated a goal of making Philadelphia the most trauma-informed city in the nation.
“We think Healing Hurt People is a terrific model,” said Evans, “and represents a tremendous opportunity to engage people in care without those individuals having to reach out for the crucial services they need. We’re very pleased that HHP is expanding its reach to help more young people in Philadelphia.”
In the program expansion process already underway, Drexel’s Healing Hurt People program staff are currently working with academic and health-care partners at Temple, including training and hiring staff and initiating enrollment in a rigorous research program to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. Hospital and affiliated academic leaders of the Healing Hurt People sites from Drexel, Temple, Einstein and Penn have already formed a “learning community” so they can share the process of planning and implementing Healing Hurt People across the city.
The research program to evaluate Healing Hurt People during its expansion across Philadelphia is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Stoneleigh Foundation and aims to measure the effectiveness of the program’s trauma-informed services on clients’ mental health outcomes. Previous research studies on the effectiveness of hospital-based violence intervention programs, including a limited number of randomized controlled trials, have demonstrated their success in preventing violent reinjury and involvement with the criminal justice system, among other outcomes. A recent simulation study led by members of Drexel’s Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice also demonstrated that such programs are likely to save money, compared to nonintervention. However, the primary aim of these programs is typically not research, but service to clients to address critical community needs in violence prevention.
“Temple is no stranger to developing and maintaining programs that serve to reduce the incidence of gun fatalities in Philadelphia, and we are proud to be a part of this program,” said Marla Davis Bellamy, JD, co-principal investigator of the Healing Hurt People replication at Temple. “The expansion of Healing Hurt People to Temple University Hospital will provide our Emergency Department an opportunity to provide patients with behavioral health support to help them deal with traumatic stress given their overexposure to violence. The goal of this collaboration is to provide the residents of our surrounding neighborhoods with the tools necessary to prevent future violence as well as to improve the overall health of our community.” Kathleen Reeves, MD, is also a co-principal investigator of the Healing Hurt People replication at Temple.
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2015/February/Philadelphia-Hospital-Violence-Intervention/
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
As inner-city school kids climb and swing at a state-of-the-art playground with a rain garden and trees, will their surroundings make a difference in their health and social well-being? At urban community gardens nearby, will the fresh produce and a greener view help local residents breathe easier?
Such questions, connecting urban design and natural systems with public health, are the focus of a new convergence of research and community engagement efforts at Drexel. A new team of faculty from the School of Public Health and Westphal College of Media Arts & Design is bringing together research on these interdisciplinary questions within community-based projects in West Philadelphia—some of which are already underway, and some that have yet to begin.
These efforts to study design and health will now be better linked and better equipped to succeed. In December, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) selected Drexel’s Urban Design & Health team as one of 11 inaugural members of the AIA Design & Health Research Consortium. The consortium will support member research on how design affects public health through workshops and discussion forums. It will provide members a platform to share ideas, such as resources for measuring and assessing the built or natural environment and results of related studies, with like-minded researchers and practitioners from across the country.
The Drexel researchers’ central hypothesis is that aspects of natural systems can be woven into existing urban systems to create healthier populations through design. The team is placing a special emphasis on measuring that idea in community settings in the Mantua neighborhood, where Drexel has already committed a number of efforts toward being the most civically engaged university in the nation.
The Drexel team’s research plan focuses on assessing the public health impact of design projects in neighborhoods near the University’s campus where community members face high rates of poverty and health disparities. These projects include:
“There has been a growing collaborative effort between faculty in the School of Public Health and in Westphal College’s Department of Architecture & Interiors, including projects such as the Mantua Presbyterian Apartments, a low-income senior housing complex where Drexel students designed an urban garden, ” said Yvonne Michael, ScD, an associate professor in the School of Public Health and one of the principal investigators of the new team. “We saw the AIA consortium as an opportunity to better link the schools together. Now that we’ve been accepted as a consortium member, we are beginning to develop a framework for developing joint research and educational projects.”
The group aims to generate data that is useful to city residents and policy makers in understanding and addressing the causes of urban health problems and health inequalities—and to translate their new knowledge into effective practice and policy to promote health in communities. At the same time, they will train undergraduate and graduate students, as well as community members and external partners, in design and health issues.
“Working in an interdisciplinary capacity with Public Health faculty and students in the pre and post occupancy phases of the McMichael STEAM Schoolyard is just one of many future projects where we hope to better understand and quantify health impacts in the built environment,” said Debra Ruben, an associate professor and director of interior design programs in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. “Design and public health has always had a strong connection and the consortium is a perfect way to foster this type of collaboration, underscoring the important role that the built environment plays in the health and well-being of the community.”
Principal investigators on this team are, from the School of Public Health: Yvonne L. Michael, ScD, Amy Auchincloss, PhD, Amy Carroll-Scott, PhD, and the school’s dean Ana Diez Roux, MD, PhD; and from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design: Debra Ruben, Diana Nicholas, Jon P. Coddington, Harris Steinberg and Eugenia Victoria Ellis, PhD of the College of Engineering and Westphal College.
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2015/February/Urban-Health-Design-Research/
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
The roots of children’s hunger today may stretch back, in part, to the past childhood trauma of their caregivers. Evidence amassed over the past two decades has demonstrated that stress and deprivation during childhood have lifelong consequences on health, as well as school and job performance. A new small-scale study from Drexel University now suggests a strong relationship between exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and household food insecurity among mothers of young children.
“This is brutal stuff,” said Mariana Chilton, PhD, an associate professor and director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities in the Drexel University School of Public Health, who was lead author of the study now published in the journal Public Health Nutrition. “The causes and realities of hunger and poverty are complicated and difficult to unravel. We are seeing one component of them is that, for many people, experiences of hunger have trauma and adversity at their core.”
This Childhood Stress study, led by Chilton with several Drexel graduates in the School of Public Health, used both quantitative and qualitative methods to gather information about 31 Philadelphia mothers’ experience with deprivation, abuse, violence and neglect, as well as their experiences with hunger, education and employment and more.
The findings, Chilton and colleagues say, show that trauma and chronic stress are a largely overlooked part of the picture of why one in five American households with young children live with food insecurity. They say it indicates a greater need for public assistance programs to provide support for families’ emotional needs in addition to their material needs.
While the team’s quantitative surveys were small in number, the results still point clearly to a value in considering adverse childhood experiences as a contributor to food insecurity. Higher scores on the adverse childhood experiences survey, for instance, were significantly associated with the severity of participants’ household food insecurity.
In interviews, the study participants relayed their perceptions of how emotional and physical abuse in childhood affected their lives, including physical health, school performance and ability to maintain employment—all factors directly linked to household income and ability to afford enough healthy food for their own children.
“If a person always says you’re nothing; you’re nothing. Then for a while I used to think I’m not anything,” said 22-year-old Tamira (a pseudonym), a study participant who experienced abandonment by her mother at age five, then abuse and rape by members of her caregiver family at age six, and was emotionally and physically abused by her grandmother who took her in at the age of seven. Tamira experienced homelessness in her teens after her grandmother kicked her out, but eventually still graduated from high school. In her interview she described a connection between her childhood struggles with physical and emotional abuse and her ability to provide for her young daughter today: “So maybe that’s how I don’t have a job, because I’m thinking I’m nothing. I’m not ever going to have a job. I’m not going to be [anything], like my grandma said. […] Because I can’t find a job I cannot feed my daughter. How am I supposed to? I cannot buy her what she needs.”
Other study participants described experiences of physical neglect, household drug abuse, exposure to violence at home and in their communities and other adverse experiences in childhood. Many said they felt these experiences affected their lifelong abilities to succeed—although many simultaneously expressed strong feelings of resilience and hope to change the story for their own young children.
“This study has been difficult for us, because examining the relationship between food insecurity and adverse experiences in childhood may simply add more stigma to families already stigmatized and blamed for the hardships that they face,” said Molly Knowles, a Drexel MPH graduate, research coordinator at the center, and a co-author of the study. “It’s important to be clear that childhood adversity is one factor interrelated with many others, including low wages, insufficiently and inequitably funded education systems, racism and discrimination, lack of safe and affordable housing and an inadequate safety net.”
The researchers recommend that those working to address poverty and hunger in children should include emotional health of parents and caregivers in a more comprehensive approach to policy and services. Such an approach should include ensuring parents and caregivers have safe places to live, access to behavioral health support and opportunities to develop positive social relationships. They also recommend providing public assistance programs that recognize widespread exposure to trauma and violence, offering additional support to participants with behavioral health barriers to employment, and implementing programs in ways that avoid re-traumatization.
For more information about the study, see the following resources:
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2015/February/Child-Hunger-Trauma-Study/
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
At more than 25 hospitals across the U.S., health care professionals have embraced a public health approach to their work—taking action to prevent violent injuries, not just treat them. In programs known as hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIPs), teams of medical professionals, social workers and researchers step in at a critical moment in a patient’s life—the period following a violent injury such as a gunshot or stab wound—with case management, counseling and other services that help these victims break free from the cycle of violence.
As these programs have grown, up from about six programs in 2009, reports of their successes have accrued. There is evidence that HVIPs prevent violent reinjury and perpetration, reduce aggressive behaviors and improve employment, education and healthcare utilization among program participants.
Researchers at Drexel University have now published the first study to systematically look at the economic outcomes of hospital-based violence intervention. They demonstrate that, in addition to transforming victims’ lives, these programs may indeed save a significant amount of money compared to non-intervention, in various sectors including health care and criminal justice. They report in the February issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that an HVIP serving 90 clients could result in costs savings from tens of thousands of dollars and up to about $4 million in a five-year period.
“This is the first systematic economic evaluation of a hospital-based violence intervention program, and it’s done in a way that can be replicated as new evidence emerges about the programs’ impacts across different sectors,” said Jonathan Purtle, DrPH, an assistant professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health who was lead author of the simulation study.
Attaching dollars and cents to HVIPs—and knowing which sectors of society are likely to see the financial benefit—is important because many HVIPs lack a sustainable funding source. Most programs currently rely on a patchwork of funders that may include some use of insurance billing for eligible services, such as behavioral counseling; private foundation grant or institutional funding; or local government funding.
Demonstrating that HVIPs are a source of long-term cost savings for the health care system or for the criminal justice system, or both, helps make the case that investing in HVIPs pays off.
Purtle’s study drew on the research literature about violent reinjury, violent perpetration, and estimates of the rates at which HVIPs prevent these outcomes. He compared the costs of outcomes likely to be experienced by a hypothetical group of 90 individuals who received HVIP services (plus the costs of providing HVIP services to the 90 clients, $350,000 per year) to the costs of the outcomes likely to be experienced by a similar group of 90 individuals who did not receive HVIP services. Various models of the simulation included costs to the health care system, such as costs of treating the individuals who are reinjured and/or treating their victims if those individuals go on to perpetrate violence against others; those health care costs plus costs to the criminal justice system to prosecute and incarcerate individuals who become perpetrators; and the preceding costs in addition to societal costs of lost productivity.
In all models of the simulation, HVIPs produced cost savings over five years. The most conservative simulation, including only the future health care costs of those among the 90 individuals who may experience violent reinjury, showed health care savings of $82,765. The most comprehensive model, including lost productivity costs, showed a societal cost savings of over $4 million to serve 90 clients.
Purtle noted that lost productivity costs, while common in economic analyses, may be somewhat unrealistically high because they assume all individuals in the model are employed. Conversely, beyond the economic analysis there are still social benefits of HVIPs that aren’t easily quantifiable: “Even if the intervention cost a little more than it saved in dollars and cents to the health care system, there would still be a net benefit in terms of the violence it prevented,” Purtle said.
“The research literature has poetically referred to the time after a traumatic injury as the ‘golden hour’,” said Ted Corbin, MD, an associate professor in Drexel’s College of Medicine and School of Public Health, and a co-author of the study with Purtle. That first hour after a major injury is a medically critical time to address physical symptoms such as blood loss and brain injury.
Soon thereafter, Corbin said, is also a critical, vulnerable moment when patients who were victims of interpersonal violence may direct their thoughts toward retaliation, or toward turning their lives around.
Corbin directs Healing Hurt People, the hospital-based violence intervention program in Philadelphia, based in Drexel’s interdisciplinary Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice, of which he, Purtle and all of the study’s co-authors are part. Healing Hurt People serves a population of pediatric and young adult clients in two inner-city hospitals, who are largely marginalized, underresourced and socially disenfranchised. It operates based on a framework that is trauma-informed—meaning that the program is designed on principles recognizing how traumatic stress and adversity associated with past exposure to violence affect clients and their needs.
“Our efforts are to connect with that person, gain their trust and work to connect them with services,” Corbin said. The majority of patients approached by the program’s caseworkers, either during their time in the hospital or soon after, are interested in enrolling as clients. Many use the assistance of case managers to enroll in health insurance and connect to a primary care doctor for the first time as adults, get an ID card, connect with court advocacy and compensation services for victims, access school services or otherwise pursue positive changes in their lives to avoid future involvement with violence.
The Healing Hurt People program receives financial backing for trauma-informed case management services from the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. Many of the behavioral health counseling services within the program are billed to insurance when appropriate.
“There are many aspects of society where people can take steps to address trauma and step in to contribute to reducing violence,” Corbin said. “Those of us in medicine have an opportunity to do something through hospital-based violence intervention, but it’s just one slice of the pie.”
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2015/January/Hospital-Violence-Intervention-Cost-Benefits/
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
Runners and other athletes who have experienced an injury know how vital physical therapy is at helping them get back on their feet.
But even runners who aren’t injured may be putting themselves at risk—and by consulting with physical therapists, they can make changes to their form to keep them going strong, prevent future injuries and even improve their performance.
“Research estimates that between 50-70 percent of runners are injured over the course of a year,” said Robert Maschi, PT, DPT, OCS an assistant clinical professor in Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions who is a leader in the area of running analysis and gait retraining. “Small changes in form have a big effect on the load on the body, and on injury risk.”
Maschi and colleagues at Drexel now offer a suite of physical therapy and other health services specifically geared toward helping runners prevent injury or step up their performance, in addition to existing services for runners recovering from injuries. The new and growing set of health services from Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions is available at the new Parkway Health & Wellness location in Center City, as well as at Drexel’s Recreation Center on the University City campus.
Runners who come for comprehensive assessment receive individual, detailed feedback about their unique running mechanics. Assessments include a thorough analysis of medical and running history as well as a high-tech gait analysis. In this testing, runners perform specific movement screening tests and then run on a treadmill that is monitored by video from multiple angles; physical therapists then use a software program to perform a two-dimensional motion analysis on the video.
“From the video, we can assess joint positions and movement patterns and measure different distances and angles using the software, thus generating a report that looks at various aspects of the client’s running mechanics and running gait,” Maschi said.
Maschi and the other physical therapists performing these assessments then review results with their clients. They may make recommendations to change an aspect of their running form, such as to increase or decrease step length, or to change step width. “Foot strike patterns have different implications for the way that tissues get loaded, and we may make modifications based on that,” Maschi said.
Clients can then take home a detailed packet of personalized information and photos of their own running form, along with the physical therapist’s recommendations.
“It’s a lot different to actually see yourself and your physical form when running, compared to how you think you look when you run,” said Kevin Gard, PT, DPT, OCS, a clinical professor and director of the doctoral program in physical therapy in Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions.
At Parkway Health & Wellness, runners can also participate in research studies about running-related health concerns such as plantar fasciitis. Researchers in Drexel’s Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences are currently conducting several studies of running injury and are hoping to shed light on reasons behind the high rate of injury and aid prevention.
Services for runners at Drexel’s Parkway Health & Wellness site will also soon expand to include close integration with nutrition and performance counseling, physiological testing, behavioral health counseling to address behavioral aspects of performance and a thorough integration with all other services available to patients at that location.
Most insurance is accepted for medically necessary physical therapy services. The running analysis assessment service is available for a fee of $200. To schedule an appointment for running analysis or physical therapy services, contact: 215.571.4287, or email ptappts@drexel.edu.
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2015/January/Running-Clinic/
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
Parents and physicians still aren’t doing enough to address the rise of “pharming,” or recreational use and abuse of prescription drugs, among teenagers, according to public health researchers at Drexel University.
“The medicine chest is a drug dealer that no one ever thinks about,” said Renee Turchi, MD, MPH an associate professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health and College of Medicine and co-author of a recent review article about pharming in the peer-reviewed physicians’ journal Contemporary Pediatrics.
Prescription drug abuse among teenagers is a growing area of concern for several reasons, according to Turchi and co-author Susan Solecki, a clinical assistant professor in Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions. They cite federal data reporting that prescription medications are the drugs second-most commonly abused by adolescents (after marijuana), and are the drugs with the biggest growth in abuse among those aged 12-24. Abuse of these drugs and of over-the-counter medications has surpassed the use of illicit and illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
Turchi, a pediatrician, learned about pharming from a friend who works in law enforcement, and subsequently enlisted Solecki, who is a public health doctoral candidate and Turchi’s advisee, to work together on the new report to raise awareness of the issue among other health care practitioners.
Teens may perceive prescribed drugs as “safe” or “clean” in comparison to street drugs—when in reality, pills, especially when taken in combination, can have dangerous and even lethal side effects. Turchi and Solecki cite data showing that 14 percent of high school seniors have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons at least once. Also, prescription drug use can be a predecessor to heroin use for teens and young adults.
Some reports even point to a trend in “pharm parties” or “skittling parties” (named for the colorful candy). In these parties, teens combine different pills in a shared bowl and each swallow a few pills indiscriminately—sometimes with an alcohol chaser. Combining medications in this way, and with alcohol, can cause stroke, heart attack, irreversible brain damage or death.
When teens abuse prescription pills, parents may be unaware because there is no telltale odor, and these pills may not cause slurred speech or other obvious signs of being high.
The Drexel researchers want to send a wake-up call to both parents and physicians to educate teenagers about the risks of prescription pills, and to restrict access to medications at home.
Their main recommendations include:
Solecki said that the growing availability of prescription pills makes it all the more important to keep those medications safe from improper use.
“We talk about safety of keeping drugs away from toddlers, but teenagers have access right from the medicine cabinet,” she said.
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2015/January/Teen-Prescription-Drugs/
Drexel News Blog This time of year, it seems everyone is refocusing on healthy eating and fitness in a furor of New Year’s goals. And some are looking for the fast track in the form of so-called “super foods.” According to Stella Volpe, PhD, who … Continue reading Do the Best Supplements Grow on Bushes? Nutrition Expert Recommends Four Functional Foods for Fitness
Originally posted on DrexelNow.
Getting a better job or more hours at work should be a boon to low-income individuals who are trying to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. But sometimes, instead, their families suffer more just when they should begin to thrive.
“Earning more income should always be a positive step forward, but for too many families a modest increase in income, especially when those increases are often temporary, does not make up for benefits that are lost as a result of the increase,” said Mariana Chilton, PhD, an associate professor and director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities in the Drexel University School of Public Health and principal investigator of the Philadelphia site of Children’s HealthWatch, a multi-site research program investigating the impact of public policies and programs on the health of young children seen in hospitals, emergency rooms, and primary care clinics. “When incomes are unstable, benefits help families stay stable. A loss of benefits can have drastic impacts on a family, limiting their ability to purchase food and other basic necessities, and forcing families to return to benefit programs they were working so hard to leave.”
That cliff effect—losing benefits in the transition out of poverty—is the focus of a new policy report released today by Drexel’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities and Children’s HealthWatch based on Children’s HealthWatch data collected in Philadelphia from 2005 through 2013.
The analysis found that families who experienced a reduction of food stamp benefits (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) due to an increase in income were more likely to be food insecure or marginally food secure, than were families who received a consistent level of SNAP benefits.
The report was presented at a Shared Prosperity roundtable hosted by the City of Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity (CEO) in support of Shared Prosperity Philadelphia, the city’s plan to fight poverty. Monthly roundtables bring together researchers, service providers and consumers, funders, and others to deepen knowledge and form more effective partnerships to address critical poverty issues.
The report indicates that losing or having a reduction of SNAP benefits due to income growth was associated with other sacrifices in the family’s health and health care, beyond access to food. Families whose SNAP benefits were reduced were more likely to include a family member who was forced to forgo health care due to cost. In households who lost SNAP benefits completely due to increased income, young children were twice as likely to have foregone needed health care due to cost and more likely to live in a household that made trade-offs between paying for other basic living expenses (food, rent or housing) to pay for health care.
These trade-offs and the fear of faring worse after benefit loss when earning higher wages are familiar for many people who live in poverty, including participants in the Witnesses to Hunger program in the Center for Hunger-Free Communities. Participant Imani Sullivan, for example, has described her first-hand experience with this struggle: “I was on my way to my job when my food stamps were cut off,” she said. “They had called me to work there overtime for one day and I thought to myself, ‘Well, if I go down here this one day, are they going to cut my food stamps off?’ I really didn’t know what to do. I don’t think it’s fair for us to get reprimanded for doing something positive.”
To help families in Philadelphia and nationwide have a clear and effective path out of poverty and into economic independence, the authors of the new policy report recommend three major types of solutions:
The authors recommend developing creative solutions across local, state and federal policies.
“We are proud to partner with the Center for Hunger-Free Communities to support families as they increase their earned income,” said Eva Gladstein, Executive Director of CEO. “We look forward to working with Dr. Chilton and partners at all levels of government to bring much needed relief to working families across Philadelphia.”
– See more at: http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2014/December/Working-Families-SNAP-Benefits-Report/
Rachel Ewing 