Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

CBS Evening News profiled RWJF Community Health Leader Roseanna Means, MD, who founded the nonprofit Women of Means in 1988 to provide free medical care to homeless women in the Boston area. Today, 16 volunteer doctors and staff nurses provide care at the city’s shelters to women with unique sensitivities and needs. Read a post Means wrote about her nonprofit for the RWJF Human Capital Blog.

A study led by RWJF Clinical Scholars alumnus Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, finds more than 40 percent of American parents give over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to children under age 4, despite product label warnings to the contrary. Health Day and the Examiner report on the findings.

Helena Hansen, MD, PhD, an alumna of the RWJF Health & Society Scholars program, is the lead author of an analysis that concludes social determinants—rather than changes in the environment or flawed diagnostic criteria—help explain the dramatic rise in the number of Americans diagnosed with mental disorders in recent years. Health Canal and MedPage Today report on the findings.

Forty-seven percent of children with cancer who receive part of their treatment at home have been exposed to at least one medication error, according to a study led by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholars alumna Kathleen E. Walsh, MD, MSc. Those errors had the potential to harm 36 per 100 patients, and actually did cause injury to four per 100, MedPage Today reports.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

A study led by RWJF Clinical Scholar Tammy Chang, MD, MPH, finds that women who had their first child before age 20 are more likely to be obese later in life than those who were not teen moms, Health Day reports. “When clinicians care for teen mothers, we have so many immediate considerations— child care, housing, school, social and financial support—that we may fail to consider the long-term health effects of teen pregnancy,” Chang said. Caroline Richardson, MD, a Clinical Scholars alumna, and Matthew Davis, MD, MAPP, an alumnus and program site co-director at the University of Michigan, co-authored the study with Chang.

RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumnus Craig Volden, PhD, was a guest on MSNBC’s The Cycle to discuss his study published in the American Journal of Political Science. Volden and his colleagues examined the sponsorship histories of 140,000 bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives over the last 40 years, and concluded that female lawmakers may be more effective at passing legislation than their male counterparts, particularly during times of party polarization, because they tend to work across party lines.

A study led by RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumna Margaret Grey, DrPH, RN, FAAN, finds that Internet-based psycho-educational intervention programs improve outcomes for young patients entering adolescence with type 1 diabetes, Monthly Prescribing Reference reports.

Medical News Today and the MinnPost report on an article written by Gary Taubes, MSE, MS, recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, in The British Medical Journal about the non-profit he co-founded, the Nutrition Science Initiative. The Initiative will fund nutrition and obesity research, which Taubes says has been flawed and inconclusive in the past. Learn more about the Nutrition Science Initiative.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Physician Faculty Scholars alumnus Amal Trivedi, MD, MPH, is co-author of a study that finds older patients are routinely prescribed potentially harmful drugs, particularly in the South. Although the specific reasons for the regional differences are unknown, the researchers hypothesize factors like education, socioeconomic status, and access to quality medical care might be to blame, the New York Times Well Blog reports. NPR and Nurse.com are among the other outlets to report on the findings.

Fierce Healthcare reports on a study led by RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar Kelly Doran, MD, that finds frequent use of the emergency department at Veterans Health Administration facilities is often due to “severely compromised life circumstances,” rather than poor access to outpatient health care. The study raises questions about the degree to which increasing access to outpatient care, as the Affordable Care Act aims to do, will reduce emergency department use.

Manish K. Sethi, MD, a health policy associate at the RWJF Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College, spoke to the Leaf Chronicle about a program he started at Cameron College Prep Middle School in Nashville to teach teens conflict resolution strategies in an effort to reduce violence in the Nashville area. Read a Q&A with Sethi about the program.

This is part of the April 2013 issue of Sharing Nursing's Knowledge.

Coffee-table books are designed to draw attention, and that is precisely what nurses got after the 2012 publication of a hefty tome featuring portraits of nurses from all walks of life.

The American Nurse has caught the eye of reporters for some of the largest-circulation publications in the country, including USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, National Public Radio, and the Huffington Post.

Dozens of other news outlets, such as the Lancaster New Era in Pennsylvania and local news programs in Louisiana and Northern California, have also covered the book’s release, as have trade publications like the American Journal of Nursing and Johns Hopkins Nursing Magazine, according to the book’s website.

The book, by photographer and filmmaker Carolyn Jones, tells the stories of 75 nurses working in various locations across the country—from a maternity ward in Baltimore to remote homes in Appalachia to a prison in the South. It is poised to get even more attention after completion of a  feature-length documentary film about six of the book’s subjects.

The book was supported by Fresenius Kabi USA, an international health care company that focuses on products for the therapy and care of critically and chronically ill patients. It is designed to elevate the voice of nurses in the United States, according to the book’s website.

Speaking to the nation’s nurses in a video statement, Rhonda Collins, MSN, RN, a nurse who is vice president and business manager at Fresenius Kabi USA, says: “We recognize you for who you are. We see you, and we appreciate everything you do.”

Newspaper readers and television viewers, it appears, are getting the message.

Subscribe to RWJF's nursing e-newsletter, Sharing Nursing's Knowledge.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

Asthmapolis, founded and directed by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumnus David Van Sickle, PhD, MA, has secured a $5 million investment that will be used to expand operations and further enhance its product, the Milwaukee Business Journal  and Journal-Sentinel report. The company has engineered a GPS-enabled asthma inhaler called the Spiroscout, which sends a signal with the time and location to a remote server every time a patient uses it, allowing patients and providers to track and analyze the onset of asthma symptoms. Read more about Asthmapolis here and here.

Health & Society Scholar Sammy Zahran, PhD, is co-author of a study that finds that children in Detroit are being exposed to lead from an overlooked source: contaminated soil. Zahran and his team examined seasonal fluctuations in children’s blood lead levels and found that levels were highest in the summertime, when contaminated soil turns into airborne dust. The researchers were able to rule out exposure to lead-based paint as the main source of the contamination, NPR’s Shots Blog reports, because blood lead levels were lower in the winter, when children are more likely to be indoors.

A study from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, which is directed by RWJF Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research recipient Edward W. Maibach, PhD, MPH, finds a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents think action should be taken to address climate change, United Press International reports. The New York Times Dot Earth Blog also reported on the findings.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

A study led by RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholars alumnus Jeffrey Kullgren, MD, MPH, finds that weight loss programs motivate patients to lose more weight when they offer financial prizes in group competitions, rather than individual rewards. MedPage Today and Medscape [registration required] report on the findings.

Healthcare Finance News reports on a study co-authored by RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research recipient Mark A. Hall, JD, that finds insurers subject to the medical loss ratio requirements in 2011 spent less than one percent of premium revenue on quality improvements (0.74%) or rebates (0.35%). The researchers write that “current market forces do not strongly reward insurers’ investments in this area.”

In a post on the New York Times’ Room for Debate blog about prenuptial agreements, Investigator Award recipient Celeste Watkins-Hayes, PhD, writes: “There is no doubt that women need to be savvy about protecting their assets and ensuring that their contributions and hard work are valued, even in marriage. But prenups can only protect a certain demographic. What is needed is a comprehensive strengthening of all women’s safety nets through access to jobs that build wealth, increased financial literacy and a better infrastructure for raising children with or without a significant other.”

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

Eating high-fat dairy products may raise breast cancer survivors' risk of dying years later, according to a nearly 15-year study led by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumna Candyce Kroenke, ScD, MPH. Breast cancer survivors who ate one or more servings of high-fat dairy a day had a 49 percent higher risk of breast cancer death and a 64 percent higher risk of death from any cause, compared to those who consumed little or no high-fat dairy, Health Day reports. Kroenke hypothesizes that the elevated estrogen rates in milk fats, present because of the production methods common in the Western world, contribute to a relapse of breast cancer.  Fox News and MedCity News also reported on the findings.

A study funded by the RWJF Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) and the National Institute of Nursing Research finds that insufficient nurse staffing in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) can lead to high infection rates among the most vulnerable babies, which can lead to mortality or long-term developmental issues affecting the quality of their lives. Nurse.com, The Star-Ledger, HealthDay and The Lund Report are among the outlets to report on the findings. Read more about the study.

Politico reports on a study co-authored by RWJF Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research recipient Cathy J. Cohen, PhD, that finds young minorities are disproportionately affected by voter identification laws. “Significantly more” minority youths (age 18-29) were asked to show identification at the polls than white youth, the study finds. In addition, minority youth are much less likely to have one of the required forms of identification than white youth—a barrier that was a primary reason many minority youth did not vote in 2012, according to the study.

This is part of the March 2013 issue of Sharing Nursing's Knowledge.

For three years, Congress has failed to fund a federal panel that was created to address a dire shortage of health care professionals—and now the news media is beginning to take note.

The unfunded panel broke through the media silence in January when Politico, an inside-the-Beltway publication that covers Congress and the White House, ran a story about it. In February, the New York Times followed up with its own piece.

Officially called the National Health Care Workforce Commission, the panel was created in 2010 under the health reform law to address concerns over a short supply of health care providers at a time when demand is growing, thanks to the aging population and an influx of newly insured people expected to enter the health care system next year.

A leading nurse researcher, Peter Buerhaus, PhD, RN, FAAN, a professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University, was tapped to chair the commission and 15 members were appointed. But Congress never appropriated funds for it—a phenomenon that was noted at a recent hearing before a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

“It’s a disappointing situation,” Buerhaus told the New York Times. “The nation’s health care work force has many problems that are not being attended to. These problems were apparent before health care reform, and they will be even more pressing after health care reform.”

The award-winning documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, will premiere on CNN this evening at 8 p.m. EST, and again at 11 p.m. EST.

Through the real-life experiences of physicians and patients, the film “reveals flaws in the notion that the healthcare delivered via America’s patchwork of facilities, practitioners, and insurers offers good value for its outcomes,” according to a CNN news release. It shows the pressures providers face, and the frustrations of patients that are often exacerbated by insufficient care.

The film also offers features innovative solutions from noted leaders in the public and private sectors.

Following the broadcast, CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, MD will moderate a 30-minute discussion exploring how Americans can increase their access to health care and save money.

Read more about Escape Fire.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

The average emergency room visit costs 40 percent more than a month’s rent, according to a study led by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholar Renee Hsia, MD, MSc. The study also found the “sticker price” for emergency department care varies widely, the Washington Post Wonk Blog reports, with a sprained ankle ranging from $4 to $24,110. Among the other outlets to report on Hsia’s findings: Health Day, Bloomberg, and MSN.com. Read a post Hsia wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about ambulance diversion and emergency room crowding.

RWJF Health & Society Scholar Jennifer Karas Montez, PhD, was a guest on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to comment on a recently released longevity study. Montez' research in this area has focused on longevity among women, and she found that low-educated women (especially those without a high school education) have seen declines in their life expectancy, while life expectancy for men has stayed steady or increased. The Associated Press also reported on Montez research.

Americans support government intervention in matters of public health, such as curbing obesity, U.S. News & World Report says in reporting on research conducted by Michelle M. Mello, JD, PhD, MPhil, an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research recipient. Three-fourths of respondents in a survey said they support laws that would discourage obesity in adults, with most favoring less-intrusive measures such as posting calorie counts.