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:

The number of emergency department visits by adults in California increased 13 percent between 2005 and 2010, with the biggest increase seen among those on Medicaid, according to a research letter by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholar Renee Y. Hsia, MD, MSc, and colleagues. The researchers say Californians with Medicaid may be having trouble finding primary care, forcing them to rely on emergency departments.

African American medical school students anticipate having significantly higher debts from their years in school than students of other races and ethnicities, according to a study co-authored by RWJF Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research recipient Sandro Galea, MD, MPH, DrPH. The findings “also underscore the belief that the high cost of medical school deters qualified minority students from applying and enrolling, especially among African American students,” U.S. News & World Report says.

A study co-authored by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumnus Haslyn Hunte, PhD, MPH, finds that people of all races who perceive they have been discriminated against—whether everyday discrimination or a single instance of "major" discrimination—have higher levels of drug use than people who have not had such experiences. "Mental health and substance abuse providers should consider treating experiences of unfair treatment/discrimination as a risk factor for drug use as they do other experiences of stress, such as the death of a loved one," Hunte told Medical XPress. "They should also not assume that discrimination is only a problem for racial/ethnic minorities."

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:

Jennifer Stuber, PhD, an alumna of the RWJF Health & Society Scholars program, was a guest on KING’s New Day (Seattle, Wash.) to discuss Forefront, an organization she co-founded to advance suicide prevention through policy change, professional training, campus and school-based interventions, media outreach and ongoing evaluation. Stuber has been an advocate for suicide prevention since her husband took his own life in 2011, and supports suicide-assessment training for medical professionals as part of continuing education. Read a post Stuber wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about that legislation.

Nearly 60 percent of the 5.1 million patients who were prescribed a psychotropic medication in 2009 had received no psychiatric diagnosis, according to a study led by RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar Ilse Wiechers, MD, MPP. The study also finds that 67 percent of those prescriptions were given to patients who did not receive any specialized mental health care, Medscape reports, meaning the medications were prescribed in primary care, general medical, or surgical settings.

Minnesota Public Radio and MinnPost.com report on a study co-authored by Health & Society Scholars alumni Sarah Gollust, PhD, and Jeff Niederdeppe, PhD, MA, examining how different messages about the consequences of childhood obesity could affect public attitudes about obesity-prevention policy. The researchers found that tapping into core values beyond health—like the need for a strong and ready military—appealed to conservatives, sometimes causing them to revise their views on how the problem should be addressed and which public and private entities should play a role.

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:

People who will be newly eligible for Medicaid after expansion under the Affordable Care Act will be younger and healthier than those currently enrolled in the program, according to a study by RWJF Clinical Scholars alumna Tammy Chang, MD, MPH, and program site co-director Matthew Davis, MD, MAPP. The researchers found that the new Medicaid enrollees will also be less likely to be obese or to suffer from depression, although more of them will be smokers and drinkers. Among the outlets to report on the findings: Reuters, Kaiser Health News, NBC News, NPR’s Shots blog, and Medpage Today.

Medpage Today reports on a study led by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholars alumnus Craig Newgard, MD, MPH, finding that nearly one-third of patients sent to major trauma centers by first responders did not need that level of care and could have been sent elsewhere for diagnosis and treatment. This “overtriaging" raises per-patient health care costs by as much as 40 percent, the study finds. Read more about it.

While in Australia for a conference on reforming health care systems to meet the challenges of aging populations, RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program alumna Alicia Arbaje, MD, MPH, sat down for two interviews—one with The Australian Financial Review on how stereotypes about aging are changing, and one with Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio about transitional care and reducing readmissions among older adults after they leave hospitals. Read a post Arbaje wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about navigating care across settings and the role of caregivers.

Robin Whittemore, PhD, APRN, FAAN, is an associate professor at Yale School of Nursing. Whittemore has received national and international recognition for her work in behavioral interventions for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. One focus of her work has been to examine ways to improve access to health programs for vulnerable high-risk populations. She is the primary investigator on a study funded by the RWJF Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative to prevent diabetes among at-risk adults in public housing. This post originally appeared on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Partnership for Action blog.

Minority adults are at a disproportionate risk for developing type 2 diabetes, a challenging illness to manage that is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the U.S. Evidence indicates that lifestyle change programs, which incorporate healthy eating, physical activity and modest weight loss, can prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes. Yet, access to diabetes prevention programs is limited, particularly among minority and low-income adults.

To help address the issues with access to diabetes prevention programs, we designed a study to link existing community resources—public housing communities and a homecare agency— to minority and low-income adults at-risk for type 2 diabetes. Public housing communities provide housing at reduced rental costs for families of low socioeconomic status. We chose this setting because these communities often have the space and personnel to support a community-based program. The homecare agency consists of nurses who monitor and implement healthcare in a home environment, and are trusted health professionals in public housing communities.

Jason Karlawish, MD, is a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of Penn’s Neurodegenerative Disease Ethics and Policy Program. He is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.

“Prescribe the right drug to the right patient at the right time” is not a new medical practice, but when a biomarker—that is, a measure of disease pathophysiology—or a gene makes this decision, that is a radically new medical practice. The promise of personalized medicine is that biomarker and gene driven algorithms will do much of the work of medicine. By predicting patients’ future health and the outcomes of an intervention, they will guide what doctors recommend to their patients. Like the theory of evidence-based medicine, personalized medicine promises a more objective, efficient and precise medical practice.

To date, personalized medicine has largely flourished “below the neck,” that is, in the care of patients with common medical diseases, particularly cancer and cardiovascular disease. In the last two decades though, the National Institutes of Health, the pharmaceutical industry, and researchers have invested substantial time and money in research such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (called “ADNI”) dedicated to discovering and validating the biomarkers and genes that predict whether a brain will fail. This research is beginning to reshape how we talk about the diagnosis and treatment of the aging brain, an organ that is more and more, like hearts and bones, regarded as an organ “at risk.” As a result, clinicians, ethicists, and health care policy-makers are beginning to ask how we should practice personalized medicine for the seemingly healthy brain that is at risk for neurodegenerative dementias such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

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:

Adverse working conditions contribute substantially to the risk of depression for working-age adults, according to new research from a team led by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumna Sarah A. Burgard, PhD. The study is the first of its kind to show the impact of the sum total of negative working conditions, rather than focusing on only one particular risk factor, Science Daily reports.

A study led by RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholars alumnus Michael Hochman, MD, finds that the philosophy behind patient-centered medical homes supports improved patient care and better physician and staff morale, Bio-Medicine reports. Hochman and his colleagues studied Galaxy Health, a program jointly operated by the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California. "We all know that fewer and fewer young physicians are choosing careers in primary care because of the difficult work schedules, lack of support and lower salaries," Hochman said. "What we did here was to move in the direction of a team-based approach and it resulted in improved satisfaction for physicians in training with their primary care experiences."

RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumna Hilary Levey Friedman, PhD, wrote a column for the Time Magazine Ideas blog, reflecting on a trend in organized children’s activities that she calls “the carving up of honor.” It consists of devising smaller categories that offer more opportunities for prizes. Giving children rewards for doing an activity lowers intrinsic motivation, she writes, which bodes poorly for long-term success and for pride in hard-earned achievement. “The carving up of honor and the trophy culture that accompanies it has clearly gone too far: carving up honor probably doesn’t improve children’s performance or motivation—but it may mean a bigger payday for those who run childhood tournaments.” Friedman identified the trend while researching her new book, Playing to Win.

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

More New Nurse Practitioners Heading to Primary Care

Two recent analyses of workforce data offer new insights into the role nurse practitioners (NPs) are likely to play in combating the coming shortage of primary care providers in the U.S.

The first analysis, commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and released in August, finds that slightly more than half the nation’s nurse practitioners are practicing primary care. In all, 55,625 of the nation’s 106,073 nurse practitioners are in primary care, according to data drawn from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ National Provider Identifier database.

At the same time, an analysis of graduation trends conducted by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow alumna Debra Barksdale, PhD, RN, FAAN, and colleagues, finds that graduation rates for NPs suggest more help is on the way. According to Barksdale’s reading of data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, 84 percent of NP graduates in 2012 were prepared in primary care. That represents an eye-catching 18.6 percent increase from 2011 to 2012.

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:

The U.S. News & World Report Economic Intelligence blog cites a study co-authored by RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumna M. Marit Rehavi, PhD, that finds mothers who are physicians are 9 percent less likely to have unscheduled C-sections than their non-physician counterparts. The researchers used this and other data to examine the interaction between patient information and financial incentives for physicians, as C-sections are typically more profitable than traditional deliveries.

A low-cost, home-based program called “Beat the Blues” lowers depressive symptoms among older African Americans who are having trouble paying for basic needs, according to a study co-authored by RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholar Sarah Szanton, PhD, CRNP. Szanton’s findings coupled with those in another study that showed meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms from the program “suggest that depression can be 'decoupled’ from financial strain," Nurse.com reports.

Harold Pollack, PhD, MPP, co-authored a post for the Washington Post Wonk blog about research he led that finds adults whose households receive support from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are only slightly more likely than non-recipients to display substance use disorders. “Proposals to drug-test SNAP recipients don’t address the genuine challenges posed by drug and alcohol misuse in American society,” he writes. “Instead, poor families who seek a little help with the food money are being used as stage extras in a different, nasty ideological fight.” Pollack is an alumnus of the Scholars in Health Policy Research program and recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.

Courtney Sinclair Thomas, BS, is a health policy fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College and a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests are maternal and child health, specifically social factors that contribute to the high rate of infant mortality in the African American community.

I recently presented at two conferences in New York: the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP). Overall, they were great experiences. It was my first year attending such large conferences within the field of sociology, so I found myself nervous, yet excited about meeting new people and hearing about new research.

Although the two annual meetings were quite different, I gained a wealth of knowledge from them both. The SSSP meeting was held August 9th to 11th and this year’s theme was “Moving Beyond Social Constructionism,” challenging the way we, as scholars, think about society’s problems.  I presented a paper titled, “The Black Middle Class: New Insights for the Study of Racial and Ethnic Inequality,” during a thematic session with other scholars who study race and identity. There were four other panelists and we each had time to share our work with the audience and engage in conversation about the themes that emerged among the different projects.

Helena Dagadu is a fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College and a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Dagadu’s research and professional interests include comparative health and health policy, health disparities, social determinants of health, and international medical migration.

Presenting and attending academic conferences are important components of a scholar’s development. Not only are such meetings important venues to present one’s work and receive constructive feedback, they also provide a less formal environment to meet scholars outside one’s academic home, exchange ideas, and foster lifelong academic relationships.

From August 10th to 13th, I participated in the 108th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in New York City. The theme for this year’s meeting was “Interrogating Inequality.” Given its distinct character as a global city and its rich history of diversity, New York provided the prime backdrop to examine how, in the words of ASA President Cecilia Ridgeway, PhD, “inequality, in all its multi-dimensional complexity, is produced in contemporary societies.”