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 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.

Jeff Niederdeppe, PhD, is an assistant professor of communication at Cornell University and an alumnus of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health & Society Scholars program at the University of Wisconsin.

For the past 10 years or so, my colleagues and I have been studying how Americans make sense of public information about the causes of cancer and ways to prevent it. This has brought both good and bad news.

First the bad (and perhaps not surprising) news: many Americans are overloaded with information about cancer prevention and feel powerless about what they can do to prevent it. According to national surveys, one in four say there’s not much a person can do to reduce their risk of cancer, half feel that almost everything causes cancer, and three in four think there are too many recommendations to know which ones to follow. People who hold these beliefs are less likely than those who do not to engage in behaviors that we know reduce their risk of cancer – avoiding smoking and sunburn, eating a diet rich with fruits and vegetables, exercising regularly, and maintaining a healthy weight. These beliefs thus appear to have troubling consequences for broader efforts to reduce the rate of cancer in the U.S. through primary prevention.

In many ways, these feelings are understandable – it IS confusing. Cancer is not a single disease, but hundreds of them affecting different organs in the body, with different causes, different tests to screen for them, different treatments, and different prognoses. By some estimates, half of all cancer cases have an unknown cause. Cancer research moves slowly and incrementally, but increasingly publicly – one study might suggest that coffee causes cancer, while another points to its preventive potential. Science requires a back-and-forth between scientists as they sort out what findings hold up and which ones prove only preliminary. This process is absolutely necessary, but can offer a false sense of hope or opportunity if appropriate caveats aren’t offered in early stages of this work, or if preliminary results are publicized widely through the media.

Chrysanne Grund is Project Director for Greeley County Health Services in Sharon Springs, Kansas, and a recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) 2011 Community Health Leader Award. She has touched the lives of nearly every resident of Greeley and Wallace Counties in Kansas through her work providing access to free or low-cost prescriptions, developing a parenting class, providing breast cancer awareness information and cooperating with a co-located behavioral health project. She is also the founder of the Greeley-Wallace County Health Foundation, a two-community partnership that provides funds to local cancer patients. The Human Capital Blog asked Grund to reflect on her experience in the year since she was named an RWJF Community Health Leader.

What a surprise to find it has been almost a year since the 2011 Community Health Leader awards.  In so many ways, the time has flown by and, in others, it seems like just yesterday.  To continue the conundrum, I have found that my life has changed in some immeasurable ways and yet, once again, is very much the same.

As a rural health worker in very frontier Western Kansas, I wear many hats.  I am often health care professional, volunteer, coordinator and Mom all at the same time.  The level of recognition the Community Health Leader (CHL) Award brought to my work, and most important to my health system, has been very gratifying and professionally rewarding.  It is a thrill to be recognized for excellence.

My co-workers, colleagues and community members have been very gracious in their efforts to celebrate the award.  There is a level of credibility that comes with this type of award that can’t be duplicated.  I was once introduced as a “respected rural health leader in Kansas” and had to look around to be sure it was me! We do our work because it is important to us, we understand what it means to take care of our patients and our community and daily navigate the challenges of doing so.  I’m happy to be the flag-bearer in representing rural health needs because I truly believe they are as important and relevant as those of any community.  I was, and am, committed to that cause.

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:

RWJF Clinical Scholars alumnus Eric Coleman, MD, is one of 23 MacArthur Fellows for 2012—the so-called "genius award," the MacArthur Foundation announced. Coleman is director of the Care Transitions Program, the New York Times reports, which has helped hundreds of hospitals and community agencies across the country improve communication among patients and health care providers to reduce the likelihood of readmissions.  Read more about his work and award.

Several years ago, RWJF Scholar in Health Policy Research alumnus Harold Pollack, PhD, and his wife “became custodians for his adult brother-in-law, who is intellectually disabled and has various medical problems. Harold has written about this experience before, movingly—and what it’s taught him about the value of programs like Medicaid,” The New Republic reports. “Now he’s decided to put his thoughts on a video.”

The New York Times spoke to Andrea Campbell, PhD, about a study she co-authored that looked at the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s health reform ruling. In upholding the Affordable Care Act, the Court simultaneously bolstered public support for the law and hurt its own reputation with the general public, Campbell found—a combination of outcomes she said put the decision in a "public opinion class by itself." Campbell is an alumna of the Scholars in Health Policy Research program and recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.

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 Las Vegas Sun interviewed RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumna Debra Toney, PhD, MS, BSN, FAAN, who was chosen by the Coca-Cola Company to carry the Olympic torch in the relay leading up the opening ceremony on July 27. Read more about Toney’s experience in the latest issue of Sharing Nursing’s Knowledge.

RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program alumnus Levi Garraway, MD, PhD, is part of a team conducting research on genetic mutations and cancer. Health Canal reports on their findings, including which sun-damaged cells in a tumor contribute to melanoma.

A study led by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumna Margaret Sheridan, PhD, finds that childhood adversity produces measurable changes in children’s brains, Science Daily reports.  It affects the amount of both the brain’s white matter (which is necessary for forming connections) and its gray matter, the research team found. For the study, they analyzed brain scans of Romanian children who had been moved from an orphanage to quality foster care homes.

An article from The Atlantic cites a working paper by Health & Society Scholar Jason Fletcher, PhD, that finds “adults who suffer from adolescent depression ultimately make about 20 percent less money than their peers and are somewhat less likely to be employed.”

By Craig Pollack, MD, MS, MHS, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar alumnus (2006-2009), assistant professor of medicine and associate director of the General Internal Medicine Fellowship program at Johns Hopkins University

The United States Preventive Services Task Force, a group never to shy away from controversy, recently released its final recommendations on prostate cancer screening. The Task Force gave prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing a grade D, indicating that it should be discouraged as part of routine testing. They noted that there were substantial harms associated with testing and subsequent diagnosis and treatment: worry and anxiety; infections from biopsies; incontinence and erectile dysfunction. And the benefits were likely to be small—on the order of 1 life saved for every 1,000 men screened.

However, the recommendations have caused tremendous controversy. Critics question whether the Task Force has appropriately weighed the risks and benefits and balanced the existing evidence. Our research suggests that even those who agree with the recommendations will find it hard to stop screening. We are now working on a set of decision-making tools for primary care providers (PCPs) and patients to minimize unnecessary screening.

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

RWJF Physician Faculty Scholar David G. Bundy, MD, MPH, also an alumnus of the RWJF Clinical Scholars program, spoke to the Baltimore Sun about a proposal being considered by Maryland health officials that would require children in the state to get more vaccines before attending school. “The recommendations for these immunizations are not new nationally,” Bundy said. “This is just updating the state’s requirement to reflect the existing recommendations. It just makes us all look like we’re in alignment with what we’re doing, and it tightens the safety net at schools for kids who may be missing vaccines.”

“They have been utilized in Texas, but not appropriately utilized,” RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumna Alexia Green, RN, PhD, FAAN, said of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs), in an interview with Fox 34 (Lubbock, Texas). A new report finds that greater utilization of APRNs in Texas would save the state about $8 billion.

Mahshid Abir, MD, and Art Kellerman, MD, MPH, FACE, wrote an op-ed for USA Today about the benefits electronic health records provide for health care providers and patients, especially in the wake of natural disasters like last year’s deadly tornado in Joplin, Missouri. “The twister…heavily damaged St. John’s Regional Medical Center, sucking up patient files and X-rays and depositing them up to 70 miles away,” they write. “Fortunately, barely three weeks earlier, St. John’s had switched from paper to electronic health records… Even as the hospital’s 183 patients were being evacuated, St. John’s staff accessed and printed out their records from a remote site, and sent copies with patients to hospitals where they were transferred.” Abir is an alumnus of the RWJF/ U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) Clinical Scholars program, and Art Kellerman, MD, MPH, FACEP, is an alumnus of the RWJF Health Policy Fellows program and the Clinical Scholars program.

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

Alejandra Casillas, MD, MPH, an RWJF Clinical Scholar, spoke to New America Media about why Latinas have the highest rates of cervical cancer. Many women don’t go to the doctor as much as recommended because of a cultural belief that their families come first, Casillas says, so raising awareness among men could help encourage more women to get Pap tests.

Healthcare Finance News reports on The Primary Care Team: Learning from Effective Ambulatory Practices (the LEAP Project), a recently launched RWJF initiative designed to make primary care more accessible and effective by identifying practices that maximize the services of the primary care workforce. Learn more about the LEAP Project and read an RWJF Human Capital Blog post about it.

A team led by scientists from the Broad Institute and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute—including RWJF Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program alumnus Levi Garraway, MD, PhD—has sequenced the genomes of 25 metastatic melanoma tumors, MediLexicon reports. The first high-resolution views of the genomic landscape are published online in the journal Nature.

RWJF Scholar in Health Policy Research and political scientist Brendan Nyhan, PhD, gave comments to NPR’s Morning Edition about the political landscape, discussing why and how voters reject facts about the political parties or politicians to whom they are loyal. Nyhan’s ongoing research suggests that people may be better able to deal with cognitive dissonance—“the psychological experience of having to hold inconsistent ideas in one's head”—if they are first given an image or ego boost.

By Eric A. Hodges, PhD, FNP-BC, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar (2009 – 2012)

In each of the last two years, I have grown a mustache for the month of February to support teachers and their students in low-income school districts across North Carolina through the organization, DonorsChoose. With funds raised from my generous donors, 16 projects to promote health and environmental education have been supported, touching the lives of 4,943 students.

This year, for a change of pace (and honoring my family’s humorous pleas for no more mustaches!), I volunteered to shave my head on April 21st with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. I'm doing it to stand in solidarity with kids fighting cancer, but more importantly, to raise money to find cures. I do this in honor of the children I've cared for in the past at St. Jude's and in honor of my other formerly-bald hero, my Mom... now many years cancer free.

I set a goal to raise $1,000, and donations from family, friends, colleagues and students began to come in steadily. What happened next was unexpected and thrilling.

On April 12th, with $10 to go to reach my goal, I sent a message to the students, faculty and staff at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Nursing to ask who would be the one to give the last $10 so I would reach my goal. Within seven minutes, I met my goal! Within 10 minutes, I surpassed it. Before long, I had surpassed it by more than $250 dollars.