USDA and HUD Offer Housing Help for People Affected by the Tornadoes in Oklahoma
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have announced efforts to help find housing for Oklahoma residents displaced by the recent tornadoes. The USDA is offering help through its Rural Development portfolio, which has programs designed to help improve life in rural communities. HUD is offering help through foreclosure assistance, temporary housing, and federally guaranteed loans for repair. Click here for more information on HUD assistance following a disaster. Read more on disasters.

New CDC Campaign Encourages Smokers to Talk with their Doctor about Quitting
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention has launched a new campaign to urge smokers to speak with their doctors about strategies for quitting. CDC research finds that getting help from a physician can double the odds of quitting smoking. To help promote the campaign, CDC is partnering with five physician groups: the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The campaign also encourages clinicians to ask patients if they smoke and offer assistance in helping them to quit. Almost 70 percent of smokers say they want to quit, according to the National Health Interview Survey. Through the physician group partnerships, doctors will be offered training on cessation interventions. Read more on tobacco.

DOT 2013 ‘Click It or Ticket’ Campaign Focuses on Night Time Driving
The annual Click It or Ticket Campaign to increase seat belt use from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) takes place around Memorial Day weekend and this year will focus attention especially on night time driving—although police officers will be on the lookout for unbuckled drivers during the day and night this weekend. While DOT data shows that daytime seat belt use is up to 86 percent, night time use of seat belts continues to be lower. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the risk of being involved in a serious crash is greater at night than during the day. In 2011, 62 percent of motorists who died in a crash that occurred at night did not have their seat belts on, buckled compared to 43 percent of those who died in a crash during the day. Read more on safety.

CDC Issues First Comprehensive Report on Children’s Mental Health in the United States
As many as one in five American children under the age of 17 has a diagnosable mental disorder according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report is the first expansive report on children's mental health ever done by the U.S. government and looked at six conditions:

• attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• behavioral or conduct disorders
• mood and anxiety disorders
• autism spectrum disorders
• substance abuse
• Tourette syndrome

The most common disorder for children age 3 through 17 is ADHD (7 percent) followed by behavioral or conduct problems (3.5 percent), anxiety (3 percent), depression (2 percent), and  autism spectrum disorders (1 percent).

Five percent of teens reported abusing or being dependent on illegal drugs, 4 percent abused alcohol and 3 percent reported smoking cigarettes regularly. Boys were more likely than girls to have the disorders. Read more on mental health.

New PSAs Help Parents Talk to Younger Kids about the Dangers of Underage Drinking
“Talk. They Hear You,” is a new national public service announcement (PSA) campaign from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to empower parents to talk to children as young as nine about the dangers of underage drinking. SAMHSA research shows that more than a quarter of American youth engage in underage drinking, and  though there has been progress in reducing the extent of underage drinking in recent years, particularly among those aged 17 and younger, the rates of underage drinking are still unacceptably high, according to SAMHSA. A report from late last year shows that 26.6 percent of 12-20 year-olds report drinking in the month before they were surveyed and 8.7 percent of them purchased their own alcohol the last time they drank, despite the fact that all fifty states and the District of Columbia currently have laws prohibiting the purchase and use of alcoholic beverages by anyone under age 21.  

“Even though drinking is often glamorized, the truth is that underage drinking can lead to poor academic performance, sexual assault, injury, and even death,” said said SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde.

The goal of the new PSA is to help parents start a conversation about alcohol before their children become teenagers. Read more on addiction.

Advocacy Groups Petition FDA to Ban Menthol Flavored Cigarettes
In response to a Citizen Petition by close to twenty health and tobacco control advocacy groups, the Food and Drug Administration has opened a docket for public comment on banning menthol in cigarettes. In 2009, according to the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium, the lead group on the petition, Congress banned all flavors in cigarettes except menthol, and directed the FDA to decide whether continued sale of menthol cigarettes is “appropriate for public health." According to the petition, menthol cigarettes are the source of addiction for nearly half of all teen smokers. Read more on tobacco.

Psychiatrist "Bible" Gets a Numeric Overhaul
The American Psychiatric Association will release the latest version of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM) this Saturday at its annual meeting, according to Reuters. The current version is the DSM-IV, which was released a full 10 years ago -- the new version will be recast as DSM-5 (not DSM-V), with an eye toward updating the catalog of psychiatric conditions much more frequently with intermediate versions (DSM-5.1, DSM-5.2 and so on). The newest version also aims to introduce more scientific rigor and clinical confirmation of mental illness, such as, "using neuroscience in particular to tell the difference between, say, normal sadness and major depression." Though some criticize that the science just isn't there yet, and that the current version could lead to overdiagnosis. Read more on mental health.

Most Adults Enforce Smoke-Free Rules in Homes, Cars
Four out of five U.S. adults report having voluntary smoke-free rules in their homes and three out of four report having voluntary smoke-free rules in their vehicles, according to a study published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite the high prevalence of voluntary smoke-free rules in homes and vehicles, the study found that almost 11 million non-smoking adults continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke in their home, and almost 17 million non-smoking adults continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke in a vehicle. The study also showed that voluntary smoke-free rules were more prevalent in states with comprehensive smoke-free laws and tobacco control programs. Read more on tobacco.

Living Near Fast-Food Outlets Might Boost Obesity Risk
Black Americans who live within two miles of a fast food outlet have a higher body-mass index than those living farther away -- and that link especially holds true for those with lower incomes, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. The study involved more than 1,400 black adults divided into two groups: those making less than $40,000 per year and those making $40,000 or more per year. Read more on what it takes to create healthy communities.

IOM: Low Sodium Intake May Also Cause Adverse Health Effects
While multiple studies have shown that the average daily sodium intake for U.S. adults is far too high, lowering the intake too much could also lead to health problems, according to a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The average daily intake is 3,400 mg, or about 1.5 teaspoons. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans call for a maximum of 2,300 mg, and even 1,500 mg for certain demographics. However, there is also some evidence suggesting low sodium levels could be harmful to people such as those with mid- to late-stage heart failure. “These studies make clear that looking at sodium’s effects on blood pressure is not enough to determine dietary sodium’s ultimate impact on health,” said committee chair Brian Strom, George S. Pepper Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. “Changes in diet are more complex than simply changing a single mineral. More research is needed to understand these pathways.” Read more on heart health.

CDC Guidelines Help Cut Bloodstream Infections from Dialysis
Following the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) prevention guidelines helped reduce overall bloodstream infection due to dialysis by 32 percent and vascular access-related bloodstream infections by 54 percent, according to a new study in the American Journal of Kidney Disease. There are approximately 37,000 bloodstream infections each year related to dialysis with central lines; in 2010 about 380,000 U.S. patients used hemodialysis for treatment of end-stage kidney disease, with 8 in 10 of utilizing central lines. "Dialysis patients often have multiple health concerns, and the last thing they need is a bloodstream infection from dialysis,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH. “These infections are preventable. CDC has simple tools that dialysis facilities can use to help ensure patients have access to the safe healthcare they deserve.” Read more on prevention.

Study: Teen’s Use of Smokeless Tobacco Steady Over Past Decade
Despite a myriad of efforts to combat tobacco use by U.S. teens, their usage rate of “smokeless” tobacco products such as chew or snuff has remained steady since 2000, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The rate was 5.3 percent in 2000 and just barely lower in 2011, at 5.2 percent. While younger teens in the 9-14 age range have decreased their use, those in the 15-17 range have increased. The study suggests that the relatively low prices of smokeless tobacco products may be a contributor. About 9 million Americans used smokeless tobacco in 2012. Read more on tobacco.

Past Decade's Poor Economy Drove Health Declines
More than a decade of research points to the negative impact of the austerity that accompanies a flagging economy on the population's health, according to Reuters. The studies will be detailed in a new book to be released by an interesting research pairing including a political economist from Oxford University and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Standford University. the researchers say more than 10,000 suicides and up to a million cases of depression have been diagnosed during what they call the "Great Recession" and its accompanying austerity across Europe and North America. For example, more than five million Americans have lost access to health care during the latest recession. Researchers also tie cuts in governmental public health programs to excess disease rates. "In Greece, moves like cutting HIV prevention budgets have coincided with rates of the AIDS-causing virus rising by more than 200 percent since 2011—driven in part by increasing drug abuse in the context of a 50 percent youth unemployment rate," according to the Reuters article. Read more on poverty and health.

What Influences Kids to Smoke (or Not to) Changes Over Time
Peer pressure may have a bigger influence on middle school-aged kids in starting to smoke, but that influence may wane as they get older. On the other hand, researchers said parents seem to remain influential over their children's smoking behavior throughout high school, as reported by HealthDay. Researchers looked at data from  the Midwestern Prevention Project, the longest-running substance abuse prevention, randomized controlled trial in the United States, which includes 1,000 teens. Read more on tobacco use. 

Facebook Could Help Predict, Track and Map Obesity
The higher the percentage of people in a city, town or neighborhood with Facebook interests suggesting a healthy, active lifestyle, the lower that area's obesity rate, according to a new study. At the same time, areas with a large percentage of Facebook users with television-related interests tend to have higher rates of obesity. The study was conducted by Boston Children's Hospital researchers comparing geotagged Facebook user data with data from national and New York City-focused health surveys. 

"Online social networks like Facebook represent a new high-value, low-cost data stream for looking at health at a population level," said study author John Brownstein, PhD, from the Boston Children's Hospital Informatics Program. "The tight correlation between Facebook users' interests and obesity data suggest that this kind of social network analysis could help generate real-time estimates of obesity levels in an area, help target public health campaigns that would promote healthy behavior change, and assess the success of those campaigns." The study was published in PLOS ONE. Read more on obesity.

Do we need an endgame strategy to finally end the devastating hold tobacco has on its users? Scholars, scientists and policy experts grapple with endgame proposals in a special supplement to the journal Tobacco Control. Some of the articles are based on a workshop held last year at the University of Michigan, with financial support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Legacy Foundation. The workshop was hosted by Kenneth Warner, PhD, a former dean at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and now a professor at the School.

Although smoking has declined significantly in most developed nations in the last half-century, due to policy changes and increased education about the health hazards, says Warner, too many people continue to die from the most preventable cause of premature death and illness. It's estimated that worldwide six million people a year die from illnesses caused by cigarettes, including more than 400,000 in the U.S. alone."There is a newfound interest in discussing the idea of an endgame strategy. The fact that we can talk about it openly reflects a sea change,” says Warner.

>>Read the articles in the tobacco endgame supplement.

Some of the strategies in the supplement include:

• Requiring manufacturers to reduce nicotine content sufficiently to make cigarettes nonaddictive.
• A "sinking lid" strategy that would call for quotas on sales and imports of tobacco, which would reduce supply and drive up price to deter tobacco purchases.
• A "tobacco-free generation" proposal calling for laws that would prevent the sale of tobacco to those born after a given year, usually cited as 2000, to keep young people from starting to smoke; or ban the sale of cigarettes altogether.

"What we are doing today is not enough," says Warner.  "Even if we do very well with tobacco control, as we have for several decades now, we'll have a huge number of smokers for years to come, and smoking will continue to cause millions of deaths.”

NewPublicHealth recently spoke with Dr. Warner about some of the strategies proposed for ending tobacco use.

NewPublicHealth: Why is there a need for novel, even radical, endgame strategy?

Ken Warner: While a lot of people have quit smoking, if you look at the rate at which people are quitting in the United States, in the last few years it may actually have declined. In Canada, there is some concern that their very low rates of smoking may actually have gone up. In Singapore, which had the lowest smoking prevalence among developed nations, the smoking rate went up from 12.6 percent to 14.3 percent between 2004 and 2010. So what we're observing is that in some of the countries that have had pretty good success with tobacco control, smoking is now being reduced somewhat more slowly, or possibly even increasing. And if we stay at the current rate of smoking, or even if the smoking rate continues to decline slowly, smoking will remain the leading cause of preventable premature death for many years to come.

NPH: What are some of the reasons that we’re seeing a plateau in the reduction of tobacco use?

New York City Moves to Ban Cigarette Sales to People Under 21
A bill introduced to the New York City Council would ban cigarette sales to anyone under the age of 21. The current age limit is 18. "Too many adult smokers begin this deadly habit before age 21," City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said. "By delaying our city's children and young adults access to lethal tobacco products, we're decreasing the likelihood they ever start smoking, and thus, creating a healthier city." Though not introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he does support the bill. New York City also has the highest taxes on cigarettes of any U.S. city, with a city tax of $1.50 on top of a state tax of $4.35. Read more on tobacco.

Insurance Authorization Delays Trap Psychiatric Patients in ERs
Thousands of hours of physician time is lost each year caring for emergency department patients in need of psychiatric care, but waiting for insurance authorization to be admitted into the hospital, according to a letter to be published in the May issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine. Researchers found that about half of authorizations were completed in less than 20 minutes, but 10 percent took at least an hour. About 2.5 million people are admitted to hospitals for psychiatric care each year. "Psychiatric care is really the poor stepchild in the world of insurance coverage," said lead author Amy Funkenstein, MD, of Brown University in Providence, R.I.. "Insurance carriers reimburse poorly and as a consequence, hospitals often have inadequate resources for patients who urgently need this care. The situation is so dire that ERs are now being designed and configured to house psychiatric patients awaiting placement as inpatients. These patients deserve better." Read more on mental health.

Report Finds Positive, Negative News on U.S. Air Quality
Areas across the country have seen a mix in terms of improvement of air quality over the past decade, according to a new report from the American Lung Association (ALA). "The long-term trend is positive and headed to much cleaner air," said author Janice Nolen, ALA's assistant vice president of national policy and advocacy. "[However], there is an uptick in some areas that are a concern and some areas where the problem remains very, very serious." Approximately half of the 25 most polluted cities in 2000 saw improvements in air quality, with the others seeing declines. And some of the “improved” cities still were highly polluted, such as Los Angeles and Bakersfield, Calif. Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Cincinnati, New York City and Washington, D.C. were the other cities with the highest levels of ozone. Overall, the report found that 132 million people were living in 254 counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution. Read more on environment.

Supreme Court Lets FDA Move Forward with Graphic Cigarette Warnings and Other Tobacco Regulations
The Supreme Court yesterday announced that it will not hear the tobacco industry's appeal of a March 2012 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on graphic cigarette warnings and several other tobacco regulations. That decision allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to move forward in developing graphic cigarette warnings allowed by a 2009 law that gave the FDA sweeping new authority over tobacco, and other recent court rulings.

The 2009 law requires graphic warnings that cover the top half of the front and back of cigarette packs and 20 percent of cigarette ads. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), a tobacco control advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., the graphic warnings are needed to better inform Americans about the deadly consequences of smoking. According to CTFK, the current, text-only warnings which are printed on the side of cigarette packs haven’t been updated since 1984 and often go unnoticed.

The appeals court ruling also upheld other key provisions of the law that:

• Tobacco companies are prohibited from making health claims about tobacco products without FDA review
• Several forms of tobacco marketing that appeal to children would be banned, including brand name sponsorships; tobacco-branded merchandise such as caps and t-shirts; and free samples of tobacco products
• Tobacco companies are prohibited from making statements implying that a tobacco product is safer because it is regulated by the FDA.

In a statement released yesterday, CTFK Executive Director Susan Liss said: “The FDA should move forward aggressively to reduce the death and disease caused by tobacco use, which is the nation's number one cause of preventable death.” Read more on tobacco.

Task Force Finds Insufficient Evidence for Universal Suicide Risk Screenings
While the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s latest draft guidelines stated that there is not enough evidence to support universal screening to identify people at risk of suicide, it’s still critical for health care professionals to be wary of certain signs, said David Grossman, MD, MPH, a member of the Task Force. "Although we did not find enough evidence to say ‘here are the right questions and tools to find the people who may be at risk for suicide,' doctors should be screening for depression and alcohol abuse disorders in their primary care population," he said. Top risk factors include depression and alcohol abuse. There are approximately 37,000 cases of suicide in the United States each year. Read more on mental health.

Poll: Nearly 1 in 4 High School Students Have Abused Prescription Meds
Approximately 24 percent of high school students have abused prescription drugs, according to a new poll from by Partnership at Drugfree.org. With about 5 million kids admitting to the medication abuse, the rate is up 33 percent since 2008. About 13 percent say they’ve experimented with Ritalin or Adderall, both of which are used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. At the heart of the problem is the misconception by both kids and parents that misusing prescription drugs is not as dangerous as taking other drugs. "The key here is that kids and often their parents are buying into the myth and misunderstanding that prescription drug abuse is a safer way to get high, a safer alternative to street drugs, and that they can control it," said said Steve Pasierb, president and CEO at the Partnership organization. "And it's very important to note that, on this, kids and parents are in the same place. Kids say that they don't think that their parents are going to be upset if they know about this, and parents are essentially saying the same thing." Read more on prescription drugs.

Hookahs Not a Safe Alternative to Cigarettes
Despite the belief of many, smoking tobacco using a hookah is not a safe alternative to cigarettes, according to a new study in the American Association for Cancer Research’s Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Hookah use produces higher levels of carbon monoxide and benzene, linked with heart or respiratory conditions and increased risk of leukemia, respectively. “People want to know if it is a lesser health risk if they switch from cigarettes to smoking a water pipe on a daily basis,” said UC San Francisco research chemist Peyton Jacob III, PhD. “We found that water-pipe smoking is not a safe alternative to cigarette smoking, nor is it likely to be an effective harm-reduction strategy.” The mix of toxins produced by a hookah is due to the combination of the two difference materials smoked, according to researcher Neal Benowitz, MD, of the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. “You’re basically burning a charcoal briquette on top of the tobacco,” Benowitz said, “and most of what you’re smoking is a moist fruit preparation, which is mixed with the tobacco. It smells good and it tastes good.” Read more on tobacco.

CDC: Number of U.S. Foodborne Illness Cases at a Standstill
After dropping for many years, the number of foodborne illnesses in the United States has apparently leveled out, according to a new study in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. About 48 million people—or one in six—suffer from a foodborne illness each year. The most common cause is salmonella. "It is still the case now that numbers were lower than they were back in the 1990s," said Robert Tauxe, MD, deputy director of the division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "But right now we're just about where we were in 2006 to 2008, and we may need to identify additional ways to reduce contamination, as well as heightening awareness among consumers about the importance of thoroughly cooking and safely handling ground beef in their own homes." Read more on food safety.

Exercise, Healthy Eating Helps Keep Sleep Apnea in Check
The combination of exercise and healthy eating is a simple way to ease the effects of mild sleep apnea, according to a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine. The key is weight loss. Researchers “found obese study participants who went through a one-year lifestyle intervention were about half as likely to see their sleep apnea progress to more severe disease,” according to Reuters. "It usually takes at least a few years to progress from mild disease to the more severe disease, and mostly it's due to weight gain," said Henri Tuomilehto, MD, who led the new study at the Oivauni Sleep Clinic in Kuopio, Finland. "With these results, we can say that if we change our lifestyle…we really can stop the progression of sleep apnea.” Read more on obesity.

Jill Birnbaum is an advocate for nutrition policy, tobacco control, and health care reform who has worked at the federal, state, and local levels. Her work began in Minnesota, and she now oversees state advocacy for the American Heart Association. Her grassroots experience, combined with her national role, gives her unique insights into public health policy at all levels of government. 

This is the first in a two-part interview conducted by Grassroots Change: Connecting for Better Health, a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Group. In part one, Jill shares her perspective on grassroots movements and the threat of preemption in the obesity prevention arena. Preemption can take away the ability of states and local communities to adopt innovative solutions to their own public health problems in a way that responds to each community’s unique needs.

>>View the original posting of this interview over at GrassrootsChange.net.
>>Read more on preemption and grassroots movement building.

Grassroots Change: What do you see as the impact of preemption in public health, especially in obesity prevention?

Jill Birnbaum: [Preemption] slows or even ends grassroots movements before they begin. It also drains our resources for future advocacy efforts. We leave it to the next generation of public health advocates to undo policy compromises that we make today. We’re still seeing that in a few states with tobacco, and anticipating the fights both at the federal and state levels that we might have to undo someday [in obesity prevention]. 

Preemption stifles innovation, and it also makes some assumptions that can be wrong. It assumes that we know everything today and that there’s nothing more that we have to learn tomorrow. That’s especially true in nutrition policy where science continues to evolve and policy needs to evolve along with the science. 

Preemption also has the effect of dividing the [public health] community when a small group of people, in some cases even a single individual or organization, negotiates away something that other people really want.

GC: Are the concerns about preemption in obesity prevention mostly about nutrition policy? There doesn’t seem to be a major effort to preempt local physical activity policies.