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A Weekly Health Policy Round Up From Health Affairs            

**July 12, 2020**

IN THE JOURNAL

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NEW ISSUE:
FOOD, INCOME, WORK & MORE

The July issue of Health Affairs contains articles examining programs
and initiatives outside the health care system that affect people's
health-factors that promote a culture of health.

The culture of health content in the July issue was supported by the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Read the July 2020 table of contents
.

L
isten
to an introduction of the issue from Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil.

Read "From the Editor-in-Chief."

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FAST TRACK AHEAD OF PRINT

COVID-19

Shelter-In-Place Orders Reduced COVID-19 Mortality And Reduced The Rate
Of Growth In Hospitalizations

By Wei Lyu and George L. Wehby

By April 6, 2020, 42 US states plus the District of Columbia had adopted
shelter-in-place orders (SIPOs), also known as stay-at-home orders, to
mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Wei Lyu and George L. Wehby examined
daily death and hospitalization growth rates for states with SIPOs
compared to states without SIPOs. According to the authors, the daily
mortality growth rate for states with SIPOs declined by an average of
6.1 percentage points after 42 days from the date the SIPO was enacted.
From these estimates, the authors project 250,000-370,000 deaths were
averted by May 15. Read More >>

CULTURE OF HEALTH

Impact Of The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act On Obesity Trends

By Erica L. Kenney, Jessica L. Barrett, Sara N. Bleich, Zachary J. Ward,
Angie L. Cradock, and Steven L. Gortmaker

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 established policies to
improve the nutritional quality of food served through subsidized and
free breakfast and lunch programs. Using national data from the period
2003-18, Erica Kenney and coauthors estimate the extent to which
childhood obesity trends were affected by the law. For children in
poverty the odds of having obesity increased each year leading up to the
law but began decreasing after its implementation. Read More >>

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Among Low-Income Women In San Francisco, Low Awareness Of Paid Parental
Leave Benefits Inhibits Take-Up

By Julia M. Goodman, Holly Elser, and William H. Dow

In 2017 San Francisco supplemented a statewide paid family leave program
to provide full wage replacement for six weeks after birth. However,
Julia Goodman and coauthors find little use of the program by low-income
women. Read More >>

LEADING TO HEALTH: DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

Community Workers Lend Human Connection To COVID-19 Response

By Rob Waters

Systems are investing in workers who come from the communities they
serve to meet patient needs that extend well beyond clinic walls. Read
More >>

This article appears in

**Health Affairs'** series on Leading To Health.

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1. Erica L. Kenney et al.

2.Sara N. Bleich et al.

3. Sanjay Basu et al.

4. Emilie Courtin et al.

5. Julia M. Goodman et al.

6. Dima Mazen Qato et al.

7. Philipp Hessel et al.

8. Victoria D. Lauenroth et al.

9. Nicole M. Benson and Zirui Song

10. Stephan Lindner et al.

 

THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG

COVID-19

Health Care Workers In Crisis-Efforts Toward Normalizing A Sustainable
Workplace Culture

By Rebekah E. Gee, William R. Boles, Jay A. Kaplan, Alexandra D. Drane,
and Diane E. Meier (7/10/20)

Studies have documented that physicians and nurses experience higher
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, especially among
those who staff intensive care units and emergency departments. We must
allow COVID-19 to be the catalyst for this necessary culture change to
reduce the stressors that lead to burnout and harm to both health care
workers and their patients. Read More >>

How Is Rur
al
Philanthropy Responding To COVID-19? Under The Radar.

By Allen Smart (7/9/20)

Rural COVID-19 cases are growing at a quicker rate than urban cases are,
and COVID-19's effects in rural areas are disproportionately on
communities of color. With fewer nonprofit and governmental resources
available now, rural funders are particularly vital because of their
role in immediate response to COVID-19 and also because of their helping
rural communities to face the longer-term consequences. Examples of
private and government funding in response to this crisis are included.
Read More >>

Economic Principles To Guide The Allocation Of COVID-19 Provider Relief
Funds

By Zack Cooper and Neale Mahoney

Economic theory and analysis of provider revenue data suggest that
distributing COVID-19 provider aid proportional to historical revenue is
inefficient. Instead, we should target the funding to providers at
greatest risk of closure and encourage precautionary investments and
treatment of COVID-19 patients. Read More >>

Incorporating Mental Health And Substance Abuse Screening Into COVID-19
Contact Tracing

By John M. Westfall, Megan Coffman, Lauren Hughes, and Yalda Jabbarpour
(7/9/20)

It is essential to contain the COVID-19 infection through robust contact
tracing. We call on those implementing COVID-19 contact tracing to train
this workforce to also address the projected rise in mental illness and
substance use disorder. Read More >>

Can Contact Tracing Work At COVID Scale?

By Amit Kaushal and Russ B. Altman (7/8/20)

Large-scale contact tracing needs to track down as many leads as
possible while minimizing the disruption to healthy peoples' lives. We
need a data infrastructure to calibrate these efforts.
Read More >>

Re-Envisioning Clinical Trials During The COVID-19 Pandemic

By Deborah Plana, Andrea Arfè, and Michael S. Sinha (7/8/20)

Existing research efforts are largely being set aside in favor of a new,
urgent goal: testing, treating, and preventing the disease caused by the
novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Read More >>

How To Implement Contact Tracing That Works-Without Exacerbating
Health Inequities

By E. Jennifer Edelman, Christopher A. Cole, and Marjorie S. Rosenthal
(7/7/20)

While contact tracing will be a critical part of the response to gain
control of COVID-19, its implementation should be informed by lessons
from HIV. Proactive efforts such as those we've outlined here must be
used to avoid exacerbating the unacceptable growing health inequities
among racial and ethnic minorities. Read More >>

COVID-19 Effects On Care Volumes: What They Might Mean And How We Might
Respond

By Michael Chernew, A. Mark Fendrick, Kyle Armbrester, and François de
Brantes (7/6/20)

How might the decline in care utilization connected to COVID-19 affect
the health of patients, and what might differential utilization rates
and associated outcomes tell us about the value of particular treatments
and ways to make care more efficient? Read More >>

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SYSTEMS OF CARE
Look Beyond Hotspotting To Focus On A Broader Population's Unmet
Social Needs

By Joshua Seidman, Rina Bardin, Amanda Napoles, and Mali Khan (7/10/20)

Although the Camden Coalition relies almost exclusively on hospital
claims data, additional data sources are often required to identify
underlying risk factors, which may provide a deeper understanding of who
truly requires intensive intervention. Read More >>

ACCESS TO CARE

Measure The Impact Of The ONC's New Interoperability Rules Now

By Mark Savage, Aaron Neinstein, and Julia Adler-Milstein (7/7/20)

The new regulations published by the Office of the National Coordinator
for Health Information Technology take significant steps toward
interoperability, but without near-term proxy measures now-and more
robust, improved measures soon-we risk stumbling forward in the dark.
Read More >>

Private Equity And Right To Try: A Dangerous Combination

By Holly Fernandez Lynch, Kelly McBride Folkers, and Arthur L. Caplan
(7/6/20)

Two years after the federal Right to Try Act was signed into law, it's
barely been used at all. A new for-profit cancer clinic is aiming to
change that. However, this initiative poses serious concerns for
patients and illustrates the flaws of right to try. Read More >>

MEDICAID

CMS's Proposed Medicaid Best Price Loophole For Value-Based Purchasing
Of Drugs

By Peter B. Bach (7/6/20)

Before the administration creates a huge loophole in Medicaid best price
for value-based purchasing agreements for drugs, it should ask if it's
even a good policy idea to encourage them. Probably not, but if so, how
can the administration's proposal do less damage to the Medicaid
program? Read More >>

QUALITY OF CARE

Transforming Health Care Measurement By Partnering With Patients And
Caregivers

By Hala Durrah, Karen Frazier, Stephen Hoy, Mary Lavelle, Dilani Logan,
and
Ellen Schultz (7/6/20)

In a high-performing health care system, measurement drives progress
toward safe, effective, efficient, timely, equitable, and
patient-centered care. It identifies priority areas for improvement,
promotes accountability, and more. However, to make sure that
measurement reflects what patients say they want and need, researchers
must partner with patients and caregivers and value their experiences,
these authors say. They describe foundation-supported work to put
patient-centered measurement into practice in the real world. Read More
>>

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About Health Affairs

Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal
at the intersection of health,
health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal
is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found
through healthaffairs.org , Health Affairs Today
, and Health Affairs Sunday
Update .  

Project HOPE is a global health and
humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local
health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has
published Health Affairs since 1981.

Copyright © Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

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