The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Thursday, May 6, 2021
Dear John,
Today, we highlight three new articles about aging and health.
Hearing Loss, Nursing Home Staff, And Hospice
Three new articles in the May edition of Health Affairs discuss issues affecting the aging population.
As part of our new Age-Friendly Health series, Nicholas Reed and coauthors examined how hearing loss affects older adults’ health outcomes and quality of care. Medicare beneficiaries reporting “a lot of trouble hearing” had49 percent higher odds of not having a usual source of care and 85 percent higher odds of not obtaining medical
care when needed, compared with beneficiaries without trouble hearing.
Rachel Werner and Norma Coe examined changes in nursing home staffing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although they found that the total number of hours worked by nursing home staff declined during the pandemic, there was a concurrent decline in the average nursing home census during the same period. When the decline in census was accounted for, nurse staffing hours per resident day remained steady or increased
slightly.
In May’s Narrative Matters essay, Krista Lyn Harrison describes how thehospice model fails when patients die more slowly than expected. “Hospice has become care for people dying fast, not for those trying to live well while dying slow,” Harrison writes as she recounts her stepfather’s experience in hospice with a neurodegenerative disease.
Today on Health Affairs Blog, Lena Faust and Leigh Raithby discuss how the lack of approvals for tuberculosis
vaccines in the past century represents a clear example of neglect of a disease that predominantly affects the poor.
As part of the Health Affairs Blog short series, “Envisioning A Transformed Clinical Trials Enterprise For 2030,” Silas Buchanan argues that any discussion about improving inclusive engagement in clinical trials must acknowledge systemic racism.
Elevating Voices: Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month: In a 2012 article,Renee Yuen-Jan Hsia and coauthors found that minority patients in the acute care system disproportionately experience the effects of emergency department crowding when measured by ambulance diversion. These disparities arise from “upstream” causes before patients reach their hospital destination, such as inadequate management of patient flow, the authors explained.
On this day of
Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week we are looking back at two articles highlighting organizations that support the perinatal health of mothers with opioid use disorder. In a study published in the April 2020 issue, K. John McConnell and coauthors found that Project Nurture, an innovative model that integrates maternity care, substance use treatment, and social service coordination for Medicaid enrollees, reduces foster care placement and child maltreatment rates in the first year of life.
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat 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.
