Illinois middle schoolers would be required to learn about the dangers of fentanyl under a plan approved Tuesday by a Senate committee. [Health News Illinois]

The bill from Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, would expand state-mandated health courses on fentanyl that are required for high schoolers to those in grades six through eight.

The courses are taught by a licensed educator, school nurse or school counselor.

“We need to educate students sooner rather than later on the prevalence of fentanyl in our communities and the severe, long-term detriment it has on perpetuating the ongoing opioid epidemic,” she said after the plan was approved by the Senate’s Education Committee.

The measure heads to the full Senate for further consideration.

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Illinois is receiving nearly $241 million to identify and replace lead service lines, which connect water mains to people’s homes, the federal Environmental Protection Agency said last week. [Health News Illinois]

The effort aims to prevent kids from being exposed to lead in drinking water. Lead can have serious health impacts, including irreversible harm to brain development in children.

The funding comes through the federal bipartisan infrastructure law. Overall, the law invests $15 billion to identify and replace lead service lines.

The agency estimates that the nation has 9 million lead service lines. To date, the funding announced from the program, available through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, is expected to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes.

Gov. JB Pritzker noted the $240.9 million investment is the largest amount any state will receive. He said the announcement "demonstrates President (Joe) Biden’s commitment to improving the lives of our state’s vulnerable residents."

The agency announced last month that Chicago will collaborate with Milwaukee and Detroit to highlight emerging best practices around lead pipe replacement, including overcoming common challenges.

“Through direct exchanges with counterparts in other Great Lakes big cities, the … partnership will empower Chicago further with proven strategies to reverse these historic trends and accelerate lead service line replacement in the neighborhoods that need it most,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement.

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A top Department of Healthcare and Family Services official said they hope to learn by next month whether the federal government will approve an application for a new behavioral health model for the state’s Medicaid program.[Health News Illinois]

Medicaid Administrator Kelly Cunningham told members of the Medicaid Advisory Committee Friday that they have “circled” June 17 on their calendar as the date when they’ll learn whether the state has approval for the certified community behavioral health clinics model.

The program aims to link behavioral health, case management and other services together in a single site.

“This can really give us the opportunity to really re-energize and reshape the behavioral health landscape," Cunningham said.

Along with being designed to be a more “holistic delivery system” that combines behavioral and physical health, the program will have a prospective payment system, where reimbursements are based on a predetermined, fixed amount, she said.

The state has provisionally certified 19 locations to participate in the program.

If approved, Cunningham hopes it can be operational by the fall. If denied, they will explore other options to move forward with the program, whether that be a state plan amendment or a waiver.

In other business, Cunningham said the agency plans to create a new position to oversee the implementation of the state’s 1115 waiver targeting the social determinants of health and behavioral health.

Cunningham said the current team has done great work to get them to this point, but “we're going to need more resources, particularly to drive this towards implementation.” 

She reiterated they hope to learn by June about federal approval for the waiver.

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The A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds the number of US women dying from pregnancy-related issues remains at crisis level. The persistent racial and ethnic disparities reflect how systems and policies continue to fail people of color, especially our most vulnerable populations. {March of Dimes and CDC]  The fact is, we have not improved as a nation, and the same healthcare systems that have historically failed women of color continue to do so today, putting too many moms at risk of dying.  From Dr. Elizabeth Cherot, President and CEO of March of Dimes.

Statement from the March of Dimes

CDC Report>5.2024_ CDC_Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2022.pdf

Check out the IOMC video on Maternal & Child Health here>

If you are interested in joining the IOMC's Maternal & Child Health Workgroup, please send an email to info@iomc.org. State Maternal & Child Workgroup in the Subject line. 

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Illinois ranks 30th in the nation for hospital safety, down two spots from the fall, according to new ratings released by the nonprofit Leapfrog Group on Wednesday. [Chicago Tribune]

In all, 22% of Illinois hospitals earned A grades for safety from Leapfrog, compared to nearly 25% in the fall.

Illinois hospitals earning top marks include University of Chicago Medical Center and Rush University Medical Center. Five Endeavor Health hospitals in Evanston, Highland Park, Glenview, Elmhurst and Arlington Heights also earned As, as did six Northwestern Medicine hospitals in Huntley, DeKalb, Winfield, Geneva, Lake Forest and McHenry.

No Illinois hospital got an F grade this spring, though 15 hospitals across the state earned D grades.

The hospital safety grade report is released twice a year by the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit founded by large employers and other organizations that buy health insurance. Leapfrog grades are based on 22 measures of safety, including hand hygiene, falls and trauma, and death rates among surgical patients with serious but treatable complications. Leapfrog gathers its data from the federal government and a survey it sends to hospitals.

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Two of Illinois’ federal lawmakers want to update national regulations related to lead poisoning. [Health News Illinois]

The plan, proposed by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García, D-Chicago, would require the Department of Housing and Urban Development to use risk assessments for low-income housing built before 1978 before a family moves into the home.

The proposal would also create a process for families to relocate on an emergency basis, without penalty or the loss of assistance, if a lead hazard is identified and the landlord fails to address it within 30 days of notification.

Landlords would have to disclose the presence of lead if found in the home.

Current law requires only a quick visual check for lead hazards in federally assisted housing until a child is already sick, which Garcia said is “too little, too late.”

“Our bill will ensure proactive, thorough testing is performed for lead paint hazards in federally assisted housing where children may potentially be exposed,” he said. 

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., is sponsoring the bill too.

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson released a plan Tuesday morning on how the city will spend the last $576 million it received in federal pandemic relief dollars. [Health News Illinois]

The strategic plan calls for spending in six pillars, including $83 million for mental health services. Of that, $24 million will support home visits to families with newborns who are three-to-five weeks postpartum. 

Another $20 million will go to a city program that provides mental health services through a network of community health centers, community mental health centers and community-based organizations.

The plan allocates $72 million for housing and homelessness support, including $32 million to help individuals move from a shelter or the street to a housing unit.

The administration also wants to allocate $63 million to provide a $500 monthly stipend to low-income Chicagoans.

Federal guidelines mandate that the funds must be spent by the end of 2026.

“My administration has developed a plan to ensure that these funds are being used in a strategic way to directly and concretely impact the lives of people across Chicago,” Johnson said in a statement.

The Johnson administration also said it plans to be more transparent with the spending of federal pandemic dollars in response to rising criticism from members of the Chicago City Council. Along with monthly reports to the council, the administration said it will launch a data dashboard this fall about the spending. 

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Healthy People 2030 includes 359 core — or measurable — objectives as well as developmental and research objectives. [Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion] Learn more about the types of objective

Healthy People 2030 objectives help measure our nation’s progress in critical areas of public health — and serve as a reliable data source to support organizations and individuals working to improve health and well-being for all.

Some Healthy People 2030 objectives are also Leading Health Indicators (LHIs) — a subset of high-priority objectives that cover the life span. Browse Healthy People 2030 LHIs.

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For nearly two decades, the Commonwealth Fund has tracked health and health care in each state, seeking both to understand how the policy choices we make affect people’s health outcomes and to motivate the change needed to improve the health of all communities across the United States. But assessing how well a state performs on average can mask the profound inequities that many people experience. [The Commonwealth Fund]

The Commonwealth Fund 2024 State Health Disparities Report

This report evaluates disparities in health and health care across racial and ethnic groups, both within states and between U.S. states. We collected data for 25 indicators of health system performance, specifically focusing on health outcomes, access to health care, and quality and use of health care services for Black, white, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN), and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) populations. We then produced a health system performance “score” for each of the five racial and ethnic groups in every state where we were able to make direct comparisons between those groups and between groups in other states. (For complete details on our methods, see How We Measure Performance of States’ Health Care Systems for Racial and Ethnic Groups.)

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Federal agencies with competing interests are slowing the country’s ability to track and control an outbreak of highly virulent bird flu that for the first time is infecting cows in the United States, according to government officials and health and industry experts. [KFF / Washington Post]

The response has echoes of the early days of 2020, when the coronavirus began its deadly march around the world. Today, some officials and experts express frustration that more livestock herds aren’t being tested for avian flu, and that when tests and epidemiological studies are conducted, results aren’t shared fast enough or with enough detail. They fear that the delays could allow the pathogen to move unchecked — and potentially acquire the genetic machinery needed to spread swiftly among people. One dairy worker in Texas has already fallen ill amid the outbreak, the second U.S. case ever of this type of bird flu.

Officials and experts said the lack of clear and timely updates by some federal agencies responding to the outbreak recall similar communication missteps at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. They point, in particular, to a failure to provide more details publicly about how the H5N1 virus is spreading in cows and about the safety of the milk supply.

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