It’s estimated that at least 1 in 5 people with a SARS-CoV-2 infection never develop symptoms. Genetics might explain some of these asymptomatic cases, it turns out. In a new study appearing in Nature, people with a particular gene variant appeared to have preexisting T cell immunity to the virus, likely a holdover from previous bouts of the common cold. [JAMA Network]

Why This Is Important

Hollenbach and her coauthors note that many studies have looked at genetic factors in severe COVID-19 disease, but fewer have examined the underpinnings of asymptomatic or mild infection. Insight into factors that allow the immune system to quickly clear the virus could help scientists better understand the disease and improve immunotherapies and vaccines, they say.

Benjamin Solomon, MD, who was not involved with the work, is clinical director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the US National Institutes of Health. “It’s interesting to see a major study focus on people on the less-affected end of the curve, as this can be clinically important and offer useful biological insights, but may be less studied than the other end of the curve,” Solomon wrote in an email.

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-the misinformation is about misinformation.

Robert Califf, MD, the head of the FDA, doesn't seem to be having fun on the job.

"I would describe this year as hand-to-hand combat. Really, every day," he said at an academic conference at Stanford in April. It's a sentiment the FDA commissioner has expressed often. [MedPage Today]

What's been getting Califf's goat? Misinformation, which gets part of the blame for Americans' stagnating life expectancy. To Califf, the country that invents many of the most advanced drugs and devices is terrible at using those technologies well. And one reason for that is Americans' misinformed choices, he has suggested. Many don't use statins, vaccines, or COVID-19 therapies. Many choose to smoke cigarettes and eat the wrong food.

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...Findings  In 2018, the estimated economic burden of racial and ethnic health inequities was $421 billion (using MEPS) or $451 billion (using BRFSS data) and the estimated burden of education-related health inequities was $940 billion (using MEPS) or $978 billion (using BRFSS). Most of the economic burden was attributable to the poor health of the Black population; however, the burden attributable to American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander populations was disproportionately greater than their share of the population. Most of the education-related economic burden was incurred by adults with a high school diploma or General Educational Development equivalency credential. However, adults with less than a high school diploma accounted for a disproportionate share of the burden. Although they make up only 9% of the population, they bore 26% of the costs.

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In a round of interviews before he stepped down as director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in December 2021, Francis Collins, MD, PhD, frequently discussed the problem of misinformation, which, many argue, became more rampant during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks in large part to social media. [JAMA Network]

Some have used the term “infodemic” to describe the glut of COVID-19 information—much of it false or misleading—on social media. During a disease outbreak, an infodemic “causes confusion and risk-taking behaviors that can harm health” and “leads to mistrust in health authorities and undermines the public health response,” according to the World Health Organization.

When asked about the NIH’s role in pushing back against misinformation, Collins told Nature, “I wish we had more insights from behavioral social science research into how this has come to pass, and why it could have gotten so completely widespread.”

At the end of Collins’ tenure as NIH director, the agency planted the seed of a new program to support that very kind of research.

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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker joined health leaders Monday to unveil several steps to increase access to reproductive care.

That includes a new hospital navigation program, set to debut this month, designed to give appropriate and expeditious treatment to patients who need a higher level of care than can be provided at a clinic. [Health News Illinois]

The hotline, to be staffed by nurse navigators, will help patients schedule appointments, acquire pre-operative testing and arrange payment, transportation and childcare for treatment.

The initiative will be a partnership between the Chicago Abortion Fund, the University of Illinois Chicago, Rush University System for Health and the departments of Public Health and Healthcare and Family Services. 

Pritzker said at an event at the University of Illinois Chicago that the plan will help reduce disparities for hospital-based abortion care, speed up medically urgent referrals and alleviate the strain on abortion clinics.

“In the Land of Lincoln, we've doubled down on our commitment to maintain and expand reproductive health access for patients and protect providers," he said.

Other initiatives announced Monday include:

·    The opening of requests for proposals to support a public-facing hotline for abortion service navigation throughout Illinois. The hotline is funded through $10 million allocated to IDPH in the current budget.

·    The creation of a Medicaid family planning program for people otherwise not eligible for Medicaid due to income. Covered services will include annual preventive exams, family planning counseling and all Food and Drug Administration-approved methods of contraception.

·    A new $5 million capital investment program to support reproductive healthcare providers in Illinois that are experiencing increased demand for their services for improvements and repairs to new or existing facilities.

·    Authorization for Illinois to cover transportation and lodging for state employees who must travel to access reproductive healthcare. 

Some of the initiatives will be supported by the $18 million allocated to IDPH in the current budget to support efforts to expand access to such services. The family planning program will be paid for with a mix of federal Medicaid and Title X funding.

“I feel so fortunate that IDPH is committed and dedicated to working across the administration and with our provider community to ensure that those seeking family planning and abortion services in Illinois get access to the reproductive care they need,” said department Director Dr. Sameer Vohra.

Chicago Abortion Fund Executive Director Megan Jeyifo said they have helped over 250 individuals that required hospital care in the year since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, a 26 percent increase from the prior year. 

An already stressful situation of receiving an abortion is made worse by individuals having to travel out of state to a place where they may not know anyone or know where services are available, she said. The hotline will help alleviate some of those challenges.

 “(The initiative) will strengthen the working relationships we have with four major hospitals in the Chicagoland area to make sure our callers and all people who require hospital-based care can access appointments as soon as possible,” Jeyifo said. “And most importantly, it will strengthen Illinois’ ability to do what we have already been doing in this landscape: stepping up as a national access point for hospital-based care.”

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E-cigarettes are now part of a state law that prohibits smoking in nearly all indoor public places. [Health News Illinois]

Gov. JB Pritzker signed the plan into law on Friday, which adds the use of alternative nicotine products and e-cigarettes to a law that bans smoking in public spaces, places of employment and within 15 feet of public entrances.

“Illinoisans deserve to enjoy public spaces without being exposed unwillingly to secondhand vapor and other electronic cigarettes byproducts,” Pritzker said in a statement.

Retail tobacco stores that derive at least 80 percent of total revenue from the sale of e-cigarette products are exempt.

Health advocates praised the law, saying it will further protect individuals from secondhand exposure to toxicants in public places.

“We commend the General Assembly for passing this important legislation and look forward to working with them to pass further public health initiative,” said Ally Lopshire, government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

Prtizker also signed other healthcare-related proposals into law Friday that will:

·    Task the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Human Services with developing and administering an outdoor Rx program.

·    Establish primary goals for the Illinois Nursing Workforce Center and task the group with developing a strategic plan to address the state’s nursing workforce.

·    Clarify existing language related to the definition of abuse or criminal neglect of a long-term care facility resident.

·    Expand the definition of a “healthcare employer” to include a financial management services entity contracted with the Department of Human Services’ Division of Developmental Disabilities.

·    Require the state long-term care ombudsman to be notified when a resident is involuntarily transferred or discharged from a nursing home facility.

·    Require the Department of Public Health to create a pilot program so it can employ a certified plumbing inspector to perform municipal inspections.

·    Require hospitals to screen patients for financial assistance eligibility and to pursue all cost-reducing options before taking collection action against the patient.

·    Prevent health insurers, starting in 2025, from applying a higher standard of clinical evidence for the coverage of proton beam therapy than the insurer applies for the coverage of any other form of radiation therapy treatment.

·    Require the Department of Public Health to adopt rules for meeting specific standards for at-home continuing care. The department is also allowed to deny, suspend or revoke a certificate of registration for cause.

·    Expand access to those who can sell fentanyl test strips over-the-counter to pharmacists and retailers.

Create a state act outlining ways to improve quality and access to behavioral health crisis services, including requiring the Department of Human Services' Division of Mental Health to determine the “sound costs” associated with developing and maintaining a statewide initiative for the coordination and delivery of the continuum of behavioral health crisis response services. 

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The nation’s maternal mortality rate increased by nearly 40% between 2020 and 2021. The rate of US women who died during or soon after their pregnancies in the US is higher than at any other time since 2000, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). [USA Facts]

The rate was higher for certain groups in the population, such as pregnant Black women. The COVID-19 pandemic and the rising age of pregnant women also contributed to the worsening rate.

It's not a new problem in the US. Although the maternal mortality rate dropped in some years over the last two decades, the overall trend has been upwards.

The World Health Organization defines maternal mortality as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy, regardless of how long the pregnancy lasted or any cause related to the pregnancy.[1]

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This issue features a collection of articles under the umbrella of “HIV, Substance Use, and Trauma: Mentoring to Dismantle Structural  Racism. [APHJ]

”Historically, most research on racial discrimination and trauma and HIV and substance use has examined these issues primarily as individual-level processes. Echoing themes from Krieger’s eco-social  theory (https://bit.ly/3MC6vIk), the articles in this collection seek to advance knowledge about how structural racism and intergenerational trauma are embodied for racialized US communities, resulting in disproportionate rates of HIV and substance abuse .Leveraging theoretical and empirical insights from the intergenerational trauma and structural racism literature, this collection seeks to contextualize racialized health inequities and pinpoint opportunities for multi-level (i.e., individual, community, and structural) intervention. These structural racism and intergenerational trauma contexts are vital because, as Resmaa Menakemwrites in his book, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies(Las Vegas, NV: Central Recovery; 2017),

Many African Americans know trauma intimately—from their own nervous systems, from the experiences of people they love, and most often, from both. But African Americans are not alone in this. A different but equally real form or racialized trauma lives in the bodies of most white Americans. And a third, often deeply toxic type of racialized trauma lives and breathes in the bodies of many of America’s law enforcement officers. All three types of trauma are routinely passed on from person to person and from generation to generation. (p. 9)

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Certain COVID-19 indicators continued their recent rise last week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [US News-CDC]

SEE: 

Latest Coronavirus and Vaccine News

Both coronavirus emergency department visits and test positivity increased, according to CDC data. The agency no longer tracks COVID-19 cases. Instead, it focuses on hospitalizations and deaths, which don’t yet show an increase.

The CDC reported last week that it was the first time since January that COVID-19 metrics showed an increase. The uptick is small, but it’s a notable reversal after months of declining coronavirus numbers.

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The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said Tuesday that it has confirmed 2,000 opioid-related deaths last year, the highest number reported in a single year. [Health News Illinois] 

More than 91 percent of the opioid overdose deaths involved fentanyl, up about 2 percentage points from the prior year.

Of the deaths, 56 percent were Black residents, 29 percent were white and just under 15 percent were Latinx.

Just over 70 percent of opioid overdose deaths were in the city of Chicago.

The previous single-year high in opioid deaths was 1,935 reported in 2021.

 The office said data from 2023 is not yet available as it awaits toxicology results for pending cases.

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