Gov. JB Pritzker joined stakeholders Wednesday to launch the next step in an initiative aimed at addressing homelessness in the state.

Officials said the summit aimed to bring potential solutions and strategies to the state’s multi-year approach to expand affordable housing options; assist individuals in high-risk situations, specifically those who need medical care; and provide additional support for those experiencing homelessness. [Health News Illinois]

“The summit is an opportunity to come together and hear from the lived experiences of those who have experienced homelessness," Deputy Gov. Sol Flores said in a statement. "That perspective and the equity it centers is invaluable in this work."

Additionally, Pritzker’s office said the initiative aims to support the safety net and address the mortality gap through a racial equity lens.

“This is a first-of-its-kind, multi-agency endeavor — bringing together state agencies, nonprofit organizations, advocates and people with lived experience to take an intergovernmental approach to preventing and ending homelessness,” Pritzker said in a statement.

 The governor’s office noted the recently approved state budget allocates nearly $360 million for the effort, including $118 million to support unhoused populations seeking shelter and services and $35 million for services like medical respite.

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Black Chicagoans continue to face significant health disparities, including a 10-year life expectancy gap compared to white residents, according to a recent report  from the Chicago Urban League. [Health News Illinois]

The report, which was prepared by both the league and the Institute for Racial Justice at Loyola University Chicago, also found 45 percent of residents of the city’s 27 predominately Black neighborhoods have low food accessibility, compared to 27 percent of residents living in the 11 predominately white neighborhoods.

Hypertension and obesity are twice as high in Black neighborhoods compared to others. Lead poisoning in children ages five and under was nearly seven times more likely in Black neighborhoods than white ones.

The data represents the continued impact of social determinants of health on Black Chicagoans.

“In assessing the health of Black Chicagoans, it must be understood that the lack of health is a consequence of historical systems of oppression that created significant barriers to healthcare,” the report says. “There are numerous social, economic and environmental determinants of health, including access to education, fresh and healthy food, economic stability, safe homes and neighborhoods as well as a responsive healthcare system.”

 About 29 percent of Chicagoans are Black, down 3 percent over the past decade.

Download report here.

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CMS Announces Multi-State Initiative to Strengthen Primary Care

New Model Aims to Enhance Access and Quality of Primary Care, Improve Health System

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new primary care model – the Making Care Primary (MCP) Model – that will be tested under the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation in eight states. Access to high-quality primary care is associated with better health outcomes and equity for people and communities. MCP is an important step in strengthening the primary care infrastructure in the country, especially for safety net and smaller or independent primary care organizations. The model seeks to improve care for patients by expanding and enhancing care management and care coordination, equipping primary care clinicians with tools to form partnerships with health care specialists, and leveraging community-based connections to address patients’ health needs as well as their health-related social needs.

More> https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-announces-multi-state-initiative-strengthen-primary-care

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Although social media use by children carries benefits such as increasing connectedness and providing a forum for self-expression, a new advisory from US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, warns of potential downsides. [JAMA Network]

Factors such as excessive or compulsive social media use and exposure to violent or sexual content are linked with outcomes including poor sleep quality, anxiety and depression, and body dissatisfaction. “We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis,” Murthy, who published an advisory calling attention to children’s mental health in December 2021, said in a statement.

The advisory suggests actions that institutions and individuals can take to create healthful social media environments. Policy makers, for example, can enforce age minimums for platforms and back digital and media literacy lessons in schools. Technology companies can develop and evaluate platforms and algorithms with a focus on minimizing risks for children, and families can set aside time to create a family media plan.

Download 27-page report here. 

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There is no way around this: More patients need organ transplants than there are organs available to transplant. It is cold, hard arithmetic. No amount of negotiating with an insurance company or engaging in prior authorization can change that. [Medscape]

As a kidney doctor, this issue is close to my heart. There are around 100,000 people on the kidney transplant waiting list in the US, with 3000 new patients being added per month. There are only 25,000 kidney transplants per year. And each year, around 5000 people die while waiting for a transplant.

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Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted marketing authorization for the Cue COVID-19 Molecular Test. The product is a molecular nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) that is intended to detect genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 virus present in nasal swabs from adults with signs and symptoms of upper respiratory infection. This test is the first at-home over-the-counter (OTC) test for COVID-19 to be granted marketing authorization using a traditional premarket review pathway and the first ever at-home test authorized using a traditional premarket review pathway for any respiratory illness.  [Food and Drug Administration]

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“Despite various investments and political action, maternal death rates have climbed in recent years, especially for Black women. California passed a law in 2021 to confront racial disparities in maternal and infant health, but advocates say there needs to be mechanisms for transparency and accountability and deeper investment. [Public Health Institute] 

Dana Sherrod is co-founder and director of the California Coalition for Black Birth Justice and an expert in advancing health and racial equity at hospitals and government agencies. 

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The field of transplant medicine is rapidly developing technologies to address the severe organ shortage. With the transplant system and organ procurement organizations under increasing congressional scrutiny to improve efficient use of organs, there are growing efforts to optimize use of transplantable organs coming from donors who have been declared dead by circulatory criteria. Unlike organs obtained from living or brain-dead donors, those procured from donations after circulatory death are often compromised by hypoxic-ischemic injury because they cannot be removed until the donor has been declared dead, which in the US is typically after the donor has been pulseless for 5 minutes. [JAMA Network]

Although multiple techniques have been developed to minimize or partially reverse the ischemic injury associated with donation after circulatory death, none has been as promising as normothermic regional perfusion. Although enthusiastically endorsed by many as an approach to procuring more and higher-quality organs, normothermic regional perfusion has also drawn criticism, including concerns that it may violate the “dead donor rule,” a fundamental ethical principle of organ procurement that prohibits procedures that may result in patients dying either by or for the procurement of their organs.

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