An initiative to boost the health and economic prosperity of 18 south and west side Chicago neighborhoods made significant progress in hiring area residents, according to a recent report.

The report by the Chicago Hospital Engagement, Action, and Leadership Initiative, launched in 2018 by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and a coalition of 10 hospitals, found those organizations hired an annual average of 3,535 individuals from the underserved neighborhoods, a 21 percent increase from 2018.

Additionally, the report found that 3,571 hospital staff were trained to screen patients for social determinants of health needs, a 242 percent increase since 2018, and an annual average of 4,212 victims of violence received post-injury trauma recovery services, a 130 percent increase from 2018.

Work was also done to improve the workforce pipeline in those underserved communities, with 4,921 high school and college students from those neighborhoods participating in workforce development programs in 2021, a 28 percent increase from 2018.

“Despite normally being competitors in the healthcare sector, these hospitals banded together to engage their communities and address the root causes of violence,” Durbin said in a statement. “I’ve been proud to work with them and the Illinois Health and Hospital Association and I believe the activities and commitments of these hospitals provides a roadmap that will continue to make a difference across Chicago and beyond.”

Durbin also announced last week that nearly $5.8 million in federal funds will head to organizations in Chicago that are working to address community mental health, housing, job training and violence prevention.

Illinois Health and Hospital Association CEO A.J. Wilhelmi said they're committed to continuing the work of the initiative.

 “It's about changing lives," he said in a statement.

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Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center.

About 30% of COVID-19 patients developed the condition known as long COVID, UCLA researchers said in a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. [Medscape 4.21.2022]

The UCLA researchers studied 1,038 people enrolled in the UCLA COVID Ambulatory Program between April 2020 and February 2021. Researchers found that 309 of them developed long COVID.

A long COVID diagnosis came if a patient answering a questionnaire reported persistent symptoms 60-90 days after they were infected or hospitalized. The most persistent symptoms were fatigue (31%) and shortness of breath (15%) in hospitalized participants. Among outpatients, 16% reported losing sense of smell.

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World Health Organization (WHO) has defined a child is as “a person less than 19 years of age unless there is a separate definition as per the national law”. Adolescent period refers to the age group of 10 to 19 years.5 The prevalence of obesity is mounting at an alarming rate in this Century. It is a risk factor which is highly preventable and primordial prevention is the key to bring down the rates of adolescent obesity. In the year 2016, around 340 million children were noted to be overweight across the world. The preva-ence of obesity in childhood has risen four-fold since 1980s. WHO has set cut off values for identifying overweight and obesity for children aged 5-19 years taking into consideration the age and sex of children as body weight varies accordingly.6, [National Journal of Community Health 1.2022]

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CHICAGO—The Institute of Medicine of Chicago  2022 Healthcare Awards are open for nominations. The seven award categories are open to all through May 2-4, 2022. There is no fee to submit an entry. Awards will be presented at the 2022 Annual Meeting on June 30, 2022. The awards presentation will be held at VenueSix 10 in Chicago, Illinois. Consider honoring a colleague for their outstanding efforts by nominating them for an award. 

Questions? Contact us by sending an email to iomcstaff@iomc.org. Please state 2022 Healthcare Awards in the Subject line. 

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A bill recently passed by the House and under consideration in the Senate caps insulin payments at $35 a month for individuals with Medicare or private health insurance. The legislation speaks directly to the crisis in affordability for a life-saving medicine, but in the long term it is just shuffling the deck rather than changing the game of insulin costs. [MedPage Today 4.19.2022]

Like a lot of high stakes games, this one takes place in back rooms, and certainly out of view of patients and doctors. Many believe drug manufacturers run the game because it involves steadily rising list prices, which they set. 

The Crisis

We are in the midst of a diabetes epidemic. In Medicare alone, about one-third of beneficiaries had diabetes in 2017, up from 18% in 2000. Beneficiaries' mean out-of-pocket spending on insulin has nearly doubled over the last decade. In a recent study, we found that out-of-pocket spending increased considerably in the coverage gap for most users with Part D coverage, which was associated with a substantial reduction in adherence.

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Around 19,000 Illinoisians could lose health insurance coverage next year, following the expiration of temporary enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies and the end of Medicaid’s continuous enrollment policy, according to a recent report from the Urban Institute. [Health News Illinois 4.18.2022]
 
The American Rescue Plan Act, enacted in April of last year, boosted premium tax credits and extended eligibility to those making more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Those changes are set to expire next year. 
 
If Congress doesn’t act, 3.1 million more people could become uninsured across the nation, with those enrolled through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces facing hundreds of dollars more per person on premiums, per the report. 
 
Nationwide, the uninsured rate would rise to 10.4 percent. In Illinois, it would rise to 9.2 percent, with about 996,000 people without insurance.
 
Black people, young adults, and people with incomes between 138 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level will likely experience the biggest coverage losses. 
 
Extending the subsidies will likely increase the federal deficit by $305 billion over 10 years, the report noted. 
 
The federal public health emergency is set to end this summer, along with Medicaid’s continuous enrollment policy. The report’s authors estimate that Medicaid enrollment will fall by 14 million next year nationwide.
 
Extending the subsidies could mean more leaving Medicaid will be eligible for premium tax credits, with those eligible likely to pay less in premiums, per the report.

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Everyone goes through tough times in life. But many things can help you survive—and even thrive—during stressful periods. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Learning healthy ways to cope and how to draw from resources in your community can help you build resilience. [NIH News In Health]

“Resilience is the extent to which we can bounce back from adverse events, cope with stress, or succeed in the face of adversity,” says Dr. Cindy Bergeman, a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame.

You’re not born with resilience. “It’s not something you either have or don’t have,” says Dr. Alexandra Burt, a child development expert at Michigan State University.

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Socioeconomic disadvantage during childhood predicts a myriad of negative outcomes, including lower earnings, poorer mental and physical health, and higher rates of criminal behavior (Cohen et al., 2008; Duncan, Ziol-Guest, & Kalil, 2010). One way disadvantage may exert these effects is by undermining the development of self-control, or the broad capacity to regulate behavior, thoughts, and emotions (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994). Consistent with this notion, disadvantage predicts poorer self-control during childhood (Hackman, Gallop, Evans, & Farah, 2015; Last, Lawson, Breiner, Steinberg, & Farah, 2018; Lengua et al., 2015) and, in turn, lower levels of self-control during childhood and adolescence predict poor short and long-term outcomes (Mischel & Ayduk, 2004; Moffitt et al., 2011).  [National Library of Science] 

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