COVID-19–related discrimination is common, and it appears that the pandemic has exacerbated preexisting resentment against racial/ethnic minorities and marginalized communities. Efforts are needed to minimize and discredit racially driven language and discrimination around COVID-19 and future epidemics.  [AJPH - American Journal of Public Health] 

Objectives. To determine the prevalence of COVID-19–related discrimination among major US racial/ethnic groups and estimate associations between discrimination, race/ethnicity, and other sociodemographic characteristics.

Methods. We conducted a nationally representative online survey of 5500 American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Latino (English and Spanish speaking), White, and multiracial adults from December 2020 to February 2021. Associations between sociodemographic characteristics and COVID-19–related discrimination were estimated via multinomial logistic regression.

Results. A total of 22.1% of the participants reported experiencing discriminatory behaviors, and 42.7% reported that people acted afraid of them. All racial/ethnic minorities were more likely than White adults to experience COVID-19–related discrimination, with Asian and American Indian/Alaska Native adults being most likely to experience such discrimination (discriminatory behaviors: adjusted odd ratio [AOR] = 2.59; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.73, 3.89; and AOR = 2.67; 95% CI = 1.76, 4.04; people acting afraid: AOR = 1.54; 95% CI = 1.15, 2.07; and AOR = 1.84; 95% CI = 1.34, 2.51). Limited English proficiency, lower education, lower income, and residing in a big city or the East South Central census division also increased the prevalence of discrimination.

Conclusions. COVID-19–related discrimination is common, and it appears that the pandemic has exacerbated preexisting resentment against racial/ethnic minorities and marginalized communities. Efforts are needed to minimize and discredit racially driven language and discrimination around COVID-19 and future epidemics. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(3):453–466. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306594) 

Download full article here>

Authored by Paula D. StrasslePhD, MSPH, Anita L. StewartPhD, Stephanie M. QuinteroBA, Jackie BonillaBS, Alia AlhomsiBA, Verónica Santana-UfretBS, Ana I. Maldonado. 

###

Opioid overdoses in Illinois increased 33% from 2019 to 2020. In 2020, there were 2,944 opioid overdose fatalities – more than twice the number of fatal motor vehicle accidents and more than twice the number of homicides. The increase in the number of fatalities is attributed to the rise of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. Since 2013, synthetic opioid deaths in Illinois have increased 2,736%.

For more details on opioid overdoses during COVID-19 visit this page>

The United States is in the middle of the deadliest drug crisis in our history. Fueled by the growing opioid epidemic, drug overdoses have now become the leading cause of death nationwide for people under the age of 50. In Illinois, opioid overdoses have killed nearly 11,000 people since 2008. Just last year, nearly 2,000 people died of overdoses—almost twice the number of fatal car accidents. Beyond these deaths are thousands of emergency department visits, hospital stays, as well as the pain suffered by individuals, families, and communities. The opioid epidemic is the most significant public health and public safety crisis facing Illinois. 

More details here>

Current new: Last month, state Sen. Laura Ellman (D-Naperville) introduced a bill that would impose harsher penalties for people who distribute fentanyl, but would give people seeking treatment for an overdose immunity from being prosecuted for possessing small amounts of the drug. The move is aimed at saving lives and encouraging people to seek help for fentanyl overdoses without fear of arrest. [The Patch 4.11.2022] 

###

Despite public health experts' fears about coinciding surges of flu and COVID-19 engulfing the country, a so-called "twindemic" never materialized. Now, scientists are considering a theory that could explain why, The New York Times reported April 8.

Masks, social distancing and other public health measures rolled out to contain the coronavirus's spread may have played a role in fending off flu and other respiratory viruses during the pandemic. But scientists are also pondering whether a biological phenomenon known as viral interference was at play.

The theory is that exposure to one respiratory virus may put the body at high alert and amplify its ability to fight off other viruses. As a result, only one virus could gain dominance in a region at a time. 

"My gut feeling, and my feeling based on our recent research, is that viral interference is real," Ellen Foxman, MD, PhD, an immunologist at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale School of Medicine, told the Times. "I don't think we're going to see the flu and the coronavirus peak at the same time."

That said, hospitals can still become overburdened even if a twindemic doesn't occur, Dr. Foxman said.

View the full report here.

###

The country's total drug spending increased by 7.7 percent in 2021, growing to $576.9 billion, according to a study released April 6 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. [Becker's Health Review 4.7.2022]

Hospitals accounted for $39.6 billion of that spending, marking 8.4 percent growth from 2020. Clinics accounted for $105 billion, a 7.7 percent increase

Gilead's COVID-19 therapeutic remdesivir made up nearly 10 percent of what hospitals spent on drugs in 2021. Hospitals' remdesivir spending outpaced the next three drugs combined, according to the study.

"The drug-spending whiplash that clinics and hospitals experienced in the first year of the pandemic did not end with 2021," Eric Tichy, PharmD, division chair of supply chain management at Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and lead study author, said in a statement. "Uncertainty remains around how long the federal government will continue to pay for COVID treatments, and around inflation, which is moving through most economic sectors." 

###

The Biden administration unveiled a new plan on Tuesday to improve the nation's understanding of long COVID and to better prevent, detect, and treat the condition, particularly in hard-hit communities.

"Long COVID is real, and there is still so much we don't know about it," said Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra during a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing.

Millions of Americans may be affected by lingering symptoms of an acute COVID-19 infection, with symptoms ranging from labored breathing to an irregular heartbeat to serious neurological symptoms or mental health problems.

HHS will lead a government-wide response to long COVID, Becerra said, with a new research agenda focused on three core goals: improving care, enhancing outreach and education, and advancing research. HHS will oversee the development of an interagency National Research Action Plan on Long COVID, with input from the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration, among other government entities, as well as from public and private efforts focused on long COVID.

In addition to establishing an action plan, President Biden issued a memorandum that calls on the HHS Secretary to publish a report that would steer people with long COVID to services available from various federal agencies, as well as those experiencing a COVID-related loss and those dealing with pandemic-related mental health and substance use problems, with particular attention to "high-risk communities."

Tuesday's announcement and memorandum stem in part from recommendations of the Presidential COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force. Other efforts by the administration to address long COVID detailed in a White House fact sheet included the following:

Full details here> 

###

National Minority Health Month 2022 | April is National Minority Health Month (NMHM). This year, the HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) will highlight the important role individuals can play in their own communities to help reduce health disparities and improve the health of racial and ethnic minorities and American Indian/Alaska Natives.

Here is the link to events in the US-https://lnkd.in/dPfPpzNP. Find the local events in your area. 

This year's NMHM theme is Give Your Community a Boost! This theme focuses on the continued importance of COVID-19 vaccination, including boosters, as one of the strongest tools we can use to protect communities from COVID-19. The theme also supports the many other efforts happening in communities throughout the country to advance health equity.

Visit their National Minority Health Month website in English and Spanish to find resources, events, social media messages, graphics, and information to share with your organizations, communities, and networks about how to Give Your Community a Boost!

Public Health is where you are! https://lnkd.in/dBH8p4AV

###

The focus of this session #2 is Rosalind Franklin University’s direct engagement and outreach to the local community. Specifically, we will discuss RFU’s role in addressing health equity through partnerships with local agencies, school systems and as a direct service provider in areas such as North Chicago and Waukegan IL. During this panel discussion, we will look at the roles of RFU plays in outreach in the community, clinical outreach, and curriculum and co-curriculum development and its impact on the local community.

Learning Objectives

By attending to this session, you will learn:

• Associate the role of health, medical and STEM outreach programs in providing access to health careers to local youth in the North Chicago and Waukegan areas and the impact of medical pipeline programs are having
• Detect the specific changes are made in curricular and co-curricular development at RFU to address health equity
• Identify the clinical outreach efforts and the impact that those efforts are having in the local community

For more details on the speakers and to register, visit this page. 

###

Funding will support up to 25 communities in developing and implementing a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is making $72 million in Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) funding available to up to 25 communities nationwide. Funding will be utilized for developing and implementing coordinated community approaches to preventing and ending youth homelessness and sharing that experience and communities around the country to mobilize them toward the same end. Read HUD’s Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) here.  [HUD 3.24.2022]

“HUD has a responsibility to communities in this nation, especially youth. Housing greatly impacts our education, our employment, and our opportunities to thrive,” said Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “These grants underscore HUD's commitment to eradicating homelessness, especially among young people, who all need and deserve a safe place to call home.”

YHDP is unique because the program is informed by youth that have experienced homelessness. It is one of the first dedicated federal initiatives that funds permanent housing programs for youth, and focuses on building local coordinated systems for responding to youth homelessness. HUD continues to work closely with youth to develop and improve YHDP, relying upon the recommendations provided directly from young people who have experienced homelessness.

Eventual YHDP recipients will be able to use this funding to address youth homelessness in ways that are specifically tailored to their needs, including funding for housing units, wrap-around services, and housing support. YHDP will also support youth-focused performance measurements and coordinated entry systems. Once selected, communities will work with their youth action boards, child welfare agencies, and other community partners to create a comprehensive community plan to end youth homelessness. Communities will serve as leaders in the nation on the work to end homelessness among young people.

The NOFO reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to preventing and ending youth homelessness through a coordinated community approach. Specifically, the demonstration has seven primary objectives:

• Build national momentum. Motivate state and local homelessness stakeholders and youth services providers, including Runaway and Homeless Youth providers across the country to prevent and end youth homelessness by forming new partnerships, addressing system barriers, conducting needs assessments, testing promising strategies, and evaluating their outcomes.
• Promote equity in the delivery and outcomes of homeless assistance. Executive Order 13985 calls on agencies to advance equity through identifying and addressing barriers to equal opportunity that communities may face due to government policies and programs. Similarly, HUD expects YHDP recipients to promote equity throughout the community's youth homeless response system for youth who are disproportionally more likely to experience homelessness, such as Black, Indigenous, Hispanic (non-white), and LGBTQ youth who are disproportionally more likely to experience homelessness. Awarded communities will promote equity throughout their youth homeless response system and all YHDP projects will measure and demonstrate equitable delivery and outcomes. This includes identifying barriers that led to any disparities in subpopulations being served and taking steps to eliminate these barriers in the community's youth homeless response system.
• Highlight the importance of youth leadership: Demonstrate effective models of strong leadership and agency by youth with lived experience in the community. Create replicable best practices of youth leadership for other communities.
• Evaluate the coordinated community approach. Evaluate coordinated community approaches to preventing and ending youth homelessness, including local and state partnerships across sectors and other planning operations.
• Expand capacity. Expand community capacity to serve youth experiencing homelessness (particularly by using a Housing First approach), pilot new models of assistance, and determine what array of interventions is necessary to serve the target population in their community.
• Evaluate performance measures. Evaluate the use of performance measurement strategies designed to better measure youth outcomes and the connection between youth program outcomes and youth performance measures on overall system performance for the Continuum of Care (CoC).
• Establish a framework for Federal program and TA collaboration. Determine the most effective way for Federal resources to interact within a state or local system to support a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness. 

Healthcare workforce shortages today are unprecedented. Some hospital leaders fear the worst is yet to come. [Healthcare Dive 3.31.2022]

That's because as nurses quit in droves — with some leaving to take higher-paying traveling nurse positions or opting for early retirements — replacing them is becoming increasingly difficult. With many other nurses dropping the profession because of the mental of physical toll of being on front lines of the pandemic for two years, it's almost mission impossible for many health systems to fill staffing holes.  now

Projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate U.S. healthcare organizations will have to fill almost 200,000 open nursing positions every year until 2030, with many of those slots resulting from the need to replace nurses who leave for different occupations or retire.

"This is a bigger workforce shortage than we have ever dealt with," said Gay Landstrom, senior vice president and chief nursing officer of Trinity Health, a nonprofit system with 88 hospitals nationwide.

While some systems anticipate many nurses who are leaving now will eventually return, staff shortages — already forecast to occur over the next decade even before the pandemic began — likely will persist, driven mainly by an aging nursing population, hospital officials say.

A large chunk of the most experienced senior nurses are set to retire over the next two decades, as the average age of a registered nurse in the U.S. in 2020 was 51 years old, according to a survey from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.

While interest in healthcare professions like nursing hasn't waned, shortages of nursing educators and sites to get clinical hours pose imminent challenges to the pipeline of new nurses in particular.

Some systems are boosting benefits and propping up their own internal staffing agencies to keep nurses in house at least for the short to medium term. Others are looking to bolster partnerships with academic institutions to better strengthen their pipelines in the years to come.

"The role of the nurse needs to be an enticing one," Landstrom said. "We need to have enticing jobs that aren't completely exhausting."

Nurses under attack

Throughout the pandemic, surveys have increasingly found widespread stress and burnout among the healthcare workforce. Some nurses say their jobs are now less satisfying, and for some it's untenable as persistent staffing shortages make it difficult to adequately care for patients.

More than a third of nurses recently surveyed by staffing firm Incredible Health said they plan to leave their current jobs by the end of this year, citing burnout and high-stress work environments. Higher pay elsewhere is the top reason for taking another position, the poll found.

See full article here> 

###

The BA.2 omicron subvariant accounts for about 55 percent of new cases in the U.S., according to the CDC's latest estimates for the week ending March 26.  [ Beckers Hospital Review 3.30.2022]

The strain — which is more transmissible than the original omicron variant though has not been linked to more severe disease — has driven a COVID-19 surge in Europe. In the U.S., health officials have said they anticipate an uptick in infections, though a major surge is unlikely. 

Two more updates: 

1. Deaths hit a low: The nation's daily average for COVID-19 deaths has stayed below 800 since March 26. The last time deaths averaged below 800 was in August, before omicron took hold, data from The New York Times shows. 

2. Cases to rise, hospitalizations to fall: Modeling from Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic projects daily COVID-19 cases will increase 42 percent nationwide over the next two weeks, from a daily average of 24,934.1 March 27 to 35,449 by April 10. CDC forecasts estimate daily hospital admissions will fall over the four weeks from March 21 to April 16. 

###