The scientific evidence on climate change has grown increasingly stark. Continued warming will further destabilize our climate and produce more frequent and intense storms, wildfires, and heatwaves as well as more damaging droughts and more extensive ecosystem losses. In August 2021, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report in which 234 of the world’s leading scientists, citing over 14,000 different studies, concluded with high confidence that the climate crisis is a “code red for humanity.”

This year alone, extreme weather has upended the U.S. economy and affected one in three Americans. Wildfires have burned nearly six million acres of land—equivalent to the total land mass of Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined—and destabilized international supply chains. After carving its destructive path through the Gulf of Mexico and stalling commodity exports to the world, Hurricane Ida took down the New York City subway system for hours, dumping a record 3.15 inches of rain in a single hour and bringing commerce in the most populous city in the United States to a halt.1 On the other side of the country, the Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead reached its lowest level since the dam was built in 1931, causing the government to declare the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River and prompting water cutbacks for regional farmers and the economies they support. As this year draws to a close, the total damage of extreme weather will build upon the $99 billion already incurred by American taxpayers in 2020.

[Page 12 of the report] 

Protecting Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Communities

The burdens of climate change, including the disruptions caused by climate-related financial risks, will fall disproportionately on disadvantaged communities and communities of color.17 Climate risk will particularly impact the millions of Americans who live in underinvested and overburdened communities. Recent research shows these disadvantaged communities are disproportionately exposed to extreme weather as a result of climate change.18

Download the 40-page report here.

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In July, local health official Faisal Khan attended a county council meeting to do his job — talk about COVID-19 data and offer guidance on the best ways to save lives and contain the spread of the virus. He left the meeting needing security detail for his entire family.  [The Nation's Health October 2021, 51 (8) 1-13]

“I was prepared for a discussion, even skepticism,” said Khan, MPH, MBBS, director of the St. Louis County Department of Public Health in Missouri. “But in 25 years of public health service, I have never faced this sort of situation.”

That night at the council meeting, Khan explained why he and fellow county officials had decided to reinstate a mask requirement against a backdrop of surging infections, lagging vaccination rates and rising hospitalizations. Khan’s talk was met with jeers, taunts and verbal abuse. One council member pointed out that Khan was not born in the U.S.

As Khan left the meeting, an angry crowd hurled racial slurs and physically assaulted him, Khan later wrote in a letter to the council chair. The situation “saddens me beyond comprehension,” he told The Nation’s Health.

Full article here> 

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Our team of policy experts is closely monitoring new developments of the Senate reconciliation bill under consideration. As pieces of legislation make their way through Congress, we have identified multiple components that align with our 2021 Policy Agenda. Most recently, budget reconciliation set to be considered in the House Energy and Commerce committee seeks to provide access to health coverage for over 2 million uninsured Americans who fall into a gap in access to affordable health plans. [Coalition to Transform Advanced Care 10.6.2021]

This coverage gap is created by income limits for Medicaid eligibility and marketplace tax credits in states that have not expanded Medicaid to offer the coverage provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As a result, low-income individuals, even those with incomes below the federal poverty line, may not be eligible for Medicaid, and are left to seek coverage in a marketplace meant for individuals earning at least 138% of the federal poverty line, pay for potentially costly coverage offered by employers, or go without insurance. This places more people at risk of serious illness derived from lacking preventive care, missed screenings, and lack of treatment adherence. Additionally, existing policies disproportionately impact Black and Latinx individuals, who represent more than half of those who fall into the coverage gap. The proposed legislation aligns with C-TAC’s commitment to advancing health equity and increasing access to critical treatments and services for those living with serious illness.

The legislation under consideration aims to close the coverage gap by implementing immediate and long-term solutions for low-income individuals who find themselves unable to access coverage. The bill would begin implementation in January 2022 by expanding eligibility for premium tax credits in ACA marketplaces to include low-income individuals in non-expansion states who would be eligible for Medicaid under ACA expansion guidelines. 

More details and full article>

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Register now for the November 12, 2021, virtual session: Cannabis- Everything You Need to Know and Be Pain-Free with CBD Cannabis Therapy in the 21st Century 

In the 19^th century, cannabis was the most common ingredient in the American pharmacopeia. Park-Davis, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck prepared digestible and topical medicines for prescription. By the 1930’s; however, a nefarious political agenda, grounded in an inert economy and racial and ethnic bias, passed the Marijuana Tax Law, ushering in decades of needless cannabis prohibition and a famous war on drugs.

Fortunately, the exploration of exogenous cannabinoids and discovery of the endocannabinoid system, combined with an informed public, have reconceptualized cannabis as a harm reduction (rather than gateway) substance that restores homeostasis, treats countless diseases and conditions, improves psychological health, secures sleep, and manages pain. 

Speakers

• Melanie Dreher, PhD, RN, Dean Emeritus, Rush University, and Anthropologist-Moderator
• Dr. Jeffrey Hergenrather, Founding member and President of the Society for Cannabis   Clinicians
• Jesse Lopez, Founder & CEO, SourceOne Global Partners, Geocann
• Eloise Theisen, RN, Adult Geriatric Nurse Practitioner, and President of the American Cannabis Nurses Association

For more details and to register, visit this page.

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As part of Hispanic Heritage Month, Cook County Health will be hosting a virtual event on Thursday, October 14 at 6 pm for a “Conversation with Hispanics, Latinos and Latinas in Medicine.”

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Cook County Health leaders will discuss the historic role that Hispanics and Latino/as have played in medicine, especially in Cook County, as well as touch on the topics that are of most concern for the community, including COVID-19 and mental health.

 The virtual event will be live-streamed on their  Facebook page. 

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The COVID-19 pandemic added new obstacles and exacerbated existing barriers to healthy eating and physical activity in 2020 and 2021, and deepened longstanding racial and economic inequities in the United States. Emerging data suggests eating habits shifted, physical activity declined, stress and anxiety increased, food insecurity worsened, and many Americans gained weight throughout the pandemic, a sharp reminder of the effects that underlying social, economic, and environmental conditions have on the health and well-being of Americans. Many of direct and indirect effects of the pandemic fell disproportionally on certain populations, including low-income communities and communities of color.

Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health policy, research, and advocacy organization that promotes optimal health for every person and community, and makes the prevention of illness and injury a national priority.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) provided support for this report. Opinions in it are TFAH’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of RWJF.

Download full report here>

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The COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force was established by Executive Order 13995, Ensuring an Equitable Pandemic Response and Recovery, which was issued on January 21, 2021. Since February, the Task Force has convened every month as part of the government-wide effort to identify and eliminate health and social disparities that result in disproportionately higher rates of exposure, illness, hospitalization and death related to COVID-19.

This month, the Task Force released its deliberation and vote on final recommendations with proposed priorities, suggested outcomes and recommendations to achieve the outcomes. 

Proposed Priorities 

Priority 1 - Empower and Invest in Community-Led Solutions to Address Health Equity 

Priority 2 - Enforce a Data Ecosystem that Promotes Equity-driven Decision-Making 

Priority 3 - Increase Accountability for Health Equity Outcomes 

Priority 4 - Invest in a Representative Health Care Workforce and Increase Equitable Acces to Quality Health for All 

Priority 5 - Lead and Coordinate Implementation of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force Recommendations for a permanent health equity infrastructure in the White House. 

Download the 79-page report here.  

To read more, visit the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force webpage on the OMH website.

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Twenty years after 9/11, COVID-19 demonstrated that our nation’s public health readiness, despite the tireless efforts of committed and skilled public health professionals who have admirably responded, was compromised by disconnected local, state, and federal data systems and disease surveillance capacity; an inadequate medical supply chain to meet the demand for personal protective equipment; insufficient surge capacity to meet the national demand for contact tracing and case investigation, and varied attention to building equity and community resilience activities into ongoing response and recovery efforts. So, do we have the preparedness we need? The answer is mixed. (APHA) 

Full article> 

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