Author: tim_mandell
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Medicaid expansion had more impact in rural areas, study says
Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act greatly increased access to health care for Americans, especially in rural areas, says an Indiana University study published in The Journal of Rural...
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Eastern Kentucky has some of the nation’s highest cancer mortality rates, study finds
Eastern Kentucky has some of the highest cancer rates in the U.S., says a study by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington published in the Journal of the...
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Meth labs were more prevalent in ‘dry’ counties in 2004-2010; adds to evidence that making alcohol legal decreases drug use
Meth use is more prevalent in counties where the sale of alcohol is illegal, say researchers at the University of Louisville. They looked at meth-lab seizures in Drug Enforcement Administration...
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Nationally, poisonings of youth from opioids rose 165% from 1997 to 2012, 205% among those aged 1 to 4
More than 13,000 Americans age 19 and under were hospitalized for opioid poisonings from 1997 to 2012, says a study at the Yale School of Medicine, published in JAMA Pediatrics. The...
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DEA investigators say officials purposely hampered attempts to slow rise of opioids, doing the bidding of drug manufacturers
Drug Enforcement Administration investigators say attempts to staunch the rise of opioids were derailed by interference from higher ups, Lenny Bernstein and Scott Higham report for The Washington Post. Ten years ago, DEA...
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OxyContin sales reps used food, gifts to convince doctors to buy drugs, says investigative report
Pharmaceutical sales representatives from health-care giant Abbott Laboratories sales reps “were instructed to downplay the threat of addiction with OxyContin and make other claims to doctors that had no scientific...
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Rural veterans less likely than urban counterparts to receive mental health care, says study
Rural veterans are less likely than their urban counterparts to receive treatment for mental health conditions, says a study by the federal Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality and the...
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Studies conclude that abstinence pledges do little to cut youth sexual activity, pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases
Abstinence pledges—sometimes called purity pledges—don’t keep young people from engaging in sex, contracting sexually transmitted diseases or avoiding pregnancy, according to a pair of studies, Denise-Marie Ordway reports for Journalist’s...
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Officials hope reduction in Ky. colon cancer deaths via screening can be replicated with lung cancer, in which state is No. 1
Health officials in Kentucky, especially in the eastern part of the state, hope to increase lung-cancer screenings by following a successful colon-cancer screening initiative, Jackie Judd reports for PBS NewsHour....
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Kentucky ranks fourth nationally in painkiller prescriptions; CDC proposal would limit prescription strength and amount
Kentucky has the nation’s fourth highest rate of painkiller prescriptions, at about 130 prescriptions for every 100 people, Christine Vestal reports for Stateline. The high rate of painkiller prescriptions is...