Pharmacist Digest

Opinion: To rebuild trust in public health: Better communication, fewer mandates, and small wins

STAT

APRIL 11, 2024

In many countries — notably the United States — the pandemic dissolved trust between parts of the community and the public health system. Communities with more trust during the Covid-19 pandemic had fewer deaths and less economic devastation. How can that trust be restored? In a word: gradually. Read the rest…

Communication

Opinion: What the public might learn from Kate Middleton, the latest ‘famous patient’

STAT

MARCH 24, 2024

There was a time when the last thing a celebrity would do would be to go public with details of a major illness. By the time I wrote my book , “When Illness Goes Public: Celebrity Patients and How We Look at Medicine” in 2006, there were hundreds of stories of famous patients I could have told. Read the rest…

Chemotherapy

STAT+: NEJM aims to hold AI to account with new publication

STAT

DECEMBER 11, 2023

The New England Journal of Medicine on Monday will launch NEJM AI , a monthly, online-only publication that will focus on evaluating applications of artificial intelligence in clinical medicine. One of the most prestigious names in medical publishing is going all in on artificial intelligence.

Opinion: Congress could stop free public access to government-funded research

STAT

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

While Sci-Hub is controversial, its widespread use points to a crucial question: Shouldn’t taxpayer-funded research be freely and immediately accessible to the public? We’re finally close to achieving this vision — so long as Congress doesn’t stand in the way. Read the rest…

At Milken Institute conference, CDC director Mandy Cohen talks public health preparedness

STAT

MAY 6, 2024

Among the challenges she and her team had to face was the antiquated state of data pervasive in public health and medicine. In the spring of 2020, as Covid-19 took hold around the world, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention director Mandy Cohen was the head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services.

Opinion: How much personal health information does King Charles owe the public?

STAT

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

Although the official statement did not include the particular type of cancer, it closed by noting that, “His Majesty has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.”

Opinion: There’s a public health crisis lurking in our data: the Census option ‘some other race’

STAT

DECEMBER 19, 2023

population makes underrepresented groups invisible in public health data, resulting in policies informed by inadequate or misleading information. According to the 2020 Census, the second most common race in America , after white, is “Some other race,” an option chosen by an astonishing one out of seven people.

Opinion: How the twin crises of climate change and poor public housing are harming people’s health

STAT

AUGUST 29, 2023

At the same time, millions of families in the United States already suffer poor health caused or exacerbated by substandard or deteriorating low-income public housing. Adverse outcomes range from household trigger-associated chronic illnesses to obesity to accidents resulting from a lack of safely built housing.

Niacin has long been a public health darling. But an excess could be bad for the heart, study suggests

STAT

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

public health darling to the point that it is added, by law, to cereal products. Niacin, or vitamin B3, has long been a U.S. But a new study published Monday in Nature Medicine points to a potentially concerning effect of an excess of the vitamin: It may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Diabetes

Mitch McConnell’s abrupt episode has an important public health takeaway

STAT

JULY 27, 2023

Moments after McConnell experienced what appeared to be an abrupt medical issue on Wednesday — freezing and remaining silent for about 20 seconds during a press conference, then showing signs of disorientation — he was led away by aides while cameras rolled.

Opinion: Public health layoffs and tech layoffs: a world of difference

STAT

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Thousands of layoffs have occurred in the public health sector over the past year with little support or fanfare. Some aren’t calling what’s happening in public health “layoffs.”

STAT+: Second U.S. oncology provider plans to go public

STAT

OCTOBER 10, 2022

Florida-based American Oncology Network, a company with more than 100 affiliated doctors across 18 states, announced last week it plans to go public. is about to have not just one, but two, standalone publicly-traded oncology providers. The news comes about a year after another large oncology provider chain hit the stock market.

CDC to cut back on Covid data it collects as public health emergency ends

STAT

MAY 5, 2023

The ending of the public health emergency for Covid-19 will force the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to cut back on the data it collects to analyze how much illness the SARS-CoV-2 virus is causing in the future, the CDC announced Friday.

Opinion: Fixing U.S. public health will require a health-systems revolution — and for physicians to take a backseat

STAT

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

A classic warning in public health goes like this: “A society that spends so much on health care that it cannot or will not spend adequately on other health enhancing activities may actually be reducing the health of its population.” Through its stranglehold on resources and institutional power, the U.S. Read the rest…

Opinion: Public health needs to be transformed. Health IT can help

STAT

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Covid-19 pummeled public health agencies and organizations. Future crises, whether from infectious disease, extreme weather, or other sources, are likely to do the same unless they change their approach to public health reporting, data management, and information exchange.

Biden administration requests $20 billion cash infusion to bolster public health

STAT

MARCH 9, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is calling for a big boost for public health funding across the federal health department, but left out specific funding for Covid-19 activities.

Opinion: Public health during Sudan’s civil war: nurturing resilience amid conflict

STAT

APRIL 21, 2024

On a Friday morning one year ago this week, my colleagues in Sudan’s Ministry of Health and I met for the relatively routine business of endorsing a plan to deal with looming epidemics of cholera, dengue fever, and measles.

Hospitals

WHO extends public health emergency over Covid but signals end could come soon

STAT

JANUARY 30, 2023

The World Health Organization announced Monday that the Covid-19 pandemic remains a public health emergency, but signaled strongly that it believes it may be able to lift that designation in coming months.

Opinion: How the world can end Covid-19 as a public health threat

STAT

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

The journal Nature published today global consensus recommendations to end Covid-19 as a public health threat. It took a panel of almost 400 independent-thinking scientists, doctors, and representatives of community groups from more than 100 countries (we were among the co-chairs) some 14 months to develop and agree on these recommendations.

Trans health care, already under attack, faces new obstacle with end of Covid public health emergency

STAT

MARCH 31, 2023

Now experts say the government’s plans to end the Covid public health emergency on May 11 could further jeopardize the health and safety of trans people across the country. “Couple these with the end of the public health emergency, and more trans people will die.” As states across the U.S.

Opinion: Will there be a Supreme assault on public health?

STAT

OCTOBER 3, 2022

Supreme Court set back public health by 50 years. Earlier, it had eviscerated public health powers to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. In just seven days last June, the U.S.

“I don’t see this as an end to the pandemic”: Ashish Jha on the end of Covid public health emergency

STAT

MAY 10, 2023

On the eve of the expiration date for the federally declared coronavirus public health emergency , White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha warned that the pandemic is far from over. “I don’t see this as an end to the pandemic or fighting Covid,” Jha said at a STAT event in Boston on Wednesday.

A former CDC head on key R&D areas, public trust and if we learned anything from COVID-19

PharmaVoice

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Julie Gerberding, now president and CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, shares lessons learned from a long career in academic, public health and industry.

NHSE launches public-facing Pharmacy First campaign

The Pharmacist

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

The multimedia campaign features ‘temporarily rebranded’ pharmacy signs, bearing names such as ‘It Burns When I Pee Pharmacy’, ‘He’s Got An Itchy Rash Pharmacy’, ‘I’m So Bunged Up […] The post NHSE launches public-facing Pharmacy First campaign appeared first on The Pharmacist.

Community Pharmacies

The public health sleuth

PharmaVoice

JUNE 21, 2022

In her decades-long career, Mary Pittman, CEO of the Public Health Institute, has seen — and helped solve — one public health mystery after another.

Opinion: Public health agencies: learn from NASA about regaining the public’s trust

STAT

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

After the Challenger disaster , in which the space shuttle with seven crew members aboard exploded after liftoff, NASA was beset by questions about its decision-making and faced a significant challenge with public perceptions. It learned painful lessons about a flawed management structure and poor communications. Read the rest…

Communication

How to Cite Videos, Podcasts, Apps, Media, and Blogs in a Publication or CV (AMA style 11th edition)

ALiEM - Pharm Pearls

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

As medical education podcasts, videos, and blogs continue to grow in popularity it is crucial that we cite them correctly, both in publications and on our CVs. Video Publications Last Name First Initial. Video Publications Last Name First Initial. Publication Title. Year of publication. Publication.

Opinion: Believers in science must take action when recommendations breach public health

STAT

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Medical practitioners and public health officials work within boundaries that, when crossed by others, can harm the people they are entrusted to protect. When these red lines are crossed, the medical and scientific community can — and should — speak out against it.

Vaccines

STAT+: From a public library whiteboard, a $350 million biotech venture fund

STAT

APRIL 4, 2023

A new biotech VC firm started by veterans of the industry began around a whiteboard in two public libraries in suburban Massachusetts. David Fallace, Richard Lim, and Lou Tartaglia began gathering at the Newton and Wellesley, Mass.

CDC’s top flu scientist says the risk to the public from H5N1 is low, but she isn’t sleeping well. Here’s why

STAT

MAY 3, 2024

Vivien Dugan isn’t getting much sleep these days. The director of the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dugan is leading the team of CDC scientists that is working with partners — in the U.S.

Opinion: Judicial overreach is an immediate hazard to already precarious public health

STAT

APRIL 20, 2023

As people who work in public health, we are alarmed by these trends and have joined our colleagues in promoting tools that can help reverse the backsliding — namely, interventions based on research and evidence. Child and teen mortality rates have also climbed, particularly among youth of color.

Opinion: Ensuring food security and health beyond the Covid-19 public health emergency

STAT

OCTOBER 18, 2022

But the stabilizing impact of these expansions will be at risk when the federal Covid-19 Public Health Emergency , which was initially declared on January 31, 2020, comes to an end, possibly by Jan. Expansions to social safety net programs during Covid-19 have been essential for low-income Americans hit hard by the pandemic.

STAT+: Most of Canada’s public research universities get bad grades for ensuring access to drugs they discover

STAT

MAY 1, 2023

Despite significant public funding, most of the 15 largest public research universities in Canada failed to enact policies that would ensure medicines that emerged from their laboratories would be equally accessible around the world, according to a new analysis.

Walensky says CDC needs more authority from Congress to collect public health data

STAT

DECEMBER 8, 2022

WASHINGTON — The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention needs Congress to help it collect more data from state, local, and tribal public health departments, Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday evening.

STAT+: Carbon Health blasts a major insurer in rare public dispute over coverage

STAT

MAY 1, 2023

— Primary care startup Carbon Health blasted health insurer Elevance on Monday for paying it less than competitors and for also refusing to process out-of-network claims — a rare public escalation of the behind-the-scenes disputes between providers and payers.

How opioid overdoses in public restrooms led an electrician to invent ‘safe bathrooms’

STAT

JANUARY 3, 2024

First, a light starts to flash. Then a high-pitched siren starts to blare. Then come the sounds of nearby doors being flung open, and the frantic footsteps of doctors and nurses rushing toward a restroom at the end of a hallway. They’re in a hurry for good reason.

The Importance of Vaccinations and Their Role in Public Health

Community Pharmacy

MARCH 26, 2024

Vaccinations are among the most powerful tools modern medicine provides for public health. While vaccines give immediate protection to the individual, they also play an invaluable role within the larger community and public health sphere. It’s normal to have questions about what vaccines might be best for you and your family.

Vaccines

Vaccines Community Pharmacies Hospitals

What’s standing in the way of wastewater data becoming a more mainstream public health tool

STAT

JANUARY 11, 2023

The pandemic has long been in its fatigue phase , making it hard for public health departments to have the return on investment to keep testing clinics open — and making it all but impossible to know, in real time, how many people in a certain area are sick. When case counts suggest Covid-19 is in check, the truth is in the toilets.

Hospitals

Opinion: Readers respond to OTC antidepressants, personalized medicine, restoring trust in public health, and more

STAT

APRIL 13, 2024

STAT publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to First Opinion essays to encourage robust, good-faith discussion about difficult issues. Submit a Letter to the Editor here , or find the submission form at the end of any First Opinion essay. On “not looking away,” by Patrick Skerrett Read the rest…

Montana may be moving away from its innovative plan for setting hospital prices for public workers

STAT

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Montana is signaling it might step away from an innovative way of setting the prices its public employee health plan pays hospitals for services, an approach that has saved the state millions of dollars and become a model for health plans nationwide. Those amounts were pegged to Medicare reimbursement rates. Read the rest…

Hospitals

Hospitals Inpatient

STAT+: NYU professors who defended vaping didn’t disclose ties to Juul, documents show

STAT

MAY 6, 2024

Abrams, a frequent commentator about vaping in the news media, including CBS This Morning, CNN, and The New Yorker, coordinated extensively with Juul on public messaging in 2017 and 2018, according to company emails. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Documentation

CPE stresses need for Pharmacy First awareness with publicity launch

The Pharmacist

JANUARY 29, 2024

The launch date for the new service has been confirmed as 31 January, and CPE emphasised that for its self-referral (walk-in) aspect to be a success, the general public and patients need to […] The post CPE stresses need for Pharmacy First awareness with publicity launch appeared first on The Pharmacist.

Community Pharmacies

Combining Pharmacy and Public Health

Pharmacy Is Right For Me

JULY 11, 2022

Dr. Brown is the Senior Program Manager at the North Carolina Division of Public Health , working to coordinate the COVID-19 response and vaccination efforts across the state. I joined the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services as a Senior Program Manager in the Division of Public Health.

Long-Term Care Facilities

Long-Term Care Facilities Independent Pharmacies Vaccines Community Pharmacies

Opinion: Listen: The Supreme Court set public health back 50 years. The next term could be even worse

STAT

OCTOBER 12, 2022

Supreme Court just seven days last June to set back public health by 50 years. Gostin explores how these cases — some of which are not explicitly about public health — might worsen the myriad health inequalities that became so evident throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Opinion: To rebuild trust in public health: Better communication, fewer mandates, and small wins

Opinion: What the public might learn from Kate Middleton, the latest ‘famous patient’

Trending Sources

STAT+: NEJM aims to hold AI to account with new publication

Opinion: Congress could stop free public access to government-funded research

At Milken Institute conference, CDC director Mandy Cohen talks public health preparedness

Opinion: How much personal health information does King Charles owe the public?

Opinion: There’s a public health crisis lurking in our data: the Census option ‘some other race’

Opinion: How the twin crises of climate change and poor public housing are harming people’s health

Niacin has long been a public health darling. But an excess could be bad for the heart, study suggests

Mitch McConnell’s abrupt episode has an important public health takeaway

Opinion: Public health layoffs and tech layoffs: a world of difference

STAT+: Second U.S. oncology provider plans to go public

CDC to cut back on Covid data it collects as public health emergency ends

Opinion: Fixing U.S. public health will require a health-systems revolution — and for physicians to take a backseat

Opinion: Public health needs to be transformed. Health IT can help

Biden administration requests $20 billion cash infusion to bolster public health

Opinion: Public health during Sudan’s civil war: nurturing resilience amid conflict

WHO extends public health emergency over Covid but signals end could come soon

Opinion: How the world can end Covid-19 as a public health threat

Trans health care, already under attack, faces new obstacle with end of Covid public health emergency

Opinion: Will there be a Supreme assault on public health?

“I don’t see this as an end to the pandemic”: Ashish Jha on the end of Covid public health emergency

A former CDC head on key R&D areas, public trust and if we learned anything from COVID-19

NHSE launches public-facing Pharmacy First campaign

The public health sleuth

Opinion: Public health agencies: learn from NASA about regaining the public’s trust

How to Cite Videos, Podcasts, Apps, Media, and Blogs in a Publication or CV (AMA style 11th edition)

Opinion: Believers in science must take action when recommendations breach public health

STAT+: From a public library whiteboard, a $350 million biotech venture fund

CDC’s top flu scientist says the risk to the public from H5N1 is low, but she isn’t sleeping well. Here’s why

Opinion: Judicial overreach is an immediate hazard to already precarious public health

Opinion: Ensuring food security and health beyond the Covid-19 public health emergency

STAT+: Most of Canada’s public research universities get bad grades for ensuring access to drugs they discover

Walensky says CDC needs more authority from Congress to collect public health data

STAT+: Carbon Health blasts a major insurer in rare public dispute over coverage

How opioid overdoses in public restrooms led an electrician to invent ‘safe bathrooms’

The Importance of Vaccinations and Their Role in Public Health

What’s standing in the way of wastewater data becoming a more mainstream public health tool

Opinion: Readers respond to OTC antidepressants, personalized medicine, restoring trust in public health, and more

Montana may be moving away from its innovative plan for setting hospital prices for public workers

STAT+: NYU professors who defended vaping didn’t disclose ties to Juul, documents show

CPE stresses need for Pharmacy First awareness with publicity launch

Combining Pharmacy and Public Health

Opinion: Listen: The Supreme Court set public health back 50 years. The next term could be even worse

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