Poorer Folks May Find It Harder to Quit Smoking

When I walk in and out of some of my clinics, it is usually through a cloud of cigarette smoke.  While many of our clients know smoking is bad for them and increases their risk of a whole host of other diseases, many see it as the lesser of evils that exist in their environment. 

I recently came across an article in the American Journal of Public Health which showed that quitting smoking is more difficult for poor people than for those with greater financial means and social status.  Those who were in the those in the highest SES were 55% more likely to have quit smoking after three months and 2/5 times more likely to have quit after six months.  Those of lower SES had fewer resources, such as treatment, and support systems to help them quit.  The study went on to say that a person's environment also has a profound impact on whether or not they are able to quit.  This is definitely true for many of our clients; many use smoking to help them cope with daily stressers while others use it to help them stay clean/sober. 

Girl Up: Connecting the Dots

This video come straight to you from Breana, a friend from grad school, who watched this clip in one of her classes.

Girl Up, a campaign of the United Nations Foundation, gives American girls the opportunity to channel their energy and compassion to raise awareness and funds for programs of the United Nations that help some of the world's hardest-to-reach adolescent girls. Through Girl Up's support, girls have the opportunity to become educated, healthy, safe, counted, and positioned to be the next generation of leaders. Visit GirlUp.org to learn more.

Health Leads

Health Leads mobilizes college volunteers to connect patients and their families with the basic resources they need to be healthy.  With Health Leads, doctors can “prescribe” resources such as food, housing and heating assistance – just as they do medication.  Patients take their prescriptions to the clinic waiting room, where volunteers help “fill” them by connecting patients to community services.

This concept was started by Jack Geiger, a primary care doc who integrated the community health center model into the US health care system.  His first project was in the Mississippi Delta and for the first time he started to perscribe fresh fruits and vegetables in addition to a patient's medication.  Local pharmacies at first did not know what to do with the perscriptions, but after a while many began to understand the idea of wholistic (literally) care. 

Want to get involved?  Health Leads is located in 6 major cities on the East Coast and volunteers are asked to serve six hours a week for a year.  These volunteers help families tap into a wide variety of services which will help them to improve the health outcomes for their families.  Check out the video - short and sweet, I promise.  Thanks to Amy for sending it around!

Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is an infectious disease affecting primarily the liver, caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). The infection is often asymptomatic, but chronic infection can lead to scarring of the liver and ultimately to cirrhosis, which is generally apparent after many years. In some cases, those with cirrhosis will go on to develop liver failure, liver cancer or life-threatening esophageal and gastric varices.  (Thanks Wiki)

In February, the CDC put out a report stating that Hepatitis C now kills more Americans than HIV with middle age men being at the greatest risk of of contracting the disease 15,000 versus 13,000).  An estimated 3.2 million Americans are infected.  Due to the slow nature of the disease, many people do not know they are infected and may transmit the disease without knowing.

Screening for the disease and early treatment, as well as education, can improve health outcomes and save hundreds of thousands of dollars; the only way for interventions to be cost effective is to catch the disease at its earliest stage.  Much of the transmission in the United States occurs through intravenous drug use.  Blood is currently screened for the disease which has helped to decrease incidence rates over the past two decades.  Currently there is no vaccine for Hep C.