Obesity research discussed on NPR

The recent finding that social networks can transmit obesity risk between friends (see previous post) has also been featured in a more in-depth interview with Nicholas Christakis on the National Public Radio. Here is the beginning of the article:
Are Your Friends Making You Fat?
A new study suggests that your best friend's weight may be very influential in determining whether you'll gain or lose weight over the years. The research documents the spread of obesity from person to person in a study of more than 12,000 people.

Friends do(not) make friends get obese?!

While there is much attention on the epidemic of obesity in the US, new research on the mechanism by which this occurs is just starting to come out. New research by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler at the Harvard Medical School and UCSD published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that social networks in the Framingham Heart Study transmit the risk of obesity. In an extensive dataset of social networks formed by thousands of residents of Framingham over several decades, the authors found that people gain weight when their friends gain weight, and that this relationship also works in the opposite direction: those with friends who lost weight lost weight themselves. See The New York Times article that discusses the research and some of the controversies that it causes in how we think about obesity and its social implications.

Health inequalities now include eating disorders

Eating disorders, particularly binge-eating has been added to a growing list of poor health outcomes that Latinos in the US are experiencing. Researchers at Harvard Medical School used a national survey to analyze patterns and correlates of over-eating. The PI on the project was Margarita Alegría, who runs a center for the study of mental health: www.multiculatralmentalhealth.org. This finding adds to previous evidence that other minorities in the US are more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, and a have an increased risk of a range of chronic diseases associated with these two. See more about the report at the Cambridge Health Alliance website.

Can Democrats expand healthcare coverage during the Bush White House?

The Democrats in Congress today pushed for significant changes in Medicare funding that would complement the bipartisan agreement on expanding government-funded health care coverage for low-income children across the US. According to a report by the New York Times, Democrats Press House to Expand Health Care Bill, President Bush is likely to veto a bill that would cut Medicare funding for privately-run health plans. How credible, really, is President Bush's announcement that expanding coverage for low-income American children is a step down the path of big, government-run health care? In any case, it does seem unlikely that the Bush White House will allow the passage of a significant expansion of any health care reform that does not fit into Bush's vision of a highly-privatized, competitive market with significantly less government intervention than today. Whatever the outcome, it is likely that this will become a campaign issue, and a particularly difficult one for GOP candidates to deal with.

US Congress and Drug Safety

The NEJM editors published a response to the recent changes in FDA's funding and a shift to more focus on drug safety once the drugs are on the market (Safer Drugs for the American People). The editors endorsed the existing proposals by Congressmen Henry Waxman and Edward Markey and by Senators Edward Kennedy and Michael Enzi to pass new legislation on drug safety, introducing significant changes in how the FDA operates and how the drug manufacturers are held responsible for ensuring the safety of drugs in the US.

Children's Health Insurance

A new paper published by NBER reports that health insurance take-up by low-income immigrant children is equally high as by native-born children, suggesting that the state programs are successful in reaching traditionally under-served and under-covered immigrant populations. The article is by Thomas Buchmueller, Anthony Lo Sasso and Kathleen Wong, titled "How Did SCHIP Affect the Insurance Coverage of Immigrant Children?" Here is the abstract:

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) significantly expanded public insurance eligibility and coverage for children in "working poor" families. Despite this success, it is estimated that over 6 million children who are eligible for public insurance remain uninsured. An important first step for designing strategies to increase enrollment of eligible but uninsured children is to determine how the take-up of public coverage varies within the population. Because of their low rates of insurance coverage and unique enrollment barriers, children of immigrants are an especially important group to consider. We compare the effect of SCHIP eligibility on the insurance coverage of children of foreign-born and native-born parents. In contrast to research on the earlier Medicaid expansions, we find similar take-up rates for the two groups. This suggests that state outreach strategies were not only effective at increasing take-up overall, but were successful in reducing disparities in access to coverage.

Welcome

I created this blog as a place for posting and discussion of new research in politics and health. Let me know if you know of any recent research in government -- from political science, economics or sociological perspective -- that engages problems in health and medicine...both in the US and overseas.