News by Subject Education

James Diaz, MD, MHA, MPH & TM, Dr PH, Professor and Head of Environmental Health Sciences at LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health, has proposed a possible explanation for the severe lung complications being seen in some people diagnosed with COVID-19.

It's long been understood that care that respects and integrates the wants, needs, and preferences of patients results in higher ratings of satisfaction and improved health outcomes. Yet, several barriers still often impede the delivery of patient-centered care. A new study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) shows that organizational supports for nurse practitioners (NPs) can enhance their ability to deliver patient-centered care.

The Journal of the American Medical Directors Association published in its January issue a consensus statement for treating urinary tract infections at post-acute and long-term care centers. Kalin Clifford, Pharm.D., an assistant professor for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy was a member of the Infection Advisory Committee of the American Medical Directors Association -- The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Medicine that developed the statement.

Studies indicate patients with a lower socioeconomic status often lack a primary care provider, causing them to receive lower quality health care, experience a higher rate of emergency visits and an increased risk of all-cause readmissions and death after discharge. An interdisciplinary research team from TTUHSC completed a study to determine if a patient navigation program created using DSRIP guidelines can help decrease ER visits and hospital admissions for these high consumers of health care.

Of 1,881 patients under age 19 diagnosed with cancers of the brain and central nervous system between 2000 and 2015, 52% of white patients lived five years from diagnosis, whereas only 44% of African-American patients and 45% of Hispanic patients reached a similar milestone.

Researcher at the University of Houston are encouraging family medicine physicians to actively engage in the development and evolution of artificial intelligence to open new horizons that make AI more effective, equitable and pervasive. Their commentary, published in the Annals of Family Medicine, advocates for a synergistic relationship between AI and family medicine.

While firearm violence is a major public health challenge in the United States, it has often been considered a law enforcement issue with only law enforcement solutions. An article by two University of Pennsylvania researchers advises that treating firearm violence as a disease and taking a public health approach to prevention and treatment can help reduce its harms.

Research among nursing students shows that past experience living in poverty or volunteering in impoverished communities, does not sufficiently build empathy towards patients who experience poverty.

University of Arizona Health Sciences study finds when whites and Native Americans in comparable income and education levels are compared, whites consume more cigarettes and are more nicotine dependent. Results published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

A University of Arizona Health Sciences research team led by Dr. Frank Porreca points to prolactin, a neurohormone related to lactation, as the underlying reason women experience more pain than men, and even more so when taking opioids. Their paper on the discovery was featured on the cover of Science Translational Medicine.