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News You Can Use - September 20, 2023 |
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Graphic of the week
Earlier this summer, public health nonprofit the Truth Initiative released a new report on “Tobacco Nation,” the 12 contiguous states (including Ohio) that have smoking rates that are 50% higher than the national average. This list of states overlaps substantially with the states ranked in the bottom quartile for population health in HPIO's 2023 Health Value Dashboard. In fact, 11 of the 13 bottom quartile states are part of Tobacco Nation, as illustrated above.
Analysis from HPIO has found a strong link between smoking rates and overall population health and healthcare spending. Ohio reports higher rates of adult smoking than most other states (ranking near the bottom at 44th) and Dashboard analysis “found a strong correlation between adult smoking and health value, indicating that tobacco use is a leading driver of poor health and higher healthcare spending.”
Previous analysis by HPIO also supports the link between tobacco use, population health and healthcare spending, “States with a lower adult smoking rate are more likely to have a better health value rank— meaning better population health outcomes and lower healthcare spending,” the analysis found.
All of HPIO’s work related to tobacco is available on the Institute’s website.
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Census Bureau: U.S. child poverty spikes following end of pandemic relief
The poverty rate in the U.S. has risen dramatically in the year since pandemic benefits ran out — and the child poverty rate has more than doubled, according to U.S. Census Bureau's annual data on poverty, income and health insurance released Tuesday (Source: “Child poverty more than doubles — a year after hitting record low, Census data shows,” NPR, Sept. 12).
Just a year ago, child poverty hit a historic low of 5.2%. The latest Census Bureau figures put it at 12.4%, the same as the overall poverty rate. The surge happened as record inflation was rising and a lot of pandemic relief was running out, but Census officials and other experts say a key was the child tax credit.
In 2021, Congress increased the amount of the credit as part of the American Rescue Plan and expanded eligibility to include millions more families with low incomes.
When the tax credit ended, surveys found many parents had trouble paying bills and covering basic expenses like rent and groceries.
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New data shows overdose deaths soared even after pain prescriptions fell
The number of prescription opioid pain pills shipped in the United States plummeted nearly 45% between 2011 and 2019, new federal data shows, even as fatal overdoses rose to record levels as users increasingly used heroin, and then illegal fentanyl (Source: “Overdoses soared even as prescription pain pills plunged,” Washington Post, Sept. 12).
The data confirms what’s long been known about the arc of the nation’s addiction crisis: Users first got hooked by pain pills saturating the nation, then turned to cheaper and more readily available street drugs after law enforcement crackdowns, public outcry and changes in how the medical community views prescribing opioids to treat pain.
The drug industry transaction data, collected by the Drug Enforcement Administration and released by attorneys involved in the massive litigation against opioid industry players, reveals that the number of prescription hydrocodone and oxycodone pills peaked in 2011 at 12.8 billion pills, and dropped to fewer than 7.1 billion by 2019. Shipments of potent 80-milligram oxycodone pills dropped 92% in 2019 from their peak a decade earlier.
Many of the counties with the highest fentanyl death rates — in hard-hit states such as West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio — started out with alarmingly high doses of prescription pills per capita, according to a Washington Post analysis of the DEA data and federal death records.
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HPIO forum next week to explore prevention of ACEs
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The Health Policy Institute of Ohio is hosting a webinar from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 19 to discuss strategies to prevent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in Ohio through building skills and strengthening connections to caring adults.
Click here to register
This forum will walk through HPIO's recent ACEs publication that highlights four cost-effective, evidence-informed strategies being implemented across the state that build important skills to handle stress, manage emotions, tackle everyday challenges and connect youth to caring adults and activities.
Improving assets and resources can buffer children and families from the well-documented harmful effects of toxic stress and adversity and promote the ability to withstand, adapt and recover from trauma. Increasing these protective factors can lead to stronger families, better health, educational and employment outcomes and benefits to society at large.
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