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The ideas and innovators shaping health care | | | | |  | | By Ben Leonard, Erin Schumaker and Ruth Reader | | | | |  Telehealth is great for the little things, a new survey found. | AP | Few Americans used telehealth before the Covid pandemic. As it took root as a pandemic precaution, some were skeptical of its quality compared with in-person care. That’s changing. A new survey from research firm Rock Health and Stanford University’s Center for Digital Health has found that most of the more than 8,000 U.S. adults polled said they prefer getting prescription refills and care for minor illnesses via telemedicine. Even so: The survey also found that nearly 2 in 3 Americans favor in-person doctors’ visits for chronic conditions and mental health care, while about three-quarters prefer meeting their doctor in person for annual wellness, emergency care and physical therapy.
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| The pollsters stressed concerns about virtual overprescribing of controlled substances. (The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating telehealth providers for allegedly providing medicine too readily to ADHD patients during the pandemic.) Some other survey findings: — 80 percent of respondents said they’d used telemedicine previously. — Half of uninsured respondents said they’d used telehealth before, up from 37 percent in 2021. About three-quarters of rural respondents said they’d done so, up from 60 percent in 2021. — Telemedicine adoption also grew among rural, uninsured respondents from 31 percent in 2021 to 42 percent in 2022. — About half of the 20 percent that hadn’t used telemedicine said they preferred health care discussions to be in person. “While we expect that certain respondents will continue to prefer — and seek out — in-person care instead of telemedicine, telemedicine’s network effects could change the tide for these individuals,” the researchers wrote, referring to improvements in quality that can come when more people use a service.
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National Arboretum, Washington, D.C. | Shawn Zeller | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Do you have difficulty recognizing the faces of people you know or understanding facial expressions? You might be in the 3 percent of the population that has face blindness, or prosopagnosia. A new study in the journal Cortex by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the VA Boston Healthcare System found that the number of people with the condition is greater than previously believed, with about 1 percent of the 3,341 people studied having a severe form of the disorder, and 2 percent a milder one. Lead researcher Joseph DeGutis, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, says people with prosopagnosia may benefit from “cognitive training to enhance perceptual abilities or training aimed directly at improving face associations.” Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Megan Messerly and Krista Mahr discuss the “medical freedom” movement — mostly known for its opposition to vaccine requirements — and how Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is embracing it and influencing GOP lawmakers nationwide.
| | | | | | |  Simple steps, like eating healthier food, can reduce dementia risk. | Getty Images | | | "It can be empowering for people to know that by taking steps such as exercising for a half an hour a day or keeping their blood pressure under control, they can reduce their risk of dementia." Pamela Rist, associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital | | Adopting six healthy practices — and avoiding one unhealthy one — might reduce dementia risk, a 20-year-long study that tracked 13,720 participants found. The good news: It’s not rocket science. The bad news: It’s advice you’ve likely heard before. Do: — Be active — Eat better — Maintain a healthy weight — Maintain a healthy blood pressure — Control your cholesterol — Keep your blood sugar low Don't: — Smoke The bottom line: “Making healthy lifestyle choices in middle age may lead to a decreased risk of dementia later in life,” Pamela Rist, a study author and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Erin. Inside the study: The preliminary research, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, involved female participants with an average age of 54 at the study’s start. Of that cohort, 13 percent developed dementia, which the researchers determined using Medicare data. Participants were scored on a scale of zero (poor) to 7 (ideal) for each of the seven health factors above. The average score was 4.3 at the study’s start and 4.2 after 10 years. Researchers determined that each one-point increase in score corresponded to a 6 percent decrease in the participant’s dementia risk after adjusting for age and education.
| | | | LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today. | | | | | | | | |  Disparities in maternal care have proven intractable. | AP | Efforts to reduce maternal mortality have hit a wall, according to a new report from the United Nations, with deaths rising or staying level in most regions of the world. In 2000, there were 339 maternal deaths globally per 100,000 live births, a toll that fell to 227 per 100,000 in 2015. But that progress slowed by 2020 when 223 deaths per 100,000 live births were recorded — a far cry from the U.N. goal of 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. The report also found that maternal mortality in the U.S. significantly increased between 2000 and 2020. Previous data has shown the U.S. has more than triple the maternal mortality rate of most other high-income nations. In the U.S., the risks are much higher for Black people of all income levels and low-income people. Still, the U.N. report found that mortality was highest in the world’s lowest-income regions and areas torn by conflict. Seventy percent of the deaths in 2020 were in sub-Saharan Africa. The leading causes of maternal death — high blood pressure, infections, complications from unsafe abortions and underlying conditions — are “largely preventable and treatable” given access to good health care, says the report. “We can and must do better by urgently investing in family planning and filling the global shortage of 900,000 midwives so that every woman can get the lifesaving care she needs,” said Natalia Kanem, U.N. Population Fund executive director. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
