Women's health must be priority for state health exchange marketplaces, new report says
2013-03-06
(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON, D.C. — Women's issues play a major role in the health of the nation and should be a key consideration for policymakers as they design and set up the new insurance exchanges, according to a report co-authored by policy experts at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS). The report offers a checklist for the state-based health insurance exchanges, one that will help ensure that women, children and family members can get the services they need to prevent costly and debilitating medical problems.
"Women often use a greater range of health services over a lifetime; they may also shoulder higher annual medical costs and often act as coordinators of health care for entire families," said co-author Susan F. Wood, PhD, who is the executive director of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health and a professor of health policy at SPHHS. "This report identifies some of the major issues that states will need to consider if they are to provide the kinds of services that can keep millions of American women and their families healthy."
The Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, at SPHHS, The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology at the Brigham & Women's Hospital all worked together to produce the report: Ensuring the Health Care Needs of Women: A Checklist for Health Exchanges. This report and checklist includes resources from a wide range of organizations that focus on the implementation of health care reform, which can be found at a new website: http://www.womenandhealthreform.org.
The report notes that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) established online marketplaces where women can comparison shop for health insurance plans. Some states, like Massachusetts, have well-established exchanges already in place but many others are scrambling to set them up now, Wood said. Under the ACA, women will have greater access to health insurance and to no-cost preventive services that can keep them healthy--such as mammograms and other screening tests that can detect cancer and other chronic diseases at an early, more treatable stage.
This report, and the checklist, can help states fashion insurance exchanges that will best meet the needs of millions of American women. According to the report, state officials should consider:
Designing benefits packages that include a range of essential health services that are required for women to maintain good health. The report says all women should have access to maternity and newborn care, access to family planning services, chronic illness management, mental health services, emergency medical care and other types of services.
Defining the type of health care facility that will be included in networks so that women can get crucial health care, such as maternity care at free-standing birth centers.
Educating women about the enrollment, scope of benefits, out of pocket charges and exemptions. Women often help other family members enroll in health plans and obtain health services.
Ensuring affordable coverage by offering very clear explanations of the out-of-pocket costs. States that pay close attention to transparency will help women budget for health care, especially if they are caring for multiple family members—and picking up the tab for an entire family.
Measuring and reporting the impact and outcome of health reform on women's health and access to care. Better data will help states assess how well they are doing when it comes to keeping all women healthy.
INFORMATION:
About the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health:
An academic organization based at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health is working to improve health care for women through research, dialogue, and information dissemination. The Jacobs Institute promotes environments where an interdisciplinary audience, including health care professionals, researchers, policymakers, consumers, and advocates come together to discuss ways to advance women's health.
About the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services:
Established in July 1997, the School of Public Health and Health Services brought together three longstanding university programs in the schools of medicine, business, and education and is now the only school of public health in the nation's capital. Today, more than 1,100 students from nearly every U.S. state and more than 40 nations pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral-level degrees in public health. http://sphhs.gwu.edu/
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2013-03-06
PHILADELPHIA - Omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish may have diverse health-promoting effects, potentially protecting the immune, nervous, and cardiovascular systems.
But how the health effects of one such fatty acid -- docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) -- works remains unclear, in part because its molecular signaling pathways are only now being understood.
Toshinori Hoshi, PhD, professor of Physiology, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues showed, in two papers out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ...
2013-03-06
BETHESDA, MD – March 5, 2013 -- A team of European scientists from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD) at the University of Cologne in Germany has taken an important step closer to understanding the root cause of age-related dementia. In research involving both worms and mice, they have found that age-related dementia is likely the result of a declining ability of neurons to dispose of unwanted aggregated proteins. As protein disposal becomes significantly ...
2013-03-06
In Africa and Thailand, communities that worked together on HIV-prevention efforts saw not only a rise in HIV screening but a drop in new infections, according to a new study presented this week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta.
The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health's Project Accept — a trial conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network to test a combination of social, behavioral and structural HIV-prevention interventions — demonstrated that a series of community efforts was able to boost the number of people tested ...
2013-03-06
Chevy Chase, MD—In a Position Statement unveiled today, The Endocrine Society advocates that all methods for measuring estrogens, which play a crucial role in human biology, be made traceable to a common standard.
In addition to the well-known role of estrogens in sexual development, these hormones, particularly estradiol, have a significant impact on the health of the skin, blood vessels, bones, muscle, kidney, liver, digestive system, brain, lung and pancreas. Studies have linked changes in estradiol levels to coronary artery disease, stroke and breast cancer.
"Estradiol ...
2013-03-06
AMHERST, Mass. – Biochemists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst including assistant professor Peter Chien recently gained new insight into how protein synthesis and degradation help to regulate the delicate ballet of cell division. In particular, they reveal how two proteins shelter each other in "mutually assured cleanup" to insure that division goes smoothly and safely.
Cells must routinely dispose of leftover proteins with the aid of proteases that cut up and recycle used proteins. The problem for biochemists is that the same protein molecule can be toxic garbage ...
2013-03-06
A new report published today concludes that nearly half of Africa's wild lion populations may decline to near extinction over the next 20-40 years without urgent conservation measures. The plight of many lion populations is so bleak, the report concludes that fencing them in - and fencing humans out - may be their only hope for survival.
Led by the University of Minnesota's Professor Craig Packer and co-authored by a large team of lion biologists, including Panthera's President, Dr. Luke Hunter, and Lion Program Director, Dr. Guy Balme, the report, entitled Conserving ...
2013-03-06
In order to build and maintain cells, DNA is copied into ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, also called transcripts. Transcripts are often like a recipe for making proteins, and a collection of all the transcripts in a cell is called a transcriptome.
Pankaj Jaiswal, Assistant Professor of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University, Samuel Fox, a Postdoctoral Associate in Jaiswal's laboratory, and colleagues assembled transcriptomes of a noxious weed, Brachypodium sylvaticum, or slender false brome. The transcriptome provides an extensive genetic tool for studying ...
2013-03-06
Antarctica's topography began changing from flat to fjord-filled starting about 34 million years ago, according to a new report from a University of Arizona-led team of geoscientists.
Knowing when Antarctica's topography started shifting from a flat landscape to one with glaciers, fjords and mountains is important for modeling how the Antarctic ice sheet affects global climate and sea-level rise.
Although radar surveys have revealed a rugged alpine landscape under Antarctica's two-mile-thick ice sheet, the surveys tell nothing about when the continent's deep valleys ...
2013-03-06
Washington, D.C.—New theoretical modeling by Carnegie's Alan Boss provides clues to how the gas giant planets in our solar system—Jupiter and Saturn—might have formed and evolved. His work was published recently by the Astrophysical Journal.
New stars are surrounded by rotating gas disks during the early stages of their lives. Gas giant planets are thought to form in the presence of these disks.
Observations of young stars that still have these gas disks demonstrate that sun-like stars undergo periodic outbursts, lasting about 100 years, which transfer mass from the ...
2013-03-06
Men with low-risk prostate cancer who previously had to choose between aggressive treatment, with the potential for significant side effects, and active surveillance, with the risk of disease progression, may have a new option. Focal laser ablation uses precisely targeted heat, delivered through a small insertion and guided into the prostate by magnetic resonance imaging, to burn away cancerous cells in the prostate.
A small, phase 1 trial, to published early online in the journal Radiology, found that this approach, designed to treat just the diseased portion of the ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Women's health must be priority for state health exchange marketplaces, new report says
