Injury Control & Violence First-of-its-kind survey compiles the experience of domestic workers, highlights the grim nature of an unregulated industry
December 7, 2012 The Pump Handle 2Comment

The collective experience of domestic workers — house cleaners, nannies and caregivers — often remains hidden from view. But a new survey has pulled back the curtain on the conditions and experiences domestic workers face, documenting issues such as wage exploitation, preventable on-the-job injuries and the little — if any — power domestic workers have in improving their work environments.

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Drug Safety Can chronic pain treatment benefit from a public health perspective?
December 5, 2012 The Pump Handle 16Comment

“If you really look at how pain affects people and what it means to have pain…you start to view it more as a social phenomenon.” These are words from Dr. Daniel Carr, who says the time for a population-based approach doesn’t begin with misuse and abuse of prescription painkillers; it begins, in fact, with how we interpret the contributors to pain in the first place.

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Drug Safety Public health takes on the opioid abuse and overdose problem, building on strengths as conveners, educators
November 30, 2012 The Pump Handle 2Comment

A decade ago, only about 10 percent of the patients at Cincinnati’s Center for Chemical Addictions Treatment were admitted for opioid addiction and abuse. During the treatment center’s last fiscal year, that number was up to 64 percent. The numbers reflect a startling trend in Ohio and throughout the nation — a trend that public health workers are taking to task.

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Drug Safety Chronic pain patients caught in the middle of growing opioid abuse problem
November 9, 2012 The Pump Handle 19Comment

It took six years of going from doctor to doctor to doctor for Penney Cowan to finally receive a diagnosis for her chronic pain: fibromyalgia. Doctors had told her she’d just have to learn to live with the pain — a condition that some days made it hard to lift a cup of coffee. So when she decided to join the pain program at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic, she didn’t have high hopes. She says she expected the effort to fail.

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Education Despite record of saving lives and money, poison centers face uncertain funding future
October 26, 2012 The Pump Handle 2Comment

Earlier this year, federal officials put their foot down: New Hampshire could no longer use federal preparedness money to supports its poison control efforts. The directive sent state lawmakers scrambling to find extra funds. Without new money, New Hampshire callers to the Northern New England Poison Center would get a recording telling them to call 911 or go to the emergency room.

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Affordable Care Act Is the ACA bad for business? Not so, say researchers and business owners
October 19, 2012 The Pump Handle

At Palm Beach Groves in Lantana, Fla., a small, seasonal business that ships fresh citrus nationwide, employees have regularly voted between getting a raise or keeping their employer-based health insurance. Health coverage always wins, as many employees’ ages and pre-existing conditions would have made it nearly impossible to get coverage on their own. But a new report finds the Affordable Care Act is on target to help prevent this scenario.

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