HPH Weekly: Public health vs. politics

This edition of Harvard Public Health Weekly was sent to our subscribers on November 14, 2024. If you don’t already receive the newsletter, subscribe here. To see more past newsletters, visit our archives.

Public health vs. politics

It may feel front of mind this week, but the long reach of partisanship into health care is nothing new—or unique to the United States. Paul Adepoju talks to Kai Ruggeri, a professor of health policy and management at Columbia University’s school of public health, about political polarization and its relationship to public health. Ruggeri’s research has found that all over the world, people’s health choices increasingly align with their political points of view, rather than medical advice.

Superbugs and hurricanes

What do these two things have to do with each other? It’s all about a lesser-known effect of flooding: unsafe water carried from a contained space into a public one. The prime example in this piece by AMR Action Fund CEO Henry Skinner: In 2017, “Hurricane Harvey sent at least 31 million gallons of raw sewage streaming into Houston’s neighborhoods,” leading to “alarming levels” of superbugs in flooded homes.

Weaving data into the fabric of public health

Many people in the public health sphere, including a writer or two from HPH, have been beating the data modernization drum for years. One solution professionals in Maryland found: put health information exchanges—data infrastructure from another part of the health ecosystem—to work for public health.

Community information exchanges quench health data droughts

Health workers often struggle to identify the social problems at the root of people’s health problems. Where health information exchanges—like the ones in the story above—aren’t yet coming through with more helpful data, some communities are filling in the gaps with  “community information exchanges.” The projects are on a mission to “blow the roofs off the silos of information,” in the words of one community leader—and they could provide a roadmap for the rest of the country.

Snapshot: Factory farms pose health risks for workers and people who live nearby

Researchers looked at how the health of local communities is affected by practices at U.S. factory farms.

What we’re reading this week

Crisis calls from LGBTQ+ youth spiked by 700 percent after Election Day →
The 19th

Are schools with armed police actually safer? →
Undark

Georgia looks to use opioid settlement to bridge gaps in help for drug abuse →
Healthbeat

How Big Toilet Paper dupes us all →
Vox

As the pandemic deepened, Americans kept drinking more →
The New York Times

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If you read our op-ed on North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots, you’re probably wondering if CMS decided to renew the program. The short answer: not yet. They’ve punted that decision to next month, but thanks to a temporary extension, the program will keep going in the meantime.

—Jo Zhou