CHMP Welcomes Jessie Daniels, Ph.D. as Senior Fellow

The Center for Health, Media and Policy welcomes Jessie Daniels as a Senior Fellow. Dr. Daniels is Associate Professor of Urban Public Health at Hunter College.  She holds an MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.  Following that, she was a Charles Phelps Taft Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Cincinnati.

She is the author of two books White Lies (Routledge, 1997) and Cyber Racism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), both dealing with race and various forms of media.  She is also the author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and dozens of conference presentations dealing with race, gender, sexuality and new media.

Along with writing about new media, Daniels has also worked in the Internet industry.   She was a Senior Producer with Talk City where she produced live online events for Fortune 500 clients.   Today, Daniels maintains Racism Review, a blog she co-founded with Joe Feagin, which provides up-to-the-minute scholarly analysis of current events having to do with race and racism.   A form of public sociology, Racism Review averages over 200,000 visitors per month.  Daniels was recently named on Forbes’ list of “20 Inspiring Women to Follow on Twitter.”

Currently, she is at work on a number of research projects about digital media, social inequality and health.  In one project, Daniels is examining the way the reproductive health and gender justice movement has shifted to the Internet; and, in another project, she is exploring how LGBT youth of color use the Internet, especially mobile phones.  Among this population are homeless LGBT youth who use mobile digital devices to survive on the streets of New York City.

The Center for Health, Media and Policy

News ticker: Addiction to pills, abortion coverage and ecstasy for PTSD

Some new health buzz this morning:

Americans are hugely addicted to prescription pain medication, so much that it’s now the second most-common form of illegal drug abuse, according to new information from a 10-year study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In 2008, compared with 1998, about 400 percent more people were admitted for treatment for abusing prescription medication.

• The Obama administration has decided to ban medical coverage of abortion for people in federally subsidized insurance pools who could not afford health care independently, in effect by 2014. The pools will cover abortions only if people pay for coverage separately and the money is segregated from government funds.

• Scientists have found that athletes can improve their performance in short spurts with a swig of real carbohydrates derived from malodraxin and water, reports the New York Times, even if they don’t swallow it. The swig alone triggers brain sensors and pushes a response in the body that a boost of energy is on the way and to keep going. Endurance athletes, however, are better off eating real carbohydrates.

• War veterans and others with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome may find release from an unusual outlet: ecstasty, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) . In a small study, 80 percent of participants suffering from chronic PRSD said their symptoms disappeared and they were able to work after being treated with the drug and psychotherapy. If further research finds the same common link, the drug may be developed and approved by the FDA as treatment for the disorder.

• The top factor of whether one will be infected with HIV isn’t race, gender or geography, but poverty, confirms a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. Many researchers long suspected that HIV is more of an epidemic in very poor urban neighborhoods, and the study found about 1 in 42 people living below the poverty line suffered from HIV compared with 1 in 83 for people who lived above it. Communities most likely to be living in poverty, including those of people of color, may have higher rates, leading people to confuse trend factors.

Read more:

Some new health buzz this morning: Americans are

U.S. News releases top hospital rankings

U.S. News & World Report just released its annual Best Hospitals ranking, which includes a few New York City hospitals in top spots.

The survey, which compared about 5,000 hospitals nationwide with a complex methodology, broke the hospitals into 16 categories including endicronology, cancer, ear, nose and throat, and geriatrics. Hospitals that earned top spots in more than six categories earned a spot on the Honor Roll. The top six on the Honor Roll: John Hopkins in Baltimore, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Massachusetts General in Boston, the Cleveland Clinic, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital of Columbia and Cornell.

While these rankings bode well for residents in these cities who can afford insurance to cover hospital treatment — and the new health care law will help them — it’s tough to overlook those in low-income areas nationwide who have seen their neighborhood hospitals close or fall deep into financial woes. Writes the New York Times in 2008:

“We have an all-out crisis here,” said Carol Meyer, the director of governmental relations for the Los Angeles County Health Services Department. “In terms of lack of access to care, emergency room overcrowding and total underfunding of the health care system.”

In many ways, the woes of South Los Angeles mirror other poor urban health care systems. Medical centers in Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland and elsewhere have closed or fallen into bankruptcy in recent years, leaving patients scrambling.

How have hospital closings in your area affected you?

Photo credit: Isafmedia via Flickr

U.S. News & World Report just released