Archive for 2015

Study: More Babies Going to NICU, and More Than Half are Normal Weight

Los Angeles Times – Quotes David Goodman, professor of pediatrics, community and family medicine, and of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, about how Dartmouth researchers recently found that NICU admissions increased by 23 percent in just five years; and by 2012, over half of all admissions were for normal birth weight infants or those born after 37 weeks gestation.

How Loneliness Wears on the Body

The Atlantic – An article co-authored by Timothy Lahey, associate professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology, and of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, about how new research supports the idea that social isolation is detrimental to physical health—and that companionship may improve it.

Concern Over Drug Industry Involvement at India’s ‘Health Camps’

Medical Express – Quotes Glyn Elwyn, professor of community and family medicine and of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, about how pharmaceutical sales representatives are screening people at free “health camps” for poor people in India, in return for prescriptions for their products. “This kind of behavior can actually lead to harm to patients—overdiagnosis, misclassification [of healthy people as sick], iatrogenic harm of drugs,” says Elwyn.

Community Mental Health Cuts Tied to Spike in ER Visits

Fox News via Reuters – Article quotes Ellen Meara, associate professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and adjunct associate professor of economics, about how it is possible that rising unemployment rates have contributed to the increase in the number and length of mental health evaluations at ERs. “Cutting community resources to treat patients with severe mental illness is a common response to tight local budgets, but it may increase problems in other parts of the healthcare system, and the broader community,” says Meara.