In this month’s podcast, Dr. Samy Anand gives an overview of The Medical Care Blog posts published in October and a preview of the journal articles in the November issue of Medical Care. Then, co-editor of the blog, Dr. Gregory Stevens, discusses the results of the midterm election and the results of ballot measures relevant to public health.
Transcript of the podcast
This is Samy, the secretary for the medical care section here with your October issue of healthy intersections. Improving treatment adherence with evidence based approaches by authors Sebastian Rodriguez and Dr. Lissette Saavedra focuses on how taking a multifaceted individualized and continuous effort is constantly needed to improve treatment adherence in patients. This has proven to prolong quality of life and reduce overall healthcare costs. The authors break down the factors and provide various recommendations that are completely evidence based on this topic. Next, we have Dr. Gregory Stevens looking through a lens at how public health is on the ballot again regarding a multitude of topics and politics that are very public health centric, including vaping, marijuana, abortion, and Medicaid. The never-ending circle continues on that front, so jump in with your thoughts on the blog.
In today’s political climate we also have some current Medical Care journal articles that were published in the November issue. We have Alegría et al looking at racial ethnic disparities in substance use treatment in Medicaid managed care in New York City, and the role of plan and geography. We have Moura et al writing on identifying Medicare beneficiaries with delirium. An article by Koroukian et al looks at post-Affordable Care Act improvements in cancer stage among Ohio Medicaid beneficiaries that resulted from an increase in stable coverage. And we have a short article on the Louisiana Medicaid expansion and pent up demand by Walker et al.
Head to The Medical Care Blog as well as the November issue of the Medical Care journal to read more. And, as always, we encourage you to drop your thoughts.
Thank you for listening.
Now I’m going to hand it over for this month’s podcast episode.
Thank you Samy for that great recap of posts over at The Medical Care Blog and for the look ahead at interesting articles in the journal Medical Care. I’m Greg Stevens and I’m one of the co-editors of The Medical Care Blog. I wrote that piece about the midterm elections and since we are now two days out from the election night, I thought I would take a look at what’s happened with those public health or public health-adjacent measures that were on the ballot. You know, aside from the positions of the candidates that were running voters were facing a striking number of ballot measures that were either public health clearly or public health adjacent. And after this fascinating and truly anxiety inducing election night we have some results to share.
As most of you know, abortion was on the ballot in a number of states. This was not a mixed bag, as was the case for other public health topics. In every state where it was on the ballot–from California to Michigan, Vermont and Kentucky–voters chose to protect abortion rights. In those first three states I mentioned (California Michigan and Vermont) language now about reproductive freedom will be incorporated into the states’ constitutions. And in Kentucky, language that was codifying that the state does not grant a right to abortion was rejected by about a 5% margin.
Marijuana was also on the ballot in five states. Those results were quite mixed. Recreational marijuana was legalized in Maryland and Missouri, but it was rejected in Arkansas North Dakota and South Dakota. This means that 21 states now have legalized marijuana for recreational use and the two added states will also now establish procedures to expunge criminal records for those who are charged with low level marijuana possession. There’s almost no doubt however that the battle is going to continue in the Dakotas, especially since voters approved legislation once in 2020 and had it thrown out by the state Supreme Court in South Dakota. And North Dakota voters legalized medical marijuana in 2016. Arkansas might be a different story however as the measure was defeated by nearly 11 points.
Colorado passed a universal free school meals program by a ten point margin. The measure is going to provide free meals for all public school students. And given that food insecurity is one of those public health adjacent topics that clearly influences the well-being and success of kids in and out of school, this is good news. The state estimated that nearly 70,000 children who are food insecure, but weren’t qualifying for those free and reduced price school meal programs, will now have access to those meals.
California also successfully passed a ban on the sale of most flavored tobacco products. We’re still only half the votes are counted the race has been called and the measure leads currently by 22 points.
Oregon too had a first-of-its-kind in the nation measure to include language in its state constitution about residents having a fundamental right to healthcare. That measure is known as Measure 111. However, it’s still too close to call with 49.9% of people voting yes and 50.1% voting no, and with only 75% of the votes in. So that is going to be a close race to watch. It’ll be fascinating to see whether it ends up in Oregon’s constitution.
You know the fact that public health related measures are so prominently featured on the legislative agenda is really telling. Public health is clearly exciting. It’s complex and engaging. And it sets the stage I think for an even more interesting 2024 with our next presidential election.
So thank you listeners to our Healthy Intersections podcast. Go check out the blog and catch up on those articles in the journal Medical Care and we’ll talk to you again next month.
Gregory Stevens