Larry Mannheim, PhD of the Chronic Disease Care and Outcomes Center was appointed to the Institute of Medicine Committee on Evaluation of the Lovell Federal Health Care Center Merger.  The committee will evaluate whether the integrated Department of Defense and Veterans Administration (DoD/VA) health care facility in North Chicago is more beneficial to DoD and VA than their independent facilities in serving the needs of their eligible populations. To the extent that data is available, the committee will evaluate health outcomes, patient satisfaction, provider satisfaction, quality of care, and costs of care.

Still making headlines, Dr. Ruchi Gupta was recently featured on PBS's Newshour and WTTW's Chicago Tonight regarding her recent study on Food Allergy Prevalence and Distribution.  The study surveyed 40,000 American households to find that neary eight percent of children (roughly six million) in the United States have a food allergy.  View the Newshour interview via PBS.  

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Watch Chicago Tonight below, via WTTW.

When the temperature in Chicago rises, the local news turns to Dr. Rahul Khare for information on how to stay safe during the heat wave. Watch Chicago Tonight via WTTW.org.

Ann Borders, MD, MSC, talks about chronic stress during pregnancy on Fox News:

Chronic Stress Can Affect Pregnancy: Dr. Borders: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

Wynia M, Hasnain-Wynia R, Hotze T, Ivey SL. Collecting and using race, ethnicity and language data in ambulatory settings: a white paper with recommendations from the Commission to End Health Care Disparities. Chicago: American Medical Association; 2011.  Click here to read the report.

Dr. Ruchi Gupta, Director of the Center for Maternal-Child Healthcare, recently appeared on CBS to talk about how violence can trigger asthma in children.  This is part of her study to better understand neighborhood factors impacting asthma in high risk neighborhoods from kids living in those neighborhoods.  The study, Student Asthma Research Team (START) uses photo voice and video voice techniques, and culminated with the kids developing two public service announcements that will be used in the Uptown community to improve the neighborhood knowledge around what asthma is and what people can do to help kids with asthma in the community.  This study is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Watch her via CBSChicago.org.

Study Shows High Physical Activity Helps People With Osteoarthritis Walk Faster
Dorothy Dunlop, PhD, Director  has recently been making headlines at Medical News Today and the Feinberg School of Medicine.  Dr. Dunlop is the lead researcher on the  Osteoarthritis Initiative, a study recently published in  the January issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.  "The study provides encouragement for people who are on the low end of the physical activity spectrum to increase their physical activity," said Dr. Dunlop. The Osteoarthritis Initiative surveyed 2,500 people with knee osteoarthritis, the leading cause of disability in adults.

Jane Holl, MD MPH, Director of the Institute of Healthcare Studies, recently appeared on WTTW's Chicago Tonight to talk about The National Children's Study.  Watch her interview via WTTW.

Dr. Ruchi Gupta, Director of the Center for Maternal and Child Healthcare, recently appeared on CBS to talk about how violence can trigger asthma in children.  This is part of her study to better understand neighborhood factors impacting asthma in high risk neighborhoods from kids living in those neighborhoods.  The study, Student Asthma Research Team (START) uses photo voice and video voice techniques, and culminated with the kids developing two public service announcements that will be used in the Uptown community to improve the neighborhood knowledge around what asthma is and what people can do to help kids with asthma in the community.  This study is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Watch her via CBSChicago.org.

Dr. Ruchi Gupta, Assistant Professor in the Institude for Healthcare Studies, was highlighted on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website, "Scholar Finds Link Between Asthma and Certain Crimes."
http://www.rwjf.org/humancapital/product.jsp?id=66129

May 1, 2010

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Jane L. Holl, MD MPH to the position of Director of the Institue for Healthcare Studies.  As director, Jane will continue the Institute's mission to promote, coordinate, and originate multidisciplinary and multi-departmental health services, and outcomes research and education for the purpose of improving safety, equity, quality, and policy in healthcare.  Working with colleagues throughout Feinberg and the University, as well as with our affiliates, she will ensure that the Institute becomes a leader in promoting innovative solutions and policy recommendations for the translation of scientific discoveries into high-quality, safe and effective healthcare.

Jane joined Feinberg in 1999 and is an associate professor of both pediatrics and preventive medicine, an attending physician and medical director for Patient Safety at Children's Memorial Hospital, and a faculty associate at the Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research.  Prior to joining Feinberg, Jane completed a fellowship in academic pediatrics and was an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine (New York).  She received her MD from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), where she also earned an undergraduate degree in medical sciences. — J. Larry Jameson, MD PhD

April 22, 2010

The Center for Healthcare Equity received a grant of approximately $300,000 from the Aetna Foundation for research anc community outreach projects to improve health care in Chicago.  The projects funded by this grant include studying health literacy to reduce disparities in chronic disease management, studying how health information technology systems may help reduce healthcare disparities, and collaborating with the Chicago Department of Public Health to survey and document the health status of Chicago residents and the resources available to them.
http://newsblaze.com/story/2010042211201800001.bw/topstory.html

A grant was recently awarded to Dr. Ann Borders from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for a study entitled Chronic Stress in Pregnancy: Self-report, Biomarkers, and Birth Outcomes.  The aims of this study are:

1. To develop, using IRT modeling, an optimized stress in pregnancy scale to measure self-reported stress;
2. To determine the association between self-reported stress, measured by the optimized stress in pregnancy scale, and stress biomarkers (CRH and salivary cortisol); and
3. To determine the association between self-reported stress, measured by the optimized stress in pregnancy scale, and preterm birth.

Dr. Ruchi Gupta was interviewed by Chicago Tonight regarding Chicago Neighborhood Asthma Prevalence.  You can watch her via Youtube.

Rittner SS, Hasnain-Wynia R, Scanlon DP, Farley D and Telenko S. “Collecting Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language Data in Physician Practices: The Minnesota Community Measurement Experience.” Issue Brief for Aligning Forces for Quality Evaluation. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Click here to read the report.

April 19, 2010

Congratulations to Romana Hasnain-Wynia, PhD, Director, Center for Healthcare Equity, on being selected as a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change, a national initiative focused on discovering and evaluating innovative interventions to move the disparities field beyond the documentation of racial and ethnic differences in health care to actually implementing efforts to eliminate these gaps in care.  Finding Answers focuses specifically on reducing disparities in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression; diseases for which the evidence of racial and ethnic disparities is strong and the recommended standards of care are clear.

April 12, 2010

Dr. Min-woong Sohn's HRSA award "Welfare, Maternal Work, and On-Time Child Immunization Rates" is a one-year project.  The overall aim of this project is to utilize rich data from a longitudinal study of children's health and healthcare utilization to examine how maternal work and welfare status are associated with immunization status for low-income young children in Illinois whose families were in transition from welfare to work.

Dr. Dorothy Dunlop has recently received an R21 grant "Translating Accelerometer Readings into Physical Activity Measures in Knee OA" from National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.  The two-year project will provide a benchmark approach to translate objective accelerometer recordings of physical activity into valid meaningful measures of physical activity for the entire OA research community.  In addition, this study will also release a robust set of physical activity outcomes to the OAI public clinical and imaging data set.  Taken together, the two parts of this study will accelerate evidence-based physical activity research in knee OA population.

February 5th, 2010

Congratulations to the National Children's Study team.  Northwestern University was selected as a Hi Lo Recruitment Study Center.

Data may improve minority health care
Listen to Dr. Romana Hasnain-Wynia’s comments on Marketplace:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/23/pm-health-and-race/

The unpredictable nature of food allergy often places the well-being of affected children in the hands of the general public.  Dr. Ruchi Gupta of the Institute for Healthcare Studies and colleagues at Northwestern University and Children's Memorial Hospital sought to characterize food allergy knowledge and perceptions among the public in order to identify areas for improvement to keep food-allergic children safe.  The team administered the validated Chicago Food Allergy Research Survey for the General Public to more than 2100 respondents across the United States.  Respondents answered 65% of knowledge-based items correctly on average although those with prior knowledge/familiarity of food allergy generally scored higher. Respondents did well on items addressing symptoms and triggers of food allergy, but had trouble distinguishing food allergy from food intolerance.  Many also incorrectly assumed that a cure exists for food allergy and were unaware of current means to treat food allergy.   Respondents expressed a variety of opinions regarding food allergy but many tended to minimize the stigma of food allergy and to oppose specific food allergy policies in schools.  The research team concluded that increased knowledge and greater public awareness are needed to improve the health and well-being of children with food allergy.  Read more:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32762148/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

Hasnain-Wynia R, Yonek J, Cohen A, and Restuccia, J. Improving Care for Individuals with Limited English Proficiency: Facilitators and Barriers to Providing Language Services in California Public Hospitals. October, 2009. The California Endowment.  Click here to read the report.

Hasnain-Wynia, R., Pierce, D. and Pittman, M.  “Who, When and How:  The Current State of Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language Data Collection in Hospitals.”  May, 2004. The Commonwealth Fund. Click here to read the report.