Thursday, May 2

Tag: likely

Black People Are 3 Times More Likely To Experience Pulse Oximeter Errors
No Comments
HEALTH & WELLNESS, VIDEO REELS

Black People Are 3 Times More Likely To Experience Pulse Oximeter Errors

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have purchased small devices called pulse oximeters for use in their home – based on well-intentioned recommendations from health care providers and the media. Pulse oximeters are devices, usually placed on a person’s finger, used to noninvasively measure oxygen levels in the blood. Clinics and hospitals, for example, use them regularly to screen newborns for heart defects after birth. Yet pulse oximeter measurements are imperfect, particularly for Black patients. Our recent paper demonstrated that Black patients were three times more likely than white patients to have low oxygen levels that were missed by pulse oximeters. That could translate into as many as 1 in 10 inaccurate readings among Blacks. We are ICU physicians and internists with expe...
Read More
Likely Key To Ending Pandemic Will Be Hard, Keeping Coronavirus Vaccines At Subzero Temperatures During Distribution
No Comments
HEALTH & WELLNESS

Likely Key To Ending Pandemic Will Be Hard, Keeping Coronavirus Vaccines At Subzero Temperatures During Distribution

Just like a fresh piece of fish, vaccines are highly perishable products and must be kept at very cold, specific temperatures. The majority of COVID-19 vaccines under development – like the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines – are new RNA-based vaccines. If they get too warm or too cold they spoil. And, just like fish, a spoiled vaccine must be thrown away. So how do companies and public health agencies get vaccines to the people who need them? The answer is something called the vaccine cold chain – a supply chain that can keep vaccines in tightly controlled temperatures from the moment they are made to the moment that they are administered to a person. Ultimately, hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. and billions globally are going to need a coronavirus vaccine – and potentially two dos...
Read More
Ethnic Studies Courses Likely To Be Met With Resistance, Although Now Required By California law
No Comments
VIDEO REELS

Ethnic Studies Courses Likely To Be Met With Resistance, Although Now Required By California law

In August 2020, California passed a law that requires college students in the state university system to take an ethnic studies course in order to graduate. In essence, the California state legislature has made it mandatory for the nearly 500,000 students in the Cal State system to take the classes that student activists and others fought for universities to implement decades ago. While these classes are not without controversy, as a scholar who studies racial dynamics on college campuses, I argue their benefits outweigh their liabilities. These classes are offered throughout the country at colleges and universities as varied and diverse as Bowling Green State University and the University of Washington. When these classes are taught as they were intended – with a heavy focus on issues of...
Read More
African American teens face mental health crisis but are less likely than whites to get treatment
No Comments
HEALTH & WELLNESS

African American teens face mental health crisis but are less likely than whites to get treatment

Black youth in the U.S. experience more illness, poverty, and discrimination than their white counterparts. These issues put them at higher risk for depression and other mental health problems. Yet Black youth are less likely to seek treatment. About 9% of them reported an episode of major depression in the past year, but less than half of those – about 40% – received treatment. By comparison, about 46% of white youth who reported an episode were treated for depressive symptoms. Instead, some turn to suicide, now the second leading cause of death among Black children ages 10 to 19. That rate is rising faster for them than any other racial or ethnic group. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the rate of suicide attempts for Black adolescents rose 73% from 1991 to ...
Read More
Mothers in prison aren’t likely to see their families this Thanksgiving – or any other day
No Comments
Journalism

Mothers in prison aren’t likely to see their families this Thanksgiving – or any other day

On a mid-October morning, I drove from Philadelphia to State Correctional Institution Muncy, Pennsylvania’s oldest and largest women’s prison. Nearly two-thirds of imprisoned mothers have never received a visit from their children. Shutterstock/Sakhorn The prison, located in the north central part of the state, is set at the base of a mountain and encircled by farmlands, feed mills and the upper branch of the Susquehanna River. The 170-mile drive took nearly four hours. I was visiting Cynthia Alvarado. In 2010, a Philadelphia jury found Alvarado guilty of driving the getaway car in a robbery homicide. The judge gave her the same sentence as the man who pulled the trigger: life without the possibility of parole. I was there to discuss her case as part of project on Pennsylvania’s accompli...
Read More
Political hashtags like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter make people less likely to believe the news
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS

Political hashtags like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter make people less likely to believe the news

News outlets sometimes use hashtags to promote their stories. 13_Phunkod/Shutterstock.com Eugenia Ha Rim Rho, University of California, Irvine Whether you’re a conservative or a liberal, you have most likely come across a political hashtag in an article, a tweet or a personal story shared on Facebook. A hashtag is a functional tag widely used in search engines and social networking services that allow people to search for content that falls under the word or phrase, followed by the # sign. First popularized by Twitter in 2009, the use of hashtags has become widespread. Nearly anything political with the intent of attracting a wide audience is now branded with a catchy hashtag. Take for example, election campaigns (#MAGA), social movements (#FreeHongKong) or calls for supporting or oppo...
Read More
Alzheimer’s in the US: Women more likely to develop disease
No Comments
SOCIAL JUSTICE, VIDEO REELS

Alzheimer’s in the US: Women more likely to develop disease

Two-thirds of the people living with Alzheimer's in the US are women. New research is telling us why women in the United States are more likely to develop Alzheimer's. Almost two-thirds of those with the disease are female and understanding why this is the case is key to improving treatment. by Kristen Saloomey Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from New York, in the US.
Read More
Teen Likely Headed to Prison for Supplying Ecstasy to His Friends
No Comments
IN OTHER NEWS

Teen Likely Headed to Prison for Supplying Ecstasy to His Friends

At Plymouth Crown Court, a judge warned a teenager who had supplied his friends with MDMA that he would likely receive a prison sentence at a sentencing hearing in November. The teen had previously admitted purchasing MDMA from a dark web vendor and giving it to two of his friends. Both friends fatally overdosed on the MDMA later that day. Charlie Gregory, 19, recently admitted supplying two of his friends with MDMA he had purchased for £56 on the dark web. He pleaded guilty to one count of possession of MDMA and four counts of supplying MDMA at Plymouth Crown Court during an October 2018 hearing. The charges stemmed from an event that took place almost one year ago at a Basshunter concert at a Plymouth nightclub called Pryzm. In December 2017, Gregory and seven of his friends...
Read More