Strengthening Community, News & Research

The Prometheus Radio Project will team up with Valley Free Radio, Free Press, and the Grassroots Radio Coalition to build a brand new community radio station in Western Massachusetts (Florence, MA)! This barnraising is like no other in that it also will host the 10th Anniversary Grassroots Radio Conference August 4-7, 2005 -- the best place to gather together to learn about community radio, and strategize for its brilliant future. No one turned away for lack of funds, but you have to register to attend! Registration information available on-line.

Elias Zerhouni, M.D. , director of the National Institutes of Health,
talks with Jackie Judd, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation and
former correspondent with ABC News, about key issues in national medical
research and policy, including new NIH conflict-of-interest and ethics
rules, funding for medical research, the fight against HIV/AIDS, racial and ethnic disparities in health, ensuring public access to published NIH-supported research and the state of NIH-funded stem-cell research.
View video, download transcript and find links to related issues.

In response to the Federal Communication Commission's inquiry into the question of whether violent content on television harms children, the Center for Creative Voices in Media, the Caucus for Television Producers, Writers & Directors, and children's TV activist Peggy Charren have told the FCC it should embark on a public education campaign to promote healthy viewing habits instead of restricting violent programming. "Censorship and its unintended consequence, self-censorship, do not serve the public interest. They are a ‘cure' that is worse than the ‘disease.' They will diminish even further the creative, original, challenging, controversial, non-homogenized, and appropriate programming which is already so scarce on television,” wrote Vin Di Bona, Chairman, The Caucus of Television Producers, Writers & Directors in comments filed with the FCC on October 15, 2004.

Those who live in areas with a lot of sprawl are more likely to suffer chronic health problems such as high blood pressure, arthritis, headaches and breathing difficulties compared to residents in denser urban areas, according to a Rand report.

You may view a series of multi-media symposiums from the Harvard School of Public Health hosted by Dean Barry R. Bloom. Each of the 15 sessions covering topics such as the environment, epidemiology, and health disparities, contains an online summary and a full pdf report. Many also include a Webcast.

How good is the quality of health care in America? Elizabeth McGlynn led a team of experts in the largest and most comprehensive examination ever conducted of health care quality in the United States. The National Report Card is published by Rand Corporation.

A new study from Emory University in Atlanta finds that more than half (56 percent) of the $200 billion rise in U.S. health care spending from 1987 to 2000 can be traced to fifteen medical conditions and health spending rose at about double the inflation rate. The study, "Which Medical Conditions Account for the Rise in Healthcare Spending?", found that five of those conditions -- heart disease, trauma, cancer, pulmonary conditions, and mental disorders -- accounted for 31 percent of the growth in health spending over that period. The other costly conditions identified by the report were high blood pressure, diabetes, back problems, arthritis, stroke and other brain blockages, skin disorders, pneumonia, infectious disease, hormone disorders, and kidney disease. The study's lead author said that prevention must be used to control health care costs. The 9 page PDF report is available online.

Audio clips, reports, and outlines from some of the sessions that took place in late August on this important topic are available on the Community Voices' Web site. Featured speakers were Paul Farmer, M.D., Harold Freeman, M.D., Jack Geiger, M.D., and David Satcher, M.D.

The health care safety net—the Nation's system of providing health care to low-income and other vulnerable populations—was recently described as "intact but endangered." The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Health Resources and Services Administration are leading a joint initiative to monitor it. The goal is to help local policymakers, planners, and analysts monitor the status of their local safety nets and the populations they serve. Strategies include providing baseline data and a set of tools that enable monitoring of the capacity and performance of local safety nets. Start with the Fact Sheet to become acquainted with the data available and click on the state, city or county information that you would like to monitor.

Jonathan Krim writes in the Washington Post that in 2002, more than 75 percent of U.S. households with incomes of more than $50,000 had Internet access, compared with 38 percent for those with household incomes of less than $30,000. He profiles a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and a project from One Economy Corp that is helping to bridge the gap. (Requires registration)