Archives: Press Releases

Press Release on health-related topics.

NIH lifts limits on making deadly new viruses in the lab

December 19, 2017
by Maggie Fox
NBC News

The report from the Trust for America’s Health found federal and state efforts alike to prepare for disasters such as pandemics, severe weather and attacks have slid backwards, with federal funding cut in half since 2002.

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Half of States Scored 5 or Lower Out of 10 Indicators in Report on Health Emergency Preparedness

Report Finds Funding to Support Base Level of Preparedness Cut More than Half Since 2002

 

Washington, D.C., December 19, 2017 – In Ready or Not? Protecting the Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters and Bioterrorism, 25 states scored a 5 or lower on 10 key indicators of public health preparedness. Alaska scored lowest at 2 out of 10, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island scored the highest at 9 out of 10.

The report, issued today by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), found the country does not invest enough to maintain strong, basic core capabilities for health security readiness and, instead, is in a continued state of inefficiently reacting with federal emergency supplemental funding packages each time a disaster strikes.

According to Ready or Not?, federal funding to support the base level of preparedness has been cut by more than half since 2002, which has eroded advancements and reduced the country’s capabilities.

“While we’ve seen great public health preparedness advances, often at the state and community level, progress is continually stilted, halted and uneven,” said John Auerbach, president and CEO of TFAH.  “As a nation, we—year after year—fail to fully support public health and preparedness. If we don’t improve our baseline funding and capabilities, we’ll continue to be caught completely off-guard when hurricanes, wildfires and infectious disease outbreaks hit.”

Ready or Not? features six expert commentaries from public health officials who share perspectives on and experiences from the historic hurricanes, wildfires and other events of 2017, including from California, Florida, Louisiana and Texas.

The report also examines the nation’s ability to respond to public health emergencies, tracks progress and vulnerabilities, and includes a review of state and federal public health preparedness policies. Some key findings include:

  • Just 19 states and Washington, D.C. increased or maintained funding for public health from Fiscal Year (FY) 2015-2016 to FY 2016-2017.
  • The primary source for state and local preparedness for health emergencies has been cut by about one-third (from $940 million in FY 2002 to $667 million in FY 2017) and hospital emergency preparedness funds have been cut in half ($514 million in FY 2003 to $254 million in FY 2017).
  • In 20 states and Washington, D.C. 70 percent or more of hospitals reported meeting Antibiotic Stewardship Program core elements in 2016.
  • Just 20 states vaccinated at least half of their population (ages 6 months and older) for the seasonal flu from Fall 2016 to Spring 2017—and no state was above 56 percent.
  • 47 state labs and Washington, D.C. provided biosafety training and/or provided information about biosafety training courses (July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017).

The Ready or Not? report provides a series of recommendations that address many of the major gaps in emergency health preparedness, including:

  • Communities should maintain a key set of foundational capabilities and focus on performance outcomes in exchange for increased flexibility and reduced bureaucracy.
  • Ensuring stable, sufficient health emergency preparedness funding to maintain a standing set of core capabilities so they are ready when needed. In addition, a complementary Public Health Emergency Fund is needed to provide immediate surge funding for specific action for major emerging threats.
  • Strengthening and maintaining consistent support for global health security as an effective strategy for preventing and controlling health crises. Germs know no borders.
  • Innovating and modernizing infrastructure needs – including a more focused investment strategy to support science and technology upgrades that leverage recent breakthroughs and hold the promise of transforming the nation’s ability to promptly detect and contain disease outbreaks and respond to other health emergencies.
  • Recruiting and training a next generation public health workforce with expert scientific abilities to harness and use technological advances along with critical thinking and management skills to serve as Chief Health Strategist for a community.
  • Reconsidering health system preparedness for new threats and mass outbreaks.  Develop stronger coalitions and partnerships among providers, hospitals and healthcare facilities, insurance providers, pharmaceutical and health equipment businesses, emergency management and public health agencies.
  • Preventing the negative health consequences of climate change and weather-related threats. It is essential to build the capacity to anticipate, plan for and respond to climate-related events.
  • Prioritizing efforts to address one of the most serious threats to human health by expanding efforts to stop superbugs and antibiotic resistance. 
  • Improving rates of vaccinations for children and adults – which are one of the most effective public health tools against many infectious diseases.
  • Supporting a culture of resilience so all communities are better prepared to cope with and recover from emergencies, particularly focusing on those who are most vulnerable.   Sometimes the aftermath of an emergency situation may be more harmful than the initial event.  This must also include support for local organizations and small businesses to prepare for and to respond to emergencies.

The report was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

Score Summary: 

A full list of all of the indicators and scores and the full report are available on TFAH’s website.  For the state-by-state scoring, states received one point for achieving an indicator or zero points if they did not achieve the indicator.  Zero is the lowest possible overall score, 10 is the highest.  The data for the indicators are from publicly available sources or were provided from public officials.

9 out of 10: Massachusetts and Rhode Island

8 out of 10: Delaware, North Carolina and Virginia

7 out of 10: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, New York, Oregon and Washington

6 out of 10: California, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia

5 out of 10: Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Montana and Tennessee

4 out of 10: Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania

3 out of 10: Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming

2 out of 10: Alaska

 Trust for America’s Health is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority.

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Scientists explore drug’s value in treating both alcoholism and PTSD

November 28, 2017
by Meredith Cohn
Stars & Stripes (Baltimore Sun)

A new report from the Trust for America’s Health counted more than a million deaths tied to alcohol, drugs and suicide in the past decade, with alcohol deaths up 37 percent and suicides increasing 28 percent from 2010 to 2015. The group says it points to an epidemic of pain, despair, disconnection and lack of opportunity and the need for a “national strategy to improve resilience.”

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A national resilience strategy can help prevent deaths from despair

November 28, 2017
by John Auerbach and Benjamin F. Miller
STAT News

Deaths from alcohol, drugs, and suicide occur so often — 1 million in the last decade — that there’s a name for them: deaths from despair. And the situation may get worse. According to a study that the Berkeley Research Group did for our organizations, the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust, deaths from despair could total 1.6 millionbetween 2016 and 2025, a 60 percent increase over the previous decade. And that might be a conservative estimate.

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Deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide could hit 1.6M over the next decade, report says

November 21, 2017
by Jayne O’Donnell and Sarah Toy
USA Today

In 2015, there were 39.7 deaths per 100,000 U.S. residents due to drugs, alcohol and suicide compared with 23.1 in 1999 — a whopping increase of 72%. That number could go up to 56 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2025, said the report commissioned by the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust.

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Report: Deaths From Drugs, Alcohol and Suicide Could Increase by 60 Percent in Next Decade

November 21, 2017
by Claire Hansen
U.S. News & World Report

The figure is a 60 percent increase over the past decade, according to the report, which was released by the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust. The authors of the study say the projections could be conservative as the opioid epidemic continues to wreak havoc on American communities. The report includes an online interactive tool that maps the trends.

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New Report: More than 1.6 Million Americans Could Die from Drugs, Alcohol and Suicide During Next Decade – A 60 Percent Increase from Previous 10 Years

Study Highlights Solutions, Calls for National Resilience Strategy

November 21, 2017

Washington, D.C., November 21, 2017 – Deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide could account for 1.6 million fatalities over the coming decade (2016 to 2025) according to a new report, Pain in the Nation: The Drug, Alcohol and Suicide Epidemics and the Need for a National Resilience Strategy, released today by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and Well Being Trust (WBT).

This would represent a 60 percent increase compared to the past decade, if recent trends hold, based on an analysis conducted by the Berkeley Research Group (BRG) for this report. From 2006 to 2015, there were 1 million deaths from these three causes.

  • Nationally, in 2015, there were 127,500 deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide. The epidemics currently are responsible for 350 deaths per day, 14 per hour and one every four minutes.
  • According to the report’s projections, this could reach 192,000 per year by 2025 (39.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2015 compared to 55.9 per 100,000 in 2025).
  • At a state level, in 2005, 21 states and Washington, D.C. had death rates from these three causes above 30 per 100,000, and only six states had death rates above 40 per 100,000.
  • As of 2015, 48 states and Washington, D.C. had rates above 30 per 100,000, 30 were above 40 per 100,000 and five states had rates above 60 per 100,000, including New Mexico which had the highest rate of 77.4 per 100,000.
  • By 2025, 26 states could reach 60 deaths per 100,000 – and two states (New Mexico and West Virginia) could reach rates of 100 deaths per 100,000.

The study found, however, that these numbers may be conservative, especially with the rapid rise of heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil use. If the nation continues along recent trajectories, death rates would actually double to 2 million by 2025.

TFAH and WBT also created a new feature interactive tracking the recorded and projected change in rates from 1999 through 2025.

“These numbers are staggering, tragic – and preventable,” said John Auerbach, president and CEO of TFAH.  “There is a serious crisis across the nation and solutions must go way beyond reducing the supply of opioids, other drugs and alcohol.  Greater steps—that promote prevention, resiliency and opportunity—must be taken to address the underlying issues of pain, hopelessness and despair.”

Current Nationwide Trends

  • Drug overdose deaths tripled between 2000 and 2015 (with a total of 52,400 deaths in 2015), with rural community opioid-related death rates increasing seven-fold. Provisional data shows drug overdoses could exceed 64,000 in 2016, with fentanyl deaths alone accounting for 21,000 of these deaths (and fentanyl-related deaths doubling between 2015 and 2016);
  • Alcohol-induced deaths increased 37 percent between 2000 and 2015, reaching a 35-year high at 33,200 deaths in 2015. This excludes alcohol-attributable deaths related to injury and violence;
  • Suicide deaths increased by 28 percent between 2000 and 2015 to more than 44,000 deaths (as of 2015). Rural suicide rates are 40 percent higher than in metro areas;
  • As of 2015, more than 43 million Americans experienced a mental health issue, more than 20 million had a substance use disorder and more than 8 million experienced both – and these numbers are likely to be underestimates due to stigma and lack of available treatment; and
  • Only around one in 10 people with substance use disorders receive recommended treatment.

Report Calls for a National Resilience Strategy

“We’re facing a generational crisis. And it calls for bigger and bolder action. Simply creating new programs to address one piece of the problem is insufficient—we need more robust and systematic change. The good news is: we know a lot about what works and can make a difference,” said Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD, Chief Policy Officer, Well Being Trust. “This report highlights the need for investments that take a whole-person approach to wellbeing—encompassing the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of wellbeing—to truly address the drivers of pain, ultimately saving lives.”

Pain in the Nation calls for the creation of a National Resilience Strategy that takes a comprehensive approach by focusing on prevention, early identification of issues and effective treatment. The report highlights more than 60 research-based policies, practices and programs, including:

  • Improve Pain Management and Treatment by helping people heal physically, mentally and emotionally. Approaches must acknowledge that there are different types of pain and experts from mental health, medical care and other disciplines must develop team-based solutions that focus on proactively addressing pain before it gets worse.
  • Stem the Opioid Crisis with a full-scale approach – including promoting responsible opioid prescribing practices (such as provider education and best practices for Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs); public education about misuse and safe disposal of unused drugs; “hotspot” intervention strategies; anti-trafficking to stop the flow of heroin, fentanyl and other illicit drugs; and expanding the use and availability of rescue drugs, sterile syringes and diversion programs.
  • Address the Impact of the Opioid Epidemic on Children – and the Need for a Multi-Generational Response that includes substance use disorder treatment for parents and wrap-around services for children and families, including grandparents and other relatives who help care for children, and expand support for the foster care system.Model programs for families struggling with opioid and other substance misuse disorders have been twice as effective in helping mothers achieve sobriety, reduced state custody placement of children by half and had a return on investment of $2.22 for every $1 spent on child welfare programs.
  • Lower Excessive Alcohol Use through evidence-based policies, such as by increasing pricing, limiting hours and density of alcohol sales, enforcing underage drinking laws and holding sellers and hosts liable for serving minors.For example, a 10 percent increase in the price of alcoholic beverages is shown to reduce consumption by 7.7 percent.
  • Prevent Suicides by expanding crisis intervention services; anti-bullying and social-emotional learning in schools; and support systems for Veterans; and better integrating mental health into primary care.For instance, the Zero Suicide model program has shown 80 percent reductions in suicides.
  • Expand and Modernize Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Treatment Services – Toward a Goal of Focusing on the “Whole Health” of Individuals by prioritizing innovative integrated delivery models for rural and underserved urban areas and expanding the provider workforce, including those who can deliver medication-assisted treatment.Some effective substance use treatment programs have a return of $3.77 per $1 invested.
  • Prioritize Prevention, Reduce Risk Factors and Promote Resilience in Children, Families and Communities by limiting trauma and adverse experiences, which have the biggest long-term impact on later substance misuse, and promoting better mental health.For instance, nurse family home visiting programs have a return of $5.70 for every $1 invested, and early childhood education programs have a $4 to $12 return for every $1 invested.
  • Reboot Substance Misuse Prevention and Mental Health in Schools by scaling up evidence-based life- and coping-skills programs and inclusive school environments and increasing the availability of mental health and other services.Top school substance misuse prevention programs have a $3.80 to $34 return for every $1 invested; social-emotional learning programs have an $11 for $1 return; and school violence prevention (including suicide) programs have a $15 to $81 for $1 return.

The report was supported by grants from WBT and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).  Data analysis and projections were provided by the Berkeley Research Group.  The full report is available on TFAH’s website at www.healthyamericans.org.

2015 STATE-BY-STATE DRUG, ALCOHOL AND SUICIDE DEATH RATES AND 2025 PROJECTIONS

Based on an analysis of new state-by-state data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER), current (2015) and projected (2025) rates of deaths per 100,000 people from drugs, alcohol and suicide from highest to lowest were:

Note: 1 = Highest rate, 51 = lowest.

2025 PROJECTIONS, STATE-BY-STATE DRUG, ALCOHOL AND SUICIDE DEATH RATES

1. New Mexico (105.7); 2. West Virginia (99.6); 3. Wyoming (88.8); 4. New Hampshire (88.1); 5. Alaska (84.4); 6. Kentucky (81.3); 7. Rhode Island (79.7); 8. Arizona (75.8); 9. Montana (75.6); 10. Nevada (75.0); 11. Ohio (74.6); 12. Oregon (72.8); 13. Maine (71.5); 14. (tie) Oklahoma (70.0) and Utah (70.0); (tie) 16. Colorado (67.8) and Tennessee (67.8); 18. Pennsylvania (67.7); 19. Massachusetts (66.6); 20. Michigan (65.9); 21. Vermont (65.8); 22. Idaho (63.4); 23. Washington (63.3); 24. Connecticut (61.2); 25. Indiana (61.0); 26. Delaware (60.4); 27. Florida (59.6); 28. (tie) Louisiana (58.5) and Missouri (58.5); 30. South Dakota (57.4); 31. Wisconsin (55.5); 32. South Carolina (55.4); 33. Arkansas (54.2); 34. North Carolina (53.1); 35. (tie) District of Columbia (52.2) and Maryland (52.2); 37. Alabama (51.9); 38. Kansas (49); 39. California (48.9); 40. North Dakota (47.4); 41. Minnesota (47.3); 42. Iowa (46); 43. Virginia (44.9); 44. Georgia (44.6); 45. (tie) Illinois (44.4) and 45. New Jersey (44.4); 47. (tie) Hawaii (43.3) and New York (43.3); 49. Mississippi (42.8); 50. Texas (38.9); 51. Nebraska (37.7).

2015 STATE-BY-STATE DRUG, ALCOHOL AND SUICIDE DEATH RATES

1. New Mexico (77.4); 2. West Virginia (67.4); 3. Wyoming (66.4); 4. Alaska (63); 5. New Hampshire (60.6); 6. Montana (56.7); 7. Kentucky (56.1); 8. Arizona (55); 9. Rhode Island (54.5); 10. Oregon (54); 11. Nevada (53.8); 12. Maine (51.1); 13. Ohio (50.8); 14. Oklahoma (50.5); 15. (tie) Colorado (49.7) and Utah (49.7); 17. Vermont (47.6); 18. Tennessee (47.3); 19. Idaho (47.1); 20. Pennsylvania (46.3); 21. Washington (45.9); 22. Michigan (45.8); 23. Massachusetts (44.9); 24. South Dakota (43.8); 25. Indiana (43); 26. Florida (42.9); 27. (tie) Connecticut (41.9) and Delaware (41.9); 29. Missouri (41.7); 30. Louisiana (41.2); 31. Wisconsin (39.9); 32. South Carolina (39.7); 33. Arkansas (39.5); 34. North Carolina (37.7); 35. Alabama (36.8); 36. Kansas (36); 37. (tie) District of Columbia (35.7) and North Dakota (35.7); 39. California (35.4); 40. Maryland (35.1); 41. Minnesota (34.5); 42. Iowa (33.9); 43. Virginia (32.3); 44. Georgia (31.9); 45. Illinois (31.3); 46. Hawaii (31.2); 47. Mississippi (30.9); 48. New Jersey (30.5); 49. New York (30); 50. Texas (28.4); 51. Nebraska (28.2).

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Trust for America‘s Health is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority. Twitter: @HealthyAmerica1

Well Being Trust is a national foundation dedicated to advancing the mental, social, and spiritual health of the nation. Created to include participation from organizations across sectors and perspectives, Well Being Trust is committed to innovating and addressing the most critical mental health challenges facing America, and to transforming individual and community wellness. www.wellbeingtrust.org.  Twitter: @WellBeingTrust