10 stories tagged ‘Stephanie Woolhandler’
New study finds 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage
Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002. The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and [...]
Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, receives excellence in mentoring award from Harvard Medical School
Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, a staff physician and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), is a recipient of the 2008-2009 A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award. The Office for Diversity and Community Partnership at HMS sponsors the award, which was recently presented at the thirteenth annual Awards Ceremony, held at the [...]
Health, life insurers hold billions in tobacco stocks
More than a decade after Harvard Medical School researchers first revealed that life and health insurance companies were major investors in tobacco stocks – prompting calls upon them to divest – the insurance industry has yet to kick the habit, they say. A letter about insurance company holdings, published in the June 4 issue of [...]
Inmates suffer from chronic illness, poor access to health care
The nation’s prison and jail inmate population struggles with high rates of serious illness and poor access to care, according to the first nationwide study of inmate health and health care. The research, conducted by Harvard physicians at the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School (HMS) and published today by the American Journal of [...]
Dramatic increase in ER waiting time for seriously ill patients
Patients of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status are facing ever-increasing waits for care in emergency rooms, according to a study published online today by the journal Health Affairs. The problem is particularly acute for those who are severely ill, Harvard Medical School researchers at Cambridge Health Alliance found. The study, which analyzed the time [...]
Those least needy most likely to get free drug samples
Most free drug samples are not used to ease the burden of the poor or the uninsured, but rather go to those most able to pay for their prescriptions, according to a study by physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School. The study, which is the first to look at the free drug [...]
Almost two million veterans lack health coverage
One in every eight (12.2 percent) of the 47 million Americans without health insurance is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers based at the Cambridge Health Alliance. The study is published in the December, 2007 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Just [...]
Survey: Med students ill prepared for ethical issues faced in wartime
A new survey of U.S. medical students shows they receive little training about what they should or should not do in wartime, despite ethical questions over physician involvement in prisoner interrogation and a legal framework making a “doctor draft” possible. The study shows that 94 percent of medical students who took an online survey said [...]
Less than half of U.S. health care workers get flu shots
Steffie Woolhandler, Harvard Medical School associate professor of medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, and colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles analyzed data from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey and found that less than half of U.S. health care workers get flu shots. From a nationally representative sample of 1,651 workers, the overall [...]
Study shows U.S. health care paperwork cost $294.3 billion in 1999
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada’s quasi-official health statistics agency, analyzed the administrative costs of health insurers, employers’ health benefit programs, hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, physicians and other practitioners in the U.S. and Canada. They used data from regulatory agencies and surveys of doctors, and analyzed [...]
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