Category: health
We Can Do Something To Repair The World Every Day
That’s the assertion of one of the latest pieces from Quartzy.
In the digital newsite Quartz‘s culture and lifestyle offshoot, Quartzy, writer Ephrat Livni tells us how Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has some advice about what you can do when life looks dark. Take a read.
rDay Twelve-Hundred-Seventeen
Today, I return from my first visit with our new dentist in our new town, and I am sent home with a welcome kit (containing not only dentist-type stuff, but a very trick hydration bottle and a cell phone emergency backup battery pack), a bottle of water (tendered as I sat in the dental chair) and a bottle of local wine. (Turns out that one of the co-founding dentists in the clinic owns a local winery.)
Later, I walk to my workspace, noting that this is just another in a succession of days when the temp has exceeded 100 degrees.
Why Pregnant Women Die in America
With an estimated 26.4 deaths for every 100,000 live births in 2015, the US has the highest maternal mortality rate of all industrialized countries—by several times over. Read more in this Quartz piece here.
Air Pollution Is Bad
And it can reduce your life expectancy, according to the World Health Organization and this University of Chicago interactive world map. I’m a believer, if the way I am still coughing and feel following the wildfire air pollution of the last few days means anything.
Also see this related story:
https://qz.com/1071421/this-is-how-much-of-your-life-air-pollution-is-stealing-from-you-based-on-where-you-live/
The Upside of Doomsday Thinking
Check out the research as reported in this Quartz article:
https://qz.com/995304/fear-that-the-world-is-ending-can-make-you-a-better-person/
Eating Dirt?
Soil bacteria may have health benefits, according to research discussed in this Quartz article. Born and raised on an Iowa farm, this is heartening news to me…
Capitation
Sounds scary, eh? Back in the day when I was assigned for three or four years of my tenure in GAO to the subject of health care, I helped draft some revisions to portions of the Medicare law and worked with a team that made recommendations that led, in a different form, to Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). Some of us at that time were pushing for something called capitation, and, lo and behold, the concept is being revived. Read about it in this piece appearing online today from The New Yorker, “A BIPARTISAN WAY TO IMPROVE MEDICAL CARE“.
Maternal Mortality
Not to bring anybody down on this Mothers Day, but this report demonstrates the rising mortality rate of moms during the maternal period in the U.S., in contrast to much of the rest of the world.
How U.S. Health Care Become Big Business
Read this Fresh Air piece or hear it now: