Brain care score may help pinpoint risk of dementia, stroke
Following a list of 12 simple steps to modify physical, lifestyle and social components of health could help older people improve their brain care, according to a December study. It could also help...
View ArticleHow to cover ‘digital twins’ in health care
As the saying goes, everyone has a twin. And in a few years, that might be true — at least digitally. In an ongoing effort to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve personalized...
View ArticleHow to cover this year’s worsening respiratory illness season
The year is off to a rough start when it comes to respiratory illnesses. Though we may no longer be officially in the middle of a pandemic, COVID-19, which is still killing hundreds of people each day,...
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Covering financial toxicity: One woman’s struggle with the high cost of...
Cancer patients worldwide confront the physical challenges of surgeries, radiation, chemo and the resulting complications. But unlike those in other developed countries, U.S. patients face the...
View ArticleEating more plant protein in midlife may help promote healthier aging in...
Our bodies need a certain amount of protein to stay healthy as we age — but not all protein needs to come from meat or dairy. A study published today in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition...
View ArticleWhen hospital ransomware attacks target patients: A new trend to follow
When Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle was impacted by a security breach last November, it seemingly did everything right. Center officials announced that they “immediately took steps to contain...
View ArticleThe importance of accurate, sensitive reporting on long COVID
One of the still most underreported consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is the ongoing long COVID epidemic. In AHCJ’s webinar last month, “Covering long COVID, the hidden epidemic,” Monica...
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TikTok’s hormone hokum is hurting people, experts say
One TikTok influencer tells viewers that her “happy hormones” supplements improve your mood, reduce belly fat and relieve menstrual headaches. Another warns that common conditions such as fatigue and...
View ArticleWhy falls are a public health crisis for older adults
Falls are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among older people, but many are preventable. The dearth of fall screening by physicians and lack of awareness among the older population about...
View ArticleAlert your audience about the global rise in measles cases
A measles outbreak that began in early December in Philadelphia appears to be ending, but health officials across the U.S. remain alert for the possibility of an outbreak in their jurisdiction. Cases...
View ArticleHome medical device safety concerns top 2024 health tech hazard list
On Jan. 31, nonprofit patient safety organization ECRI released its 17th annual report of the top 10 health technology hazards. Topping this year’s list are home medical devices because they may pose...
View ArticleElder scams can have real-world health effects. Will AI make it worse?
Grandparent scams. Romance scams. Credit card and banking scams. Celebrity impersonations. And now, robocalls and deepfake videos that look and sound so real that they can almost fool experts. Elder...
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Will Biden follow his experts’ advice for reducing medical errors?
Proposals put forth last fall in a sweeping 34-page report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) could jumpstart progress on patient safety — an area where only...
View ArticleWhy this matters: HIV, TB conference offers wealth of story ideas, sources
The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) is happening in Denver this week, offering plentiful opportunities for story ideas. Many health reporters only think of conferences as...
View ArticleLawsuit exposes hidden factors driving up prescription drug costs
Imagine having to pay almost $10,240 for 90 14 mg pills of teriflunomide, a generic prescription drug for patients with multiple sclerosis. Now imagine if the same strength of that 90-pill supply cost...
View ArticleWhy journalists should scrutinize the FDA’s accelerated drug approval process
Last month, the FDA withdrew its approval of multiple myeloma drug Pepaxto, three years after the medication was okayed under the agency’s accelerated approval program. Although the move didn’t get...
View ArticleAll ears: What to know about ambient clinical listening
Some patients may notice a new trend at their medical appointments: a request to have a phone app or computer program record their conversation with their doctor. Ambient clinical voice, or ambient...
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Disparities in chronic conditions offer clues about future Medicare spending
If statistics tell a story, the one about the staggering cost of health care in the U.S. starts with chronic condition trends. According to the CDC, 90% of the $4.1 trillion that we spend on health...
View ArticleWhy journalists should stop overlooking tuberculosis coverage
In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, an infectious disease of epidemic proportions killed 1.5 million people across the world — but it wasn’t COVID. It was tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that...
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Using WIC analysis to write about health trends in women, infants and children
Sometimes the sources of health inequities and outcomes may be obvious. Other times, they can be obscure. That is what Associated Press reporter Kenya Hunter learned while reporting about the federal...
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