COVID-19 has directly claimed tens of thousands of U.S. lives, but conditions stemming from the novel coronavirus — rampant unemployment, isolation and an uncertain future — could lead to 75,000 deaths from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide, new research suggests. Deaths from these causes are known as “deaths of despair.” And the COVID-19 pandemic may be accelerating conditions that lead to such deaths. “Deaths of despair are tied to multiple factors, like unemployment, fear and dread, and isolation. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were already an unprecedented number of deaths of despair. We wanted to estimate how this pandemic would change that number moving forward,” said one of the study’s authors, Benjamin Miller. He’s chief strategy officer for the Well Being Trust in Oakland, Calif. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Well Being Trust reported that more lives had been lost to deaths of despair in 2017 than ever before. “The primary response at the time was to look at the opioid epidemic, but that didn’t even come close to cracking all of the issues of mental health related to deaths of despair,” Miller explained. Many things can contribute to deaths of despair, including loneliness, isolation, a lack of belonging, limited access to affordable health care, systemic racism, trauma and financial concerns, like a lack of housing and food, according to the Well…  read on >

With U.S. coronavirus cases topping 1.2 million and the death toll climbing to more than 75,000 on Friday, the federal government’s monthly jobs report showed a staggering 14.7 percent of Americans are now unemployed. A total of 20.5 million jobs were lost during the April lockdown, and not since the Great Depression has the unemployment rate been so high, the New York Times reported. That was not the only bad economic news delivered this week: On Thursday, the weekly jobless claims report showed that another 3.2 million jobless claims were filed last week. That brought the total unemployed since the nation’s economy was first curtailed by social distancing measures in mid-March to an historic 33 million. Meanwhile, a personal valet of President Donald Trump has tested positive for COVID-19, raising concern about of potential spread of the virus in the White House, the Washington Post reported. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have since tested negative, the White House said Thursday. While reopening parts of the U.S. economy will undoubtedly start to help some Americans get their jobs back, an internal report from the Trump administration predicted that reopening will come at a cost: 200,000 new coronavirus cases and 3,000 deaths every day by the end of May. Troubling predictions are coming from more than one source this week: A forecasting model from University of…  read on >

Daily use of inhaler medication by Americans with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, a new study shows. Researchers analyzed data on controller inhaler use by nearly 7,600 patients who use Propeller Health, which uses electronic medication monitors to track inhaler use and alerts patients about missed doses. Between the first seven days of January 2020 and the last seven days of March, mean daily controller inhaler use rose 14.5%. During the last week of March, more than 53% of patients had 75% or greater daily controller medication adherence, up 14.9% from the first seven days of January, according to the study published May 4 in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. “We are encouraged by the increase in patient adherence to their medications for asthma and COPD, which is critical to avoiding symptoms and keeping patients out of the hospital during this pandemic,” said first author Leanne Kaye, a senior research manager at Propeller Health at the time of the study. Increases in daily controller medication adherence increases were seen in all age groups, with older patients overall showing higher adherence at the start of the study period. There were no significant statistical differences in improved medication use between asthma and COPD patients. “This research further supports that digital health tools can improve adherence…  read on >

The COVID-19 pandemic has done untold economic damage in the United States, with businesses shuttering and people self-isolating at home to try to slow the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. You might think hospitals and health care systems would be immune to this wave of financial ruin, since there’s no industry more crucial to America’s fight against the pandemic. You’d be wrong. The health care industry experienced an estimated $500 billion reduction in revenue during the first quarter of 2020, said Dr. David Shulkin, a former secretary of Veterans Affairs and former president and CEO of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. “There’s no doubt our hospitals, health systems, health care providers in general have taken a significant financial hit during this crisis,” Shulkin said during a HealthDay Live Stream interview. “In general, the average hospital has seen about a 40% to 45% decrease in operating revenue during this period of time.” In response, hospitals and health care companies have announced a wave of layoffs and cutbacks: Mayo Clinic said it will cut $1.6 billion in employee pay after suffering a $3 billion revenue loss, including furloughs or shorter hours for about 30,000 staff members. Quest Diagnostics is furloughing nearly one in every 10 employees, more than 4,000 people, following a decline in testing that’s not related to the coronavirus. These cuts…  read on >

Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the White House coronavirus task force will likely disband within a month, even as the number of coronavirus cases climbed passed 1.2 million and the death toll passed 71,000. The slow shutdown will happen because of “the tremendous progress we’ve made as a country,” Pence said during a task force media briefing at the White House on Tuesday. While touring a mask factory in Arizona the same day, President Donald Trump acknowledged that reopening the country will mean more American lives are lost, but “we can’t keep our country closed. We have to open our country.” “I’m not saying anything is perfect,” Trump added, the Washington Post reported. “And, yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon.” Trump’s statement came a day after an internal report from his administration predicted that reopening will come at a cost: 200,000 new coronavirus cases and 3,000 deaths every day by the end of May. Those projections, based on data collected by various government agencies, far exceed current levels of 30,000 new cases and 1,750 deaths a day, The New York Times reported. Troubling predictions came from more than one source on Monday: A forecasting model from University of Washington…  read on >

As the world reels from the coronavirus pandemic, researchers say religion may provide protection from so-called deaths of despair, new research suggests. The study, conducted in 2018-2019, found that those who attend worship services once a week are less likely to die by suicide, drug overdoses or alcohol poisoning. “These results are perhaps especially striking amidst the present COVID-19 pandemic,” study lead author Ying Chen, a data scientist at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, said in a university news release. Previous research has shown that religion may play a part in lowering risks related to despair, such as heavy drinking, substance misuse and suicide, researchers say. “Despair is something that can confront anyone dealing with severe difficulties or loss,” said Tyler VanderWeele, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “While the term ‘deaths of despair’ was originally coined in the context of working-class Americans struggling with unemployment, it is a phenomenon that is relevant more broadly, such as to the health care professionals in our study who may be struggling with excessive demands and burnout, or to anyone facing loss,” he added. “As such, we need to look for important community resources that can protect against it.” For this study, researchers collected data on more than 66,000 women who were part of the Nurses’ Health Study II and…  read on >

Adults who had rough childhoods have higher odds for heart disease. That’s the conclusion from a look at more than 3,600 people who were followed from the mid-1980s through 2018. Researchers found that those who experienced the most trauma, abuse, neglect and family dysfunction in childhood were 50% more likely to have had a heart attack, stroke or other heart problem in their 50s and 60s. The Northwestern University study, published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association, is the first to examine how childhood family environment affects heart disease risk in older middle age. Children with troubled home lives are at increased risk of stress, smoking, anxiety, depression and physical inactivity that continues into adulthood. That, in turn, can lead to excess weight, diabetes, high blood pressure, vascular dysfunction and inflammation, according to the researchers. “This population of adults is much more likely to partake in risky behaviors — for example, using food as a coping mechanism, which can lead to problems with weight and obesity,” said first author Jacob Pierce, a fourth-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “They also have higher rates of smoking, which has a direct link to cardiovascular disease,” Pierce added in a university news release. These adults may benefit from counseling on the connection between coping with stress and controlling smoking…  read on >