A new rule allows health care providers to be reimbursed for treating homeless people wherever they are, rather than just in hospitals or clinics. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began allowing this change for both public and private insurers on Oct. 1, KFF Health News reported. “The Biden-Harris administration has been focused on expanding access to health care across the country,” CMS spokesperson Sara Lonardo told KFF Health News, explaining that federal officials created the new reimbursement code at the request of street medicine providers who weren’t being paid for their work. Now doctors, nurses and other providers can provide reimbursed care in a “non-permanent location on the street or found environment.” Most of the patients who will be helped by this are low-income, disabled and older people on Medicaid and Medicare, KFF Health News reported. “It’s a game-changer. Before, this was really all done on a volunteer basis,” said Valerie Arkoosh, secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services, which spearheaded a state-based billing change in July. “We are so excited. Instead of a doctor’s office, routine medical treatments and preventive care can now be done wherever unhoused people are.” Other states had already taken this on, starting with California in 2021. Hawaii also does this, and street medicine teams already do work in big cities like Boston and Fort Worth,…  read on >  read on >

Air pollution from heavy traffic may be driving pregnancy complications and health concerns for infants. Researchers who matched more than 60,000 birth records with air-monitoring data found that pregnant patients living in an urban area with elevated levels of nitrogen dioxide had higher rates of preterm birth. This included delivery before 28 weeks, according to the study from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. The researchers also saw increases in admission to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), infant respiratory issues and other adverse outcomes. Nitrogen dioxide is a major component of motor vehicle exhaust. “These findings suggest that air pollution from heavy traffic is a significant threat to pregnant individuals as well as to their child’s health after delivery,” lead researcher Dr. David Nelson, chief of obstetrics and gynecology, said in a UT Southwestern news release. “The relationship between air pollution exposure and childhood and adult respiratory conditions is well established, but this study is novel in identifying consequences to the perinatal population,” Nelson noted. The study results showed an association between air pollution levels and preterm birth, but do not prove cause and effect. The study included patients in the Dallas metro area who gave birth between January 2013 and December 2021 at Parkland Memorial Hospital. The investigators compared data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Quality System database with pregnancy…  read on >  read on >

For dogs, body size matters. That’s true in terms of how quickly they age, but also in their mental health, according to a new study comparing big and little canines. Age-related decline starts at 7 to 8 years of age in big dogs, compared to 10 to 11 years in smaller dogs, Hungarian researchers found. But big dogs decline more slowly than their pint-sized peers. Large dogs maintain their mental health longer and have a smaller degree of age-related decline. “For those who want a smaller-sized dog but do not want to risk severe mental health problems in old age or want a larger-sized dog but do not want to risk physical health problems at 7 to 8 years of age, we recommend a dog from the [22- to 66-pound] size range,” said first study author Borbála Turcsán, who is part of the Senior Family Dog Project at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. “Based on our results, these dogs have a longer health span relative to their expected life span than their smaller and larger counterparts,” Turcsan explained in a university news release. Based on data from 15,000 dogs, giant dogs typically live to 7 years. Small dogs live to about age 14. Purebreds tend to have shorter lives than mixed breeds. The researchers investigated at what age behavioral and mental (“cognitive”) changes…  read on >  read on >

While the hot, dry summer may have offered a break to people with some environmental allergies, that reprieve could be over. Ragweed and mold are in the air this fall. “This summer was good news for people who are sensitive to mold and pollen as there were little of those allergens in the air, but now that we’re seeing more rain coming in after this drought, we’re experiencing a big ragweed and mold bloom in Houston,” said Dr. David Corry, a professor in the section of immunology, allergy and rheumatology at Baylor College of Medicine. It’s not always easy to distinguish fall allergies from seasonal viruses, Corry noted. Common allergy symptoms include sneezing, a runny nose, and itchy or watery eyes. A sore throat and malaise are more typical of a virus, like the flu or a cold. While the body may have an extreme reaction to sudden exposure to large amounts of pollen or mold, including aches and pains, this is temporary, Corry said. Tests for flu and cold can help identify what’s going on. Fall activities that may stir up allergies include hayrides at pumpkin patches, because the bales are made from grasses that many people are allergic to. Hayriders should also watch for signs of mold, such as black streaks or foul, damp odors. “Mold spores can take hold in your upper…  read on >  read on >

Men of all races and ethnic groups who have prostate cancer fare equally well when access to care is identical, a new study finds. The disparity in outcomes from prostate cancer between Black, Hispanic and white men disappears when treatment and care are the same, as it is in U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VA) hospitals. In fact, Black and Hispanic men, on average fared better than white men, researchers report. “Traditionally, the outcomes for Black and Hispanic patients, at least in non-equal access health care settings, have been poor,” said lead researcher Kelli Rasmussen, an epidemiologist at the University of Utah School of Medicine. “There’s a myriad of reasons, one of which we know is that prostate cancer often presents in Black patients at an earlier age,” she said. “They usually have poor survival outcomes.” But the VA is a unique situation where veterans receive the same care regardless of their income, Rasmussen said. “That means that these men don’t face some of the challenges that people who are not veterans often face with regard to health care, like inadequate insurance or poor access to care in the private sector,” she said. Rasmussen believes that if you look at other medical conditions, the disparity in outcomes between white and minority patients would also disappear. “These patient populations have a lot of disparities when it comes…  read on >  read on >

Most folks know that certain antidepressants have to be taken for a few weeks before people start seeing improvement, and now a new study sheds light on that delay. Scientists have discovered this is because of physical changes in the brain that unfold over those first few weeks of using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and lead to greater brain plasticity. SSRIs include a range of common antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac, Celexa, Lexapro and Zoloft. “The delay in therapeutic action of antidepressants has been a puzzle to psychiatrists ever since they were first discerned over 50 years ago. So, these new data in humans that use cutting-edge brain imaging to demonstrate an increase in brain connections developing over the period that the depression lifts are very exciting,” said David Nutt from Imperial College London, who was not involved in the research. “Also, they provide more evidence [that] enhancing serotonin function in the brain can have enduring health benefits.” The researchers studied this in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in a group of healthy volunteers. The researchers gave 17 volunteers a 20-milligram (mg) daily dose of the SSRI escitalopram (Lexapro). Another 15 volunteers received a placebo. About three to five weeks in, the volunteers’ brains were scanned using a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. The scans made it possible to see the amount of synaptic…  read on >  read on >

Raging wildfires, droughts, floods and record-breaking heat brought on by climate change are taking a toll on kids’ already fragile mental health. This is the main message from a new report by the American Psychological Association and the climate advocacy organization ecoAmerica. These effects may start before kids are born and worsen with age, and are on top of other known stressors such as COVID-19, war and gun violence. What’s more, certain groups of children are even more hard-hit by the mental health effects of climate change due to poverty, racism, disability and other factors. Climate change affects mental health directly and indirectly, said report co-author Christie Manning, of Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn. She’s an associate professor of environmental studies. Wildfires release fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, into the air, driving pollution, and exposure to air pollutants and high temperatures during pregnancy may increase the chances of having kids with learning issues and some mental health conditions, Manning said. “Living through and surviving a flood or wildfire impacts children and can cause long-lasting anxiety, and when parents are dealing with stress and trauma, it has repercussions for children,” she noted. Many families have been forced to leave their homes and pets due to fires or floods. Kids may have been injured during the evacuation, lost a loved one or witnessed the destruction of…  read on >  read on >