HEALTH & JUSTICE IN THE NEWS
Monday, July 11, 2022
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Illinois HFS Urges Medicaid Recipients to Update Address if Needed
IL Healthcare and Family Services, 7/5/22
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) is taking steps to prepare for the end of the Federal Covid-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). When the PHE ends, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will end its continuous coverage provision…[and] HFS will send redetermination materials to each household during the month when they would have been up for renewal if it weren't for the PHE's continuous coverage provision…[To avoid interruption in] Medicaid coverage, HFS needs updated addresses to send people their renewal forms.…People who use Medicaid can update their addresses two ways: calling the HFS hotline (877-805-5312), or through an HFS web form. HFS Medicaid Enrollee Address Update Link: https://www2.illinois.gov/hfs/MedicalClients/Pages/addresschange.aspx
Criminal Justice
US labor shortage provides opportunity for formerly incarcerated
The Christian Science Monitor | The Associated Press, 7/11/22
Job stability can be difficult for returning citizens after a prison sentence. But reentry programs are finding new receptivity among employers to hire formerly incarcerated workers….According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, barriers faced by people with felony convictions were linked to a loss of at least 1.7 million employees from the workforce and a cost of at least $78 billion to the economy in 2014…The current desperate straits in which employers now find themselves could help spur a change. In a 2021 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM; the SHRM Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute, 53% of human resource professionals said they would be willing to hire people with criminal records – up from just 37% in 2018.
Study: De-prosecution policy associated with rise in homicides in American cities
Phys.org | American Society of Criminology, 7/11/22
A new study examined whether the application of a de-prosecution policy affected the number of homicides in large U.S. cities, using Philadelphia as a test case. The study found a causal association between de-prosecution and a rise in homicides.…"As policies such as de-prosecution are being implemented across the United States, they should be tested for downstream results, especially those that are unanticipated or unintended," says Thomas Hogan, who conducted the study….From a statistical, mechanical, and theoretical perspective, the substantial drop in successful prosecutions for felony weapons violations appears to have been the strongest driver of this result. While no two cities are exactly the same, the de-prosecution hypothesis held across different locations, police departments, environmental conditions, and other background factors. The study intentionally excluded the years 2020 and 2021 to avoid any measurement issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic or the murder of George Floyd. Among the policy implications of Hogan's findings, the author suggests that prosecutors across the United States review the relationship between de-prosecution and homicides in exercising their prosecutorial discretion. In so doing, they might seek to determine the optimal volume of prosecutions to keep the number of homicides to a minimum…In addition, citizens in cities that elected progressive prosecutors need to weigh the value of the de-prosecution policies against the possibility that such policies could boost homicides in their communities, especially homicides of minorities and low-income people.
IL law gives incarcerated people access to IDOC files
Illinois Times, 7/7/22
New legislation will make it easier for incarcerated individuals to access information that is crucial to their self-advocacy. Governor JB Pritzker signed into law on May 13 legislation that allows incarcerated individuals and their attorneys access to their Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) "master file" in a timely manner….According to the Illinois Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization working to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, this new reform is crucial for their work. Previous delays to access the information contained in these files created great obstacles in attempts to prove clients' innocence….Jennifer Vollen-Katz is the executive director of the John Howard Association, an independent citizens' group monitoring Illinois correctional facilities and advancing reforms needed to achieve a fair, humane and effective criminal justice system. She believes the new law is long overdue. "I think it's very important we've made this information more accessible to the people most impacted by it," said Vollen-Katz. "The state uses the information captured in a master file to make decisions in a lot of different contexts. People have been hindered for far too long by not knowing what in their file has been affecting them and why. I hope this will lead to more opportunities for more people to participate in programs and opportunities within corrections."
Florida criminal justice reform laws go into effect July 1
The Hill, 6/30/22
Senate Bill 752, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) earlier [in June], will allow Floridians on probation to receive new education and workforce credits that will shorten their probation terms and help them gain a GED or other degree or vocational certification and maintain full-time employment. Individuals under this law can earn at least 30 days off their supervision terms for each six-month period in which they work for at least an average of 30 hours per week. It also gives them the ability to earn 60 days off their probation term for each completed educational activity.
Overdose Deaths Behind Bars Rise as Drug Crisis Swells
Kaiser Health News, 6/29/22
As the opioid crisis ravages America, overdose deaths are sweeping through every corner of the nation, including jails and prisons. Criminal justice experts suggest that decades of using the legal system instead of community-based addiction treatment to address drug use have not led to a drop in drug use or overdoses. Instead, the rate of drug deaths behind bars in supposedly secure facilities has increased. This rise comes amid the decriminalization of cannabis in many parts of the country and a drop in the overall number of people incarcerated for drug crimes.
Substance Use, Treatment, & Recovery
Oregon fentanyl-driven overdoses jump, officials urge naloxone
Oregon Public Broadcasting, 7/8/22
[D]rug overdose deaths in Oregon more than doubled between 2019 and 2021, driven largely by misuse of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Substance Use Appears Higher in Recent Decades Among Young Adults Who Had Strokes
HealthDay | American Heart Association, 7/7/22
Documented cocaine and marijuana use among young adults who had strokes rose substantially in recent decades, especially among white men and women, new research suggests. Overall, however, documented substance use among stroke patients was highest among young Black men. [Though] the authors of the study, published Thursday in the American Heart Association journal Stroke, suggested that bias in who gets a drug test following a stroke may be skewing the data, and they recommend developing more standardized guidelines for toxicology screening of stroke patients…."This is important because we are seeing stroke incidence in young adults increase over time," she said….Previous research has shown an increase in strokes in younger adults, as well as an increase in substance use among this age group. While traditional stroke risk factors – including high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and obesity – contribute to the stroke risk for young adults, they may not account for all of the increase.
FDA Bans Juul Sales In The United States
American Addiction Foundation, 6/28/22
[T]he FDA ruled that Juul, the primary maker of smokeless tobacco products worldwide, cannot sell or market their product in the United States anymore…The ban takes place in the form of marketing denial orders from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The orders, enforceable through court actions, mandate that the company must stop selling and distributing “all of their products currently marketed in the US marketplace.” Products that have been targeted include the Juul e-cigarette d and four types of Juul pods. The products include tobacco-flavored pods with Nicotine as well as menthol-flavored pods. Due to years of marketing to younger people, Juul has come under scrutiny. If they refuse to stop selling their products, enforcement activity can take place, which can effectively sue the company or even seize their property or face criminal charges.
White House Backs Extension of Telehealth Addiction Treatment
Bloomberg Law News, 6/22/22
The Biden administration is making a play to set in stone the pandemic era-expansion of telehealth access for people struggling with addiction, offering up a series of suggestions for federal agencies and lawmakers in a new report…[T]he White House office laid out steps for broadening telehealth access for individuals struggling with addiction. The plan calls for the federal government to weigh legislation or other steps to knock down barriers between state licensing systems for medical professionals that ONDCP says stand in the way of enacting nationwide telehealth efforts. It also asks that the government make permanent and expand telehealth regulatory changes made available during the public health emergency, such as the US Drug Enforcement Administration permanently authorizing qualified professionals to prescribe controlled substances remotely without an in-person evaluation.
Mental Health
How Making Art Helps Improve Mental Health
Smithsonian Magazine, 7/11/22
Making art as a form of mental health treatment dates back to the mid-20th century, when soldiers returning from the battlefields of World War II were left with a condition that was known as “shell shock,” but is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans painted, drew, sculpted and made other forms of art to help process what they’d witnessed and experienced at war. “They struggled with traditional forms of medical and therapeutical intervention,” says Girija Kaimal, an art therapist at Drexel University and the president of the American Art Therapy Association (AATA). “Experiences like trauma are very difficult to articulate into words, so therapies that can support and connect patients with nonverbal expression are really the foundation of the creative arts therapies.”
Childhood Abuse Can Haunt the Senior Years
HealthDay News, 7/8/22
Poor mental and physical health among older adults can sometimes trace back to childhood abuse, a Canadian study suggests. The study, published online July 7 in the journal Aging and Health Research, found that people who were physically abused during childhood were twice as likely to experience anxiety and depression later in life. They were also significantly more likely to develop physical illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, migraines, arthritis and heart disease. "...our findings suggest that the traumatic experience of childhood physical abuse can influence both physical and mental health many decades later," said lead author Anna Buhrmann, a research assistant at the Institute of Life Course & Aging at the University of Toronto. "It also underlines the importance of assessing for adverse childhood experiences among patients of all ages, including older adults."
Digital Mental Health Companies Draw Scrutiny and Growing Concerns
Kaiser Health News, 7/8/22
Many U.S. adults aren’t able to find [mental health] help because of a shortage of therapists. Nearly 40% are struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So millions of people are turning to online companies like BetterHelp that have sprung up in the past several years, advertising quick access to therapy. Often backed by venture capital firms, these for-profit businesses offer a wide mix of services, including one-on-one and group video therapy visits with licensed professionals, supportive texting, coaching videos, and prescriptions for medications. In their ads, some of the companies feature testimonials from celebrities like Olympic athletes Simone Biles and Michael Phelps. But veteran therapists and officials from leading mental health professional associations say there’s limited evidence of the new online providers’ effectiveness.
Gun Safety ‘Wrapped in a Mental Health Bill’: A Look at Health Provisions in the New Law
Kaiser Health News, 7/7/22
The gun safety law forged through tense bipartisan talks in the Senate last month has been heralded as the first federal legislation in 30 years to combat rising gun violence. But what often falls below the radar is the new law’s focus on improving mental health services….While mental health advocates are happy Congress is authorizing new funds for their cause, they also expressed concern it would continue to perpetuate the idea that people with mental health disorders are largely responsible for gun violence, although research shows that’s not the case….A central question about this heightened level of investment is whether it can make a difference in the nation’s struggle to combat gun violence. [KHN looks] at key mental health aspects in the new law.
Telehealth can enhance mental health care integration in primary care settings
AMA News, 7/6/22
Using technology to integrate behavioral health care into primary care settings—settings that patients are visiting on a regular basis for routine care or other medical needs—is a key way to help patients access the mental health care they need in a system that doesn’t have enough providers to meet the demand for behavioral health care…The AMA, with Manatt Health, created a report that outlines the opportunities and challenges of incorporating telehealth and other digital tools to help practices more quickly implement behavioral health integration (BHI).
Healthcare
When it comes to darker skin, pulse oximeters fall short
NPR, 7/11/22
Over the past two years, the pulse oximeter has become a crucial tool for tracking the health of COVID-19 patients. The small device clips onto a finger and measures the amount of oxygen in a patient's blood. But a growing body of evidence shows the device can be inaccurate when measuring oxygen levels in people with dark skin tones. A study published [today] only adds to this concern. Researchers analyzing pre-pandemic health data also find those measurements resulted in patients of color receiving less supplemental oxygen than white patients did. "We were fooled by the pulse oximeter," says the study's lead author Dr. Leo Anthony Celi, who's clinical research director and principal research scientist at the MIT Laboratory of Computational Physiology. "We were given the false impression that the patients were okay. And what we showed in this study is that we were giving them less oxygen than they needed," he says. These sobering findings are bringing more urgency to educating patients and medical professionals about the shortcomings of the pulse oximeter — and to designing new models that can work reliably regardless of someone's skin color.
The New Gun Reform Law Is the Biggest Expansion of Medicaid Since Obamacare
The New Republic, 7/7/22
[Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and epidemiologist, and formerly Detroit’s health director,] spoke with Senator Debbie Stabenow, the architect of the law’s mental health care provisions, to understand how it happened—and what it can teach about policy reform.
Study: Rural women who use illegal drugs less likely to use contraception, risk dangerous pregnancies
EurekAlert News, 7/5/22
Women in rural areas who use illicit drugs have low rates of contraceptive use and high rates of unintended pregnancies compared with women living in rural areas who aren’t using these drugs, according to survey findings taken from eight rural U.S. regions. The findings, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, come as access to reproductive health care — including abortion — is increasingly restricted across large swaths of the country, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 decision to overturn constitutional protections in place since Roe v. Wade became precedent in 1973. The cross-sectional study was produced by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University and co-authors across the country….Researchers examined data from the Rural Opioids Initiative, a survey taken in eight rural U.S. regions in from January of 2018 through March of 2020. They focused on women ages 18 to 49 who reported illegal drug use in the preceding 30 days — a total of 855 individuals. Only about 37% reported using contraceptives. By comparison, survey data from the National Survey on Family Growth indicates 66% of the overall population of women in rural areas used contraceptives. Researchers said the new findings underscore the need for expanding access to both reproductive health care and substance use treatment in rural areas.
How Much Health Insurers Pay for Almost Everything Is About to Go Public
Kaiser Health News, 7/1/22
Consumers, employers, and just about everyone else interested in health care prices will soon get an unprecedented look at what insurers pay for care, perhaps helping answer a question that has long dogged those who buy insurance: Are we getting the best deal we can? As of July 1, health insurers and self-insured employers must post on websites just about every price they’ve negotiated with providers for health care services, item by item. About the only thing excluded are the prices paid for prescription drugs, except those administered in hospitals or doctors’ offices….The new rules are far broader than those that went into effect last year requiring hospitals to post their negotiated rates for the public to see. Now insurers must post the amounts paid for “every physician in network, every hospital, every surgery center, every nursing facility,” said Jeffrey Leibach, a partner at the consulting firm Guidehouse.
Youth
Understaffed, and under federal investigation, Texas juvenile detention system halts intake
The Texas Tribune, 7/7/22
The Texas Juvenile Justice Department doesn’t have enough staff to keep minors safe or deal with increasing suicidal behavior, its interim head says. Gov. Greg Abbott recently shifted millions of dollars from the long-troubled agency to his controversial border security mission.
Nearly half of US kids live in homes with criminal justice involvement
University of Michigan News, 7/5/22
Four in 10 children in the United States grow up in households in which a parent or co-residing adult faced at least one criminal charge, were convicted of a felony or spent time in prison, a University of Michigan study shows. This dwarfs estimates from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that less than 1 in 40 children have a parent in prison in a given year, says Michael Mueller-Smith, assistant professor of economics and faculty associate at the Population Studies Center at the U-M Institute for Social Research. Prior efforts to quantify the extent of crime and justice spillovers within households have been hampered by severe data limitations, he says. Federal data collection fails to capture nonincarceration events, track intergenerational spillovers within families that depart from the nuclear family model or follow children over time….Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Treasury Department and Criminal Justice Administrative Records System, Mueller-Smith and colleagues were able to overcome data limitations that have constrained this area of research for decades. In addition to finding dramatically higher rates of intergenerational exposure overall, the researchers found that child exposure is heterogeneous in the U.S. population. More than 60% of Black and Native American children and kids from households with below-median income have intergenerational exposure to the justice system—twice the rate of white children.
Around Illinois
Particularly Dangerous Combo of Benzodiazepine and Opioids Arrives in Central Illinois
Peoria 25 News Now, 6/27/22
Mass spectrometer testing has confirmed the arrival of “benzo dope” in Central Illinois. Jolt Harm Reduction says the drug is a “particularly dangerous” combination of benzodiazepine and an opiate such as heroin or fentanyl. “The combination increases the risk of overdose, as well as side effects including dizziness, confusion, and drowsiness. Seizures can occur when going through withdrawals from benzos, as well as a risk of death,” Jolt said…Jolt also says that naloxone - Narcan - does not work on benzodiazepines…tips on how to reduce risk of an overdose from Benzo Dope [include testing] your substance prior to using….Benzo Dope in Central Illinois has a gray/purplish color to it and is grainy in texture.
To heal from gun violence, anti-violence advocates say Chicagoans need prevention [Audio]
WBEZ Chicago | Reset, 7/6/22
On the Fourth of July, seven people were killed and dozens more were injured in a mass shooting in suburban Highland Park. About 35 miles south, another mass shooting injured five people in Parkway Gardens in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. Reset discusses how both instances play into the larger issue of gun violence in the Chicago region, and how restorative justice and community-based support can help prevent this kind of violence.
Free EV charging station launched in Bronzeville
Chicago Sun-Times, 7/7/22
…ComEd officials said they plan to spend $300 million over three years to encourage transit agencies, school buses and Illinois drivers to switch to electric vehicles. The charging station was installed with help from a federal grant and is part of ComEd’s Bronzeville of the Future project, which was launched in 2016….As part of that project, ComEd said Bronzeillve would eventually be the home of the utility’s first solar-powered microgrid, making it possible for the community to be energy independent from the rest of the city and provide backup power if needed. Other initiatives that have been already completed include the installation of three interactive kiosks in the area that provide free WiFi, community updates and information about public transportation routes.
Opinions, Editorials, and Commentary
Opinion: Is criminal justice reform dead?
Washington Times, 7/6/22
by David Safavian, general counsel for the American Conservative Union and Courtland Culver, an analyst for the American Conservative Union Foundation.
Republicans are generally thought of as being tough on crime, at times to a fault. Democrats, in contrast, are often portrayed as willing to let people avoid responsibility for their actions through so-called “soft-on-crime policies.” Neither approach maximizes public safety. The question is whether there is an achievable middle ground in the aftermath of the eye-opening primary elections in California.….Some are interpreting the Boudin recall as a sign that criminal justice reform is dead…But that is not what the data show...The argument goes that if the most liberal city in America is rejecting criminal justice reform, then it must be stone-cold dead in more mainstream communities. But…Recent survey research by right-leaning Echelon Insights asked that question and the answer won’t make extremists in either party happy. Voter sentiment can be boiled down to three words: Accountability, proportionality and redemption….The time has come to implement a system of proportional justice. Authorities must use the full force of the legal system when necessary. Breaking the law must have consequences. And often, this means prison. The real question is whether the approach marked by long sentences, little rehabilitation and no pathway to redemption is the right one.
Column: Let's 'normalize' compassion in substance abuse cases
Yakima Herald-Republic, 7/10/22
by Stacie Marez local columnist and early learning professional
Let’s not normalize diabetes by providing insulin. Let’s not normalize sudden cardiac events by having AEDs available. Sounds ridiculous, right? Imagine my surprise when one of our county commissioners recently shared concerns about “normalizing” drug use by having naloxone widely available and stated “sometimes compassion can be enabling.”...Substance use disorder is a medical condition that can afflict anyone at any time. Considering it a lifestyle rather than accurately recognizing it as the medical condition that it is, is dehumanizing and harmful.
Health & Justice in the News is a summary of recent news stories relating to criminal justice, mental health, addiction, recovery, and related issues. It is compiled and published by TASC weekly.
Some headlines and text have been altered by TASC for clarity or emphasis, or to minimize discriminatory or stigmatizing language. Opinions in the articles and op-eds do not necessarily express the views of TASC or our staff or partners.
