Women of color less likely to get pain meds after childbirth
Women of color who are in pain after childbirth can be less likely to receive the medications they need to relieve it, a new study finds.
Published July 10 in the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, the study examined three years of data on patients who reported pain after giving birth. Researchers found Black and Hispanic women — who reported the highest pain scores — received lower doses of opioid-containing medication than white women.
The difference in postpartum pain drug dispensing could not be explained by use of other medications or by factors such as age, body mass index or past pregnancies, the study said. Other recent research found that Black and Hispanic women are less likely than white women to receive epidural injections to help block pain during childbirth. That study said racism and social inequity contributed to the disparity.
The new research, conducted by investigators at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, called on clinicians to explore their potential biases at assessing pain based on the race or ethnicity of patients.
Pain after childbirth can make it difficult for women to care for both themselves and their newborns, the researchers noted.
EPA to scrutinize PFAS in plastic containers
The Environmental Protection Agency is kicking off a process to regulate per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances — so-called “forever chemicals” — in plastic containers, the agency announced July 11.
The move came in response to a petition from a coalition of environmental groups, including the Center for Environmental Health and Clean Water Action. They called on EPA in April to address three types of PFAS that are formed during fluorination of plastic containers.
Hundreds of millions of plastic containers, which are fluorinated during their production process to enhance barrier qualities, are contaminated with the chemicals, according to the petitioners. The three types of PFAS —perfluorooctanoic acid, perfluorononanoic acid, and perfluorodecanoic acid, also known as PFOA, PFNA and PFDA, respectively — have been detected in plastic containers used for household consumer goods, pesticides, fuel and automotive products. EPA research has found the chemicals can leach into liquid products stored in the containers.
The agency plans to gather information on the uses of fluorinated containers, examine alternatives to fluorination and explore measures to address risk. If warranted, EPA will then establish regulations on the use of three types of PFAS.
PFAS are referred to as forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment or human body. They have been linked with a range of reproductive, developmental and disease risks, including cancer, and are increasingly subject to regulation.
Urban heat islands threaten health of millions
Millions of Americans live in city neighborhoods where temperatures can soar as much as 10 degrees because of poor urban design, a new analysis from Climate Central finds.
The nonprofit group looked at data on urban heat islands — city blocks with high proportions of concrete and human-made building materials, high population density and a lack of green space — in 65 U.S. cities. They found 34 million people live in neighborhoods where the urban heat island effect can raise temperatures at least 8 degrees higher than in surrounding blocks.
In 12 cities — including Dallas, Detroit and Newark, New Jersey — more than 81% of the population experience temperatures that are at least 8 degrees higher because of the heat island effect.
The effects are not limited to certain regions of the U.S. In San Francisco, New York City and Chicago alone, more than 5 million people alone live in neighborhoods where summer temperatures can be at least 10 degrees higher than adjacent areas. About 145,000 people live in extreme urban heat islands, where temperatures can soar 12 degrees above neighboring areas, new city-by-city heat maps from Climate Central show.
The data also show an unequal burden: Previous research has found that historically redlined areas, where home loans were restricted based on racism, experience hotter summers today than non-redlined areas. Many of those areas are now heat islands with many residents of color.
People living in urban heat islands are at higher risk for health harms from high heat, including dehydration, stroke and death. Those risks are rising as the nation warms from human-caused climate change.
The effects of urban heat islands can be lowered by planting street-level trees and using cooling roofs, among other measures.
Social factors linked to dementia disparities
Long-standing disparities in dementia incidence between racial and ethnic groups are due to external conditions that impact health, not human genetics, new research finds.
A study in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, finds that social determinants of health — such as education level, housing, income, access to care and racism — are responsible for differences in dementia rates.
In the U.S., dementia is about twice as common for Black people than it is for white people, and dementia rates have been rapidly increasing among the nation’s Hispanic population.
The new study looked at data from a long-running study on older adults in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Peru. Researchers found that about 55% of seniors with African ancestry and 53% of those with Native American ancestry showed some cognitive impairment, compared to 48% of seniors of European ancestry.
But the populations of color also experienced more factors that were harmful to their health, such as lower education levels and lower socioeconomic status, the researchers noted. Once they adjusted for those
measures, the differences in dementia rates disappeared, they said.
Other public health news of interest this week includes:
• U.S. states, tribes and territories should consider monitoring locally caught freshwater fish for PFAS contamination, EPA recommended July 11. The agency added several types of PFAS to its contaminant list alongside lead, three cyanotoxins, a flame retardant and amphetamine.
• Suicide rates remain disproportionately high for construction workers, new research in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine says. Among U.S. suicide deaths reported by industry in 2021, about 18% occurred among construction workers, despite accounting for only 7.4% of the workforce.
• Chronic exposure to air pollutants can increase the risk of developing lupus, new research in Arthritis & Rheumatology finds.
• Older adult women who have heart surgery are more likely than older adult men to receive care at low-quality hospitals and to die afterward, according to a study in JAMA Network Open.
• Black, Hispanic and American Indian populations are exposed to higher concentrations of contaminants in their drinking water, a Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology study in California shows.
The Watch is written by Michele Late, who has more than two decades of experience as a public health journalist.
