A weekly roundup of public health news
Hospital-based obstetric care getting harder to find
Access to obstetric care is on the decline at U.S. hospitals, with some states lacking services at most facilities, a new study in Health Affairs shows.
Nearly 540 short-term acute care U.S. hospitals shut down their obstetric services from 2010 to 2022, resulting in a lack of care at 52% of all rural hospitals and about 36% of urban hospitals, research published last year found.
The new study, conducted by the same group of researchers, found that six states — Iowa, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and West Virginia — and Washington, D.C., lost obstetric care at 25% or more of their hospitals from 2010 to 2022.
States that were highly rural had the most limited access to services, researchers said. By 2022, more than 60% of hospitals in several highly rural states — including Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and West Virginia — had no obstetric services.
Only three states — Delaware, Utah and Vermont — experienced no losses in hospital-based obstetric care, which includes prenatal ultrasounds, screenings, fetal monitoring, labor, delivery and postpartum care.
Reasons for the closures include declining reimbursement rates for Medicaid, which covers more than 40% of all births in the U.S., staffing shortages and increased costs of care.
Keep insurers out of policy debates, bring in scientists, Americans say
Most Americans think insurance companies have too much influence on health policies, a new poll from Pew Research Center shows.
Released July 10, the national poll found 69% of Americans are uncomfortable with the role health insurers play in health policy debates, with similar rates for members of both major political parties. Only 9% of respondents said insurer influence is “about the right amount.” Health insurers have faced criticisms in recent years for issues such as high claim denial rates, prior authorizations that delay care and oversized deductibles.
On the flip side, more than half of poll respondents said health scientists should be playing a larger role in health policy, with only 14% saying scientists have too much influence. Survey-takers were split by political party on the influence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, with 33% of Democrats saying the public health agency does not have enough influence and 45% of Republicans saying it has too much.
The poll, conducted in April and May, comes as the nation’s health system and policies undergo enormous disruptions under the Trump administration, impacting everything from Medicaid coverage to vaccination recommendations.
Southwest megadrought will not ease up anytime soon, study says
The ongoing megadrought in the Southwest U.S. could continue another 75 years, if not longer, new research predicts.
The megadrought, which began in 2000, has dried up soil, depleted reservoirs and fueled wildfires. Though some scientists have hoped natural variability in climate would ease conditions, the new study in Nature Geoscience says that may not be the case.
Researchers used lake sediment samples to model a drought that occurred in the region 6,000 to 9,000 years ago during a time of unusually high heat and other conditions similar to today. Based on that drought, which lasted an unusually long time, the study estimated the current megadrought could continue at least through 2100.
While megadroughts historically have occurred in the Southwest region, the current one is the worst one in 1,200 years, due in large part to human activity. One contributor is air pollution from industry, vehicles and other human-fueled sources, which has lowered precipitation in the Southwest, according to another study in Nature Geosciences.
Aerosols in air pollution can interfere with cloud moisture’s ability to form raindrops or snow, leading to less precipitation reaching the ground. Combined with increasing temperatures from human-caused climate change, the current drought was “inevitable,” researchers said.
Other recent public health news of note includes:
• Major cuts to Medicaid levied under a new federal spending bill are expected to have severe health and economic consequences. Published July 16 in JAMA Health Forum, a new study says as many as 14.4 million Americans could be uninsured by 2034 because of the recently approved 2025 budget reconciliation bill. About 2,600 jobs may be lost each year, more rural hospitals could close and an additional 2,300 people may die annually as people are removed from Medicaid, according to researchers.
• Clearing trees and other vegetation from forested areas can make extreme floods more frequent, according to a new study in the Journal of Hydrology. Researchers looked at the impact of clear-cutting — when trees and other vegetation are removed from a natural space for development, logging or other purposes — in a forest in North Carolina. They found the practice can make catastrophic floods 18 times more frequent, with effects lasting more than 40 years.
• Setting limits on the amount of fungi that is considered safe in indoor air could better protect human health in workplaces, public spaces and homes, new research in the Journal of Hazardous Materials says. While microbial contaminants such as fungi and bacteria can make up more than a third of indoor air pollution, many countries lack limits for exposure, researchers said. The new study offers species-specific health risk estimates for indoor airborne microbes, which can lead to lung inflammation and tissue damage.
• A new study in JAMA Network Open finds people who resided near a nuclear-waste contaminated creek in Missouri during their childhoods are at higher risk for cancer. Researchers found children who lived less than a kilometer from Coldwater Creek in North St. Louis during the 1940s through 1960s had a 44% higher risk of developing any type of cancer in their lifetimes than children who grew up farther away. Risks for radiosensitive cancer were 85% higher. Radioactive waste from atomic bomb research was stored near a St. Louis, Missouri, airport beginning in the 1940s, contaminating the creek, which flows into nearby neighborhoods.
• Repeat flooding in North Carolina is more common and widespread than recognized, according to new findings in Earth’s Future. The study mapped more than 70 floods in the state from 1996 to 2020, determining that more than 90,000 buildings were flooded at least once, with 43% of them located outside high-risk floodplains. About 20,000 buildings had been flooded multiple times.
• Environmental exposure to toxic metals can harm infant growth, a new study in Environmental Pollution finds. Researchers found higher concentrations of arsenic, barium, beryllium and lead in breast milk were associated with stunting, a condition in which children are shorter than expected for their age.
• Women who experience depression soon after giving birth may struggle with caregiving, new research says. Maternal postpartum depression can interfere with mother-baby bonding, leading to less interaction, low sensitivity to child needs and more negative emotions, said the study in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.
The Watch is written by Michele Late, who has more than two decades of experience as a public health journalist.