Studies in the News is a very current compilation of items significant to the Legislature and Governor's Office. It is created weekly by the State Library's Research Bureau to supplement the public policy debate in California’s Capitol. To help share the latest information with state policymakers, these reading lists are now being made accessible through the State Library’s website. This week's list of current articles in various public policy areas is presented below.

Service to State Employees:

• When available, the URL for the full text of each item is provided.

• Items in the State Library collection can be checked out to state officials and staff.

• Access to all materials listed will be provided by the State Information Reference Center, either by e-mail to cslsirc@library.ca.gov or by calling 654-0261.

HEALTH

ACCESS TO CARE

"Eliminating Health Disparities Among Minority Women." By Kritek PB and others. IN: American Journal of Public Health, vol. 92, no. 4 (April 2002) pp. 580-587.

["The primary purpose of this article is to report on the outcomes of a conference convened to explore the health disparities that women of color in the United States experience. Presentations on topics drawn from the literature on women of color, particularly those in rural communities, served as catalysts for generating recommendations (some of which were voted as 'priority recommendations') on policy, intervention, and research that could potentially guide the decision-making of a wide variety of constituencies."]

[Request #S4822]

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"Alcohol Use Among Women of Childbearing Age - United States, 1991 - 1999." Centers for Disease Control. IN: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, vol.51, no.13 (April 5, 2002) pp. 273-276.

Full Text at: www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5113a2.htm

["This report finds that alcohol use among pregnant women has declined but binge and frequent drinking among this group continues to be high. One of the leading preventable causes of birth defects, mental retardation, and neuro-developmental disorders is prenatal exposure to alcohol." CDF Child Health Information Project (April 5, 2002)]

[Request #S4823]

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Asthma: Epidemic Increase, Cause Unknown. By A. John Oguntomilade and others, Public Health Policy Advisory Board. (The Board, Washington, DC) March 2002. 16 p.

Full Text at: www.phpab.org/asthma%20report/asthma.pdf

["The report calls for public health professionals to concentrate on identifying the roots causing sickness and death due to asthma. Another issue is the disproportionate asthma rates among minority groups, especially African Americans. Prevention is only possible by understanding all conditions and effects of the asthma epidemic." CDF Child Health Information Project (April 19, 2002)1.]

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Nursing Homes: Federal Efforts to Monitor Resident Assessment Data Should Complement State Activities. By the U.S. General Accounting Office. GAO-02-279. (The Office, Washington, DC) February 2002. 44 p.

Full Text at: www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?gao-02-279

["Eleven states have established separate Minimum data set (MDS) review programs, to monitor the accuracy of resident assessment data compiled by nursing homes.... The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) began building the foundation for its own separate review program-distinct from state efforts-intended to ensure the accuracy of MDS data for all nursing home residents.... We believe that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should reorient its MDS accuracy program so that it complements and leverages existing state review activities and its own established nursing home oversight efforts."]

[Request #S4825]

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Mobilizing America's Health Care Reservoir: Special Issue: Emergency Management in the New Millenium. By the Joint Commission Resources, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Joint Commission Perspectives. Vol. 21, No. 12. (The Commission, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois) December 2001. 24 p.

Full Text at: www.jcrinc.com/subscribers/images/pubs/pdfs/12-01%20persp.pdf

["The experiences of hospitals that responded to victims of September 11 give facilities an indication of what they can expect and how they prepare for a mass-casualty attack, according to the JCAHO report.... The team discovered it could have benefited greatly if its members had included mental health, pathology, and family support experts." BNA Health Care Policy Report (December 10, 2001) 1839.]

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Outpatient Care: A Conceptual Framework and a Form for Structured Implicit Review. By Michael S. Broder, RAND Corporation, and others. MR-1258-CMS. Prepared for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (RAND, Santa Monica, California) 2002. 57 p.

Full Text at: www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1258/

["Beginning in 1993, when Medicare Peer Review Organizations (PROs) stopped random audits of Medicare beneficiary charts, the PROs have increased their focus on beneficiary complaints as a source of quality care data. Tracking complaints is now the primary method PROs have to identify physicians or organizations that provide substandard care.... This report describes one element of a project funded by HCFA that was aimed at improving the Medicare beneficiary complaint process."]

[Request #S4827]

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National Health Expenditures Projections: 2001 - 2011. By the Office of the Actuary, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (The Centers, Washington, DC) March 2002. 17 p.

Full Text at: http://www.hcfa.gov/stats/nhe-proj/proj2001/Proj2001.pdf

["By 2011, health care expenditures are projected to more than double to $2.8 trillion annually and account for 17 percent of the GDP, government forecasters predict." Sacramento Bee (March 12, 2002) A6.]

[Request #S4828]

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California Caregivers: Preliminary Labor Market Analysis. By Jordan Rickles and Paul M. Ong, UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research. Prepared for the California Employment Development Department. (The School, Los Angeles, California) November 1, 2001. 31 p.

Full Text at: www.calmis.ca.gov/SpecialReports/CTI-Labor-Market-PrelimRpt.pdf

["Using data from the Occupational Employment Survey, the California Cooperative Occupational Information System, the Base Wage File and the Business Establishment List, we focus on three aspects of the caregiver occupations: The wages caregivers receive; The job benefits available to caregivers; and The degree of job stability in caregiver industries."]

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Changes in Insurance Coverage: 1994-2000 and Beyond. By John Holahan and Mary Beth Pohl, Urban Institute. Prepared for Project HOPE – the People to People Health Foundation. (The Foundation, Millwood, Virginia) April 3, 2002. 5 p.

Full Text at: www.healthaffairs.org/WebExclusives/Holahan_Web_Excl_040302.htm

["Cracks Opening in Health Insurance Coverage: While enrollment in employer-sponsored health insurance plans surged by nearly 16 million during the economic boom of the 1990s, the percentage of uninsured Americans remained the same.... That expansion masked some troubling trends. Medicaid and other state-based coverage of adults dropped significantly.... How much the number of uninsured will rise will also depend on how employers respond to rising health insurance premiums, how much individual-market insurance premiums rise and how governors respond to state Medicaid shortfalls. AScribe Newswire (April 2, 2002) 1.]

[Request #S4834]

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Assisting Laid-Off Workers in Washington State with Health Care Coverage. By Rebecca Kavoussi, Economic Opportunity Institute. (The Institute, Seattle, Washington) March 2002. 4 p.

Full Text at: www..eoionline.org/Health-CoverageForLaidOffWorders.pdf

["The state's Basic Health Plan is the most effective and least expensive way to facilitate health care coverage for laid-off workers. The system is already in place to administer an increase in the number of participants and provide health care to laid-off workers and their families. In addition, interest on the state's extremely large Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund can readily meet the costs of this health care coverage for more than 50,000 laid-off workers each month."]

[Request #S4835]

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Vaccines for Children: Supply at Risk. By the Division of Communication, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. (The United Nations, New York, New York) March 2002. 4 p.

Full Text at: www.unicef.org/pubsgen/vaccines/vaccine-supply.pdf

["UNICEF warns us about a serious shortage in vaccines, not just in the developing world, but in industrialized countries including the United States. Between 1998 and 2001, 10 out of 14 vaccine manufacturers have partially or totally stopped production of traditional childhood vaccines, including such vaccines as polio, measles, tetanus and the combined DTP (diptheria, tetanus and pertussis)." Connect for Kids (April 15, 2002)]

[Request #S4837]

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"Health and Human Services 'Privacy' Standards: The Coming Destruction of American Medical Privacy." By Charlotte Twight, Boise State University. IN: The Independent Review, vol. 6, no. 4 (Spring 2002). pp. 485-511.

Full Text at: www.independent.org/tii/media/pdf/tir64twight.pdf

["Federal privacy regulations ... perpetuate a fraud on the American people, proclaiming privacy as their goal when ever-wider access to individual medical records is their actual and intended effect. In this article I document the stark contrast between what Americans want and what they are getting ... examining how and why that incongruity emerged."]

[Request #S4839]

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Information for Health: A Strategy for Building the National Health Information Infrastructure: Report and Recommendations. By the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (The Department, Washington, DC) November 15, 2001. 100 p.

Full Text at: ncvhs.hhs.gov/nhiilayo.pdf

["This report outlines a vision and a process for building a health support system -- the National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII). The NHII includes not just technologies but, more importantly, values, practices, relationships, laws, standards, systems, and applications that support all facets of individual health, health care, and public health."]

[Request #S4840]

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California Employer Health Benefits Survey, 2001. By The Kaiser Family Foundation. (The Foundation, Menlo Park, California) February 2002. Various pagings.

Full Text at: www.kff.org/contact/2002/3205/CAEHBIChartpack.pdf

["The survey... showed that health insurers charged businesses 9.9 percent more last year. For small companies the increases topped 11 percent." Orange County Register (February 20, 2002) 1.]

[Request #S4841]

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Long-Term Care Insurance: An Assessment of States' Capacity to Review and Regulate Rates. By Steven Lutzky and others, The Lewin Group. #2002-02. (The AARP Public Policy Institute Institute, Washington DC) February 2002. 69 p.

Full Text at: research.aarp.org/il/2002_02_ltc.pdf

["The authors document inadequacies in the state governments' review of long-term care insurance rates. They recommend that states require review by an actuary with training in long-term care insurance; review the pricing and the assumptions used to set the prices; and provide consumers with comparative rate guides and information on insurance companies' rate increase histories."]

[Request #S4842]

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The New Medicaid and CHIP Waiver Initiatives. By Cindy Mann, The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. (The Commission, Washington, DC) February 2002. 38 p.

Full Text at: www.kff.org/content/2002/4028/4028.pdf

["According to this briefing from the Kaiser Family Foundation, federal waivers can give states additional flexibility to expand coverage to new populations, but financing constraints also mean these waivers could be used to reduce benefits, limit enrollment or impose higher cost-sharing for some current and new enrollees." Connect for Kids (March 4, 2002)]

[Request #S4843]

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Building State Medicaid Capacity to Provide Child Development Services: Early Findings from the ABCD Consortium. By Deborah Curtis, National Academy for State Health Policy. The Commonwealth Fund. (The Academy, Portland, Maine) February 2002. 27 p.

Full Text at: www.cmwf.org/programs/child/curtis_nashp_cw3.pdf

["The Assuring Better Care and Development (ABCD) Projects have considerable potential to improve the delivery and financing of early child health and development for Medicaid-eligible children in their respective states. Over the course of the past year, they have made significant strides in addressing the issues and challenges that will lead to that improvement."]

[Request #S4844]

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Medi-Cal After Welfare Reform: Enrollment Among Former Welfare Recipients. Issue Brief and Addendum. By Amy G. Cox, RAND Corporation, and others. Prepared for the Medi-Cal Policy Institute. (The Institute, Oakland, California) December 2001.

["This issue brief summarizes new research that is based on individual-level, post-welfare reform data. The research addresses the question of whether welfare reform has adversely affected Medi-Cal enrollment among former welfare recipients by looking directly at the enrollment trends for this group."]

Issue Brief. 12 p.
admin.chcf.org/documents/mcpi/MediCalAfterWelfareReformIssueBrief.pdf

Addendum. 4 p.
admin.chcf.org/documents/mcpi/MediCalAfterWelfareReformAddendum.pdf

[Request #S4845]

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Nursing Homes: Many Shortcomings Exist in Efforts to Protect Residents From Abuse. GAO-02-448T. March 4, 2002. 15 p. Nursing Homes: More Can Be Done to Protect Residents from Abuse. GAO-02-312. By the U.S. General Accounting Office. (The Office, Washington, DC) March 2002. 41 p.

Full Text at: www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?-02-448T

["Physical and sexual abuse of nursing home residents is not being promptly reported to local authorities and is rarely prosecuted.... Existing safeguards are clearly inadequate, the report says, since more than 30 percent of the nation's nursing homes have been cited by state inspectors for violations that harmed residents or placed them in immediate jeopardy."]

[Request #S4847]

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"Fixing a Fat Nation: Why Diets and Gyms Won't Save us From the Obesity Epidemic." By Tom Farley and Deborah Cohen. IN: The Washington Monthly Online (December 2001)[online.]

Full Text at: www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0112.farley.cohen.html

["Obesity is not just an image problem. Those who are overweigtht are more likely than thin people to die from heart disease ... have higher blood pressure and greater risk of stroke and kidney failure caused by hypertension; colon, breast, and prostate cancer; gallstones ... arthritis and diabetes."]

[Request #S4848]

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Health Risks of Obesity: Worse that Smoking, Drinking, or Poverty. By the RAND Corporation. RB-4549. (The Corporation, Santa Monica, California) 2002. 4 p.

Full Text at: www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB4549/

["Rand researchers examined the comparative effects of obesity, smoking, heavy drinking, and poverty on chronic health conditions and health expenditures. Their finding: Obesity is the most serious problem. It is linked to a big increase in chronic health conditions and significantly higher health expenditures.... RANDs findings suggest that weight reduction should be an urgent public health priority."]

[Request #S4849]

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Implementing the Federal Health Privacy Rule in California. By Joy Pritts, Health Privacy Project, California HealthCare Foundation. (The Foundation, Oakland, California) February 2002. Various pagings.

Full Text at: ehealth.chcf.org/view.cfm?section=Privacy&itemID=4828

["The Federal Health Privacy Rule became effective in 2001.... The structure is similar to California patient privacy laws.... In general, the Federal rule prohibits the sharing of individual identifiable health information without the patient's permission unless the disclosure is permitted by the rule.... Three implementation guides are designed to support the industry's compliance efforts."]

[Request #S4850]

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Medicare Outpatient Drugs: Program Payments Should Better Reflect Market Prices. By the U.S. General Accounting Office. GAO-02-531T. (The Office, Washington, DC) March 14, 2002. 13 p.

Full Text at: www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?gao-02-531T

["Medicare bases its reimbursements to physicians and other providers for a covered outpatient drug on the product's average wholesale price (AWP). AWP, however, is neither 'average' nor 'wholesale;' it is simply a number assigned by the product's manufacturer. The AWP is often described as a 'list price,' 'sticker price,' or 'suggested retail price,' reflecting that it is not necessarily the price paid by a purchaser or a consistently low, or 'wholesale price.']

[Request #S4853]

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The Costs of a Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. By Dana P. Goldman and others, RAND Corporation. IN: Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy, vol. 2, no. 1 (2002) pp. [online.]

Full Text at: www.bepress.com/cgi/viewpdf.cgi?article=1028&context=bejeap

["In this paper, we present a microsimulation model to predict drug expenditures in 2001 for a representative cohort of Medicare beneficiaries under the status quo and three different plans: a catastrophic plan; a zero-deductible plan that caps out-of-pocket expenses ... and a zero-deductible plan that does not cap out-of-pocket expenses."]

[Request #S4856]

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Prescription Drug Access: Not Just a Medicare Problem. By Peter J. Cunningham, Center for Studying Health System Change. Issue Brief No. 51. (The Center, Washington, DC) April 2002. 4 p.

Full Text at: www.hschange.com/CONTENT/429/429.pdf

["Faced with rapidly rising drug spending, many states have moved to control Medicaid prescription drug spending by imposing copayments, limiting the number of prescriptions and using other cost-containment methods. The study indicates that these state cost-control measures are contributing to Medicaid beneficiaries' prescription drug access problems."]

[Request #S4857]

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Substance Use and Dependence among Welfare Recipients. By Harold A. Pollack and others. JCPR Policy Brief. Vol. 4, No. 2. (Joint Center for Poverty Research, Evanston and Chicago, Illinois) 2002. 2 p.

Full Text at: www.jcpr.org/policybriefs/vol4_num2.html

["The prevalence of substance use and dependence among welfare recipients is easily overstated. Approximately one-fifth of recipients reported using some illicit drugs during the last year. Poor education, lack of transportation, physical and mental health problems, and many other difficulties are more common than substance use disorders.... Findings highlight the importance of screening, assessment, and appropriate services for welfare recipients who experience drug use disorders."]

[Request #S4860]

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Screening for Breast Cancer. By Alfred O. Berg, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. (The Task Force, Rockville Maryland) February 2002. 10 p.

Full Text at: www.ahrq.gov/clinic/3rduspstf/breastcancer/brcanrr.pdf

["HHS Affirms Value of Mammography for Detecting Breast Cancer: An updated recommendation from the Task Force calls for screening mammography, with or without clinical breast examination, every one to two years for women over 40. HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said: 'While developing technology certainly holds the promise for new detection and treatment methods, mammography remains a strong and important tool in the early detection of breast cancer." States News Service (March 5, 2002) 1.]

[Request #S4862]

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[This section links to items in Studies in the News since the last Health Care Supplement.]

HEALTH CARE

"Health." IN: Studies in the News, 02-15 (March 5, 2002).

Full Text at: www.library.ca.gov/sitn/2002/0215.htm#HEALTH

[Includes: "Active minds help deter Alzheimer's;" "Millions of children newly covered by states;" "Out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare beneficiaries;" "Metabolic syndrome among U.S. adults;" "Pay for performance initiative;" "Untreated sexually transmitted diseases."]

[Request #S4406]

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"Health." IN: Studies in the News, 02-18 (March 18, 2002).

Full Text at: www.library.ca.gov/sitn/2002/0218.htm#HEALTH

[Includes: "HIV Impact;" "Underage drinking epidemic;" "Ambulatory surgical centers;" "Financial health of California hospitals;" "County by county Medi-Cal data;" "Influenza vaccine."]

[Request #S4407]

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"Health." IN: Studies in the News, 02-22 (April 5, 2002).

Full Text at: www.library.ca.gov/sitn/2002/0222.htm#HEALTH

[Includes: "Lung cancer and fine particulate air pollution;" "Residential care facilities for the elderly;" "Overview of care for the elderly ;" "Oregon health care reform."]

[Request #S4408]

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"Health." IN: Studies in the News, 02-25 (April 22, 2002).

[Includes: "Changing the culture of drinking in colleges;" "Cancer prevention and control initiatives;" "States' response to people with disabilities;" "Expansion of Health Centers;" "Toolkit for managing Medicaid costs."]

[Request #S4409]

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