Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

Getting less than six hours of sleep a night raises levels of inflammation among women with heart disease, and therefore increases the risk of a heart attack, according to a five-year study led by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumnus Aric Prather, PhD. The findings did not hold true for men. United Press International and HealthDay are among the outlets to report on the findings.

RWJF Community Health Leader Darleen Reveille, RN, spoke to The Record about new community gardens in Garfield, New Jersey, and a program that will give 7th-graders and their families hands-on gardening experience as a way to learn healthy eating habits. “We’re trying to raise awareness in a fun way,” she said. “By creating these activities, you’re engaging the community, not just lecturing them on what they should do.”

“Nurses are particularly at risk for becoming overwhelmed and depleted,” RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumna Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, told the Washington Post about “compassion fatigue ” She said: “When the clinician suffers, so does the patient,” which is why many hospitals are using creative arts to help nurses manage stress and re-energize. Fierce Healthcare also picked up the story.

A study led by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholars alumnus Deverick J. Anderson, MD, MPH, finds that small community hospitals have higher rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia than larger hospitals, even though they use ventilators less frequently. The researchers hypothesize the disparity could result from limited familiarity with the equipment and the on-staff availability of fewer respiratory therapists and other specialty workers, News Medical and Fierce Healthcare report.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

RWJF this week launched the Future of Nursing Scholars program, a $20-million initiative to support some of the country’s best and brightest nurses as they pursue PhDs. The program will provide scholarships, stipends, mentoring, leadership development, and dedicated post-doctoral research support, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports. John Lumpkin, MD, MPH, RWJF senior vice president and director of the Health Care Group, said: “The PhD-prepared nurses the Future of Nursing Scholars program supports will help identify solutions to the country’s most pressing health problems, and educate thousands of nurses over the course of their careers.” Read more about the program.

Patients who are involved in their care spend more time in the hospital and increase the cost of their hospital stays, compared to patients who delegate medical decisions to their doctors, according to a study led by David Meltzer, MD, PhD. Meltzer is an alumnus of the RWJF Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars program, and recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research. Among the outlets to report on the findings: HealthDay, Time Magazine’s Healthland blog, United Press International, and Modern Healthcare.

A study led by RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholar Jodi Ford, PhD, RN, finds that having lived in a poor neighborhood as a teen—even if the teen’s family wasn’t poor—increases the risk of having chlamydia in young adulthood by 25 percent, compared to teenagers living in wealthier settings, Science Daily reports.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

Smoking and not having a job are the two factors most strongly associated with higher death rates among the country’s least educated white women, according to a study led by RWJF Health & Society Scholar Jennifer Karas Montez, PhD, published today in The Journal of Health and Social Behavior. The study found that the odds of dying for the least educated women were 66 percent greater than for their more highly educated peers between 2002 and 2006, the New York Times reports. Read more about Montez’s research.

Many consumers significantly underestimate the calorie counts of fast food meals, according to a study led by Health & Society Scholars alumnus Jason Block, MD, MPH. One-fourth of study participants underestimated the calories in the meals they ordered by at least 500 calories, USA Today reports, with teens underestimating the most. Among other outlets to report on the findings: United Press International, CBS News, and MedPage Today. Read more about the study.

A survey from Yale and George Mason universities finds that 70 percent of American adults say global warming should be a priority for the nation’s leaders, the Los Angeles Times reports, and an even greater percentage say developing sources of clean energy should be a priority. The survey was co-authored by RWJF Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research recipient Edward W. Maibach, PhD, MPH, who directs the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

The New Jersey Nursing Initiative (NJNI), a project of RWJF and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Foundation, has graduated its first cohort of doctorally prepared nurses, NJ Spotlight reports. The new graduates are on track to become nursing professors, to help address New Jersey’s staggering 10.5 percent nurse faculty vacancy rate. Read more about the New Jersey Nursing Scholars who graduate this month.

In an op-ed for the Daily Journal, New Jersey Nursing Scholar Marlin Gross, MSN, APN, NP-C, writes, “I’m able to combine my love of nursing practice and education because NJNI put me on a fast track to a master’s degree in nursing… I also benefited from the program’s professional and personal development activities and its many mentoring and networking opportunities. But most importantly, NJNI helped me re-imagine my future. I now see myself as an emerging nurse leader and plan to enroll in a doctorate program in the fall to realize that vision.” Robert P. Wise, FACHE, a member of NJNI’s Leadership Council, also wrote about NJNI in an op-ed for The Times of Trenton.

Insight Into Diversity reports on the Dental Pipeline National Learning Institute, an RWJF-funded project led by the American Dental Education Association and the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. It is funding dental schools to create new recruitment projects that will help increase the number of underrepresented students at their institutions. Read a post on the RWJF Human Capital Blog by National Learning Institute Director Paul Glassman.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

RWJF Clinical Scholar Alan Teo, MD, MS, is the lead author of a study that finds the quality of a person’s social relationships influences the person's risk of major depression, regardless of how frequently their social interactions take place. “The magnitude of these results is similar to the well-established relationship between biological risk factors and cardiovascular disease,” Teo told Health Canal. “What that means is that if we can teach people how to improve the quality of their relationships, we may be able to prevent or reduce the devastating effects of clinical depression.”

RWJF recently announced the selection of 30 primary care practices as exemplary models of workforce innovation. The practices will serve as the basis for a new project: The Primary Care Team: Learning from Effective Ambulatory Practices (LEAP). Among them is CareSouth Carolina, the Hartsville Messenger reports. Learn more about the LEAP project and the practices selected for the program.

Low-income Oregonians who received access to Medicaid over the past two years used more health care services, and had higher rates of diabetes detection and management, lower rates of depression, and reduced financial strain than those without access to Medicaid, according to a study co-authored by RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research recipient Amy N. Finkelstein, PhD, MPhil. The study found no significant effect, however, on the diagnosis or treatment rates of hypertension or high cholesterol levels.  Among the outlets to report on the findings: Forbes, the New York Times, the Washington Post Wonk blog, Health Day, and the Boston Globe Health Stew blog. Read more about Finkelstein’s research on the Oregon Medicaid system.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

A study led by RWJF Clinical Scholar Tammy Chang, MD, MPH, finds that women who had their first child before age 20 are more likely to be obese later in life than those who were not teen moms, Health Day reports. “When clinicians care for teen mothers, we have so many immediate considerations— child care, housing, school, social and financial support—that we may fail to consider the long-term health effects of teen pregnancy,” Chang said. Caroline Richardson, MD, a Clinical Scholars alumna, and Matthew Davis, MD, MAPP, an alumnus and program site co-director at the University of Michigan, co-authored the study with Chang.

RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumnus Craig Volden, PhD, was a guest on MSNBC’s The Cycle to discuss his study published in the American Journal of Political Science. Volden and his colleagues examined the sponsorship histories of 140,000 bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives over the last 40 years, and concluded that female lawmakers may be more effective at passing legislation than their male counterparts, particularly during times of party polarization, because they tend to work across party lines.

A study led by RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows alumna Margaret Grey, DrPH, RN, FAAN, finds that Internet-based psycho-educational intervention programs improve outcomes for young patients entering adolescence with type 1 diabetes, Monthly Prescribing Reference reports.

Medical News Today and the MinnPost report on an article written by Gary Taubes, MSE, MS, recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, in The British Medical Journal about the non-profit he co-founded, the Nutrition Science Initiative. The Initiative will fund nutrition and obesity research, which Taubes says has been flawed and inconclusive in the past. Learn more about the Nutrition Science Initiative.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows, alumni and grantees. Some recent examples:

RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Physician Faculty Scholars alumnus Amal Trivedi, MD, MPH, is co-author of a study that finds older patients are routinely prescribed potentially harmful drugs, particularly in the South. Although the specific reasons for the regional differences are unknown, the researchers hypothesize factors like education, socioeconomic status, and access to quality medical care might be to blame, the New York Times Well Blog reports. NPR and Nurse.com are among the other outlets to report on the findings.

Fierce Healthcare reports on a study led by RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar Kelly Doran, MD, that finds frequent use of the emergency department at Veterans Health Administration facilities is often due to “severely compromised life circumstances,” rather than poor access to outpatient health care. The study raises questions about the degree to which increasing access to outpatient care, as the Affordable Care Act aims to do, will reduce emergency department use.

Manish K. Sethi, MD, a health policy associate at the RWJF Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College, spoke to the Leaf Chronicle about a program he started at Cameron College Prep Middle School in Nashville to teach teens conflict resolution strategies in an effort to reduce violence in the Nashville area. Read a Q&A with Sethi about the program.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

Asthmapolis, founded and directed by RWJF Health & Society Scholars alumnus David Van Sickle, PhD, MA, has secured a $5 million investment that will be used to expand operations and further enhance its product, the Milwaukee Business Journal  and Journal-Sentinel report. The company has engineered a GPS-enabled asthma inhaler called the Spiroscout, which sends a signal with the time and location to a remote server every time a patient uses it, allowing patients and providers to track and analyze the onset of asthma symptoms. Read more about Asthmapolis here and here.

Health & Society Scholar Sammy Zahran, PhD, is co-author of a study that finds that children in Detroit are being exposed to lead from an overlooked source: contaminated soil. Zahran and his team examined seasonal fluctuations in children’s blood lead levels and found that levels were highest in the summertime, when contaminated soil turns into airborne dust. The researchers were able to rule out exposure to lead-based paint as the main source of the contamination, NPR’s Shots Blog reports, because blood lead levels were lower in the winter, when children are more likely to be indoors.

A study from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, which is directed by RWJF Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research recipient Edward W. Maibach, PhD, MPH, finds a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents think action should be taken to address climate change, United Press International reports. The New York Times Dot Earth Blog also reported on the findings.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

A study led by RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholars alumnus Jeffrey Kullgren, MD, MPH, finds that weight loss programs motivate patients to lose more weight when they offer financial prizes in group competitions, rather than individual rewards. MedPage Today and Medscape [registration required] report on the findings.

Healthcare Finance News reports on a study co-authored by RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research recipient Mark A. Hall, JD, that finds insurers subject to the medical loss ratio requirements in 2011 spent less than one percent of premium revenue on quality improvements (0.74%) or rebates (0.35%). The researchers write that “current market forces do not strongly reward insurers’ investments in this area.”

In a post on the New York Times’ Room for Debate blog about prenuptial agreements, Investigator Award recipient Celeste Watkins-Hayes, PhD, writes: “There is no doubt that women need to be savvy about protecting their assets and ensuring that their contributions and hard work are valued, even in marriage. But prenups can only protect a certain demographic. What is needed is a comprehensive strengthening of all women’s safety nets through access to jobs that build wealth, increased financial literacy and a better infrastructure for raising children with or without a significant other.”

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

Patient-centered end-of-life care leads to happier patients who are in less pain and whose care costs less, RWJF/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar Jonathan Bergman, MD, and his colleagues write in the journal JAMA Surgery. Such care is already provided,  the Los Angeles Times reports, at the UCLA Health System, where urology residents are receiving education about end-of-life care, and at the West L.A. Veterans Affairs Medical Center where researchers are integrating palliative care into cancer treatment.

The current system used to evaluate the appropriateness of emergency department visits—and sometimes to deny payment—is flawed, according to a study co-authored by RWJF Physician Faculty Scholars alumna Renee Hsia, MD, MSc, because it only takes into account a patient’s discharge diagnosis (for example, acid reflux), which is often not the reason they originally presented at the ER (chest pain). The researchers warn this could have serious implications, including dissuading patients from using the ER even when their symptoms indicate that they should, United Press International reports.

Susan Wolf, JD, recipient of an RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, spoke to the Boston Globe about new recommendations from a national organization of genetics specialists that “urge doctors who sequence a patient’s full set of genes for any medical reason to also look for two dozen unrelated genetic conditions, and to tell the individual if they find any of those conditions lurking in the DNA.” All of the genetic mutations on the list are rare, but some indicate an increased risk of cancer or heart disease. In some cases, the genetic results could also indicate that the patients' blood relatives have increased risk, as well.