HEOR News

Thousands of Experts Hired to Aid Public Health Departments Are Losing Their Jobs (KHN)

The majority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation’s contracts for about 4000 epidemiologists, communication specialists, and public health nurses—hired to help understaffed local health departments during the COVID-19 pandemic—are about to expire, leaving these departments to deal with a possible winter uptick in COVID cases, the ongoing threat of monkeypox, and other public health issues.
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Depression, Panic Disorder Fester in Korea as Social Stigma Persists (The Korea Herald)

In 2021, 256 people between the ages of 10 and 20 years took their own lives, with suicide being the number one cause of death of people under 30. These figures indicate that growing number of young people in Korea are suffering from mental illness, but social stigma prevents them from getting help.
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New Behavioral Science Guide Set to Help Policy Makers With Public Health (National Health Executive)

Public Health Wales and the University College London’s Centre for Behaviour Change have laid out a framework that can help public health policy makers and decision makers use the principles of behavioral health to increase the chances of getting their desired outcomes.
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AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 (Mis)adventure and the Future of Vaccine Equity (BMJ)

Robert Fortner writes about what went wrong in AstraZeneca’s nonprofit partnership with Oxford University in developing the latter’s COVID-19 vaccine, and the implications for future vaccine development, especially for lower- and middle-income countries.
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To Start Rebuilding the COVID-19 Safety Net, Amend the 340B Drug Discount Program  (Health Affairs)

With the ongoing public health emergency of COVID-19, Mika K. Hamer, Kelsey M. Owsley, and Lindsey E. Fish say the Health Resources and Services Administration should revise the 340B policy to allow eligible entities to buy therapeutics with emergency use authorization for the treatment of COVID-19.
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African Region Tops World in Undiagnosed Diabetes: World Health Organization Analysis (WHO)

The World Health Organization study found that only 46% of people living with diabetes in the African region know their status, with some of the barriers to testing being lack of testing facilities and equipment, inadequate number of trained health personnel, poor access to health facilities, and lack of awareness about diabetes.
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Nigerians Trade Waste Material for Health Insurance (Zawya)

With only 3% of Nigerians having health insurance, Soso Care’s program allows people who do not have enough money to see a doctor to get healthcare coverage by collecting and turning in waste material such as plastic and used car batteries.
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Sidra Medicine Study Reveals Genetic Map of Arab and Middle Eastern Populations (Middle East Health)

The high-resolution map of the genetic structure of Arab and Middle Eastern populations published in Nature Communications may lead to greater strides in precision medicine tailored to these groups.
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Diabetes Cases in the MENA Region to Increase to More Than 135 Million by 2045 (Zawya)

Cases are being driven by unhealthy eating patterns based on increased income and urbanization, lack of physical activity, and less emphasis on nutritional education.
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Children to Be Screened for Diabetes Risk in United Kingdom Early Detection Trial (The Guardian)

The study, dubbed Elsa (Early Surveillance for Autoimmune Diabetes), will be looking at 20,000 children between the ages of 3 and 13 years to determine their risk of developing type 1 diabetes and detecting it at the earliest state possible.
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