211 LA County (211 LA) provides care coordination in its pilot program aimed at screening children birth to 5 years of age using Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS), PEDS Developmental Milestones (PEDS:DM) and the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), these are high quality, web-based tool employed over the telephone. PEDS is an evidence-based brief screening that elicits and addresses parents’ concerns to detect 70-80% of a wide range of developmental and behavioral issues in children.  The M-CHAT tests for Autism Spectrum Disorders against typically developing children.

To increase the number of low income children getting screened for developmental delays, 211 LA partnered with the Early Identification and Intervention Collaborative of Los Angeles County (includes 350 organizations across multiple sectors) dedicated to improving and expanding timely identification of and intervention for children with or at risk of delays, disabilities and other barriers of development. The partnership focused on callers to the Parent Helpline staffed by 211 LA information and referral specialists and funded by the First 5 LA Commission, created a unique and innovative approach to screen children using online evidence based screening tools to identify children birth to 5 years of age who need intervention services.

From September 2009 to October 2011, 2,845 children have been screened. A total of 28% (803) of the children screened were found to be in the highest risk category for developmental delay or disability; another 28% (782) were found to be at moderate risk and 16% (463) were at elevated risk for behavioral or mental health problems; only 28% (797) were at low risk. In addition to the PEDS, 211 LA care coordinators employed the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), finding 21% of children screened having an elevated risk for Autism. These incredible outcomes motivated the Los Angeles County Office of Education-Special Education Division, the Los Angeles County Office of Education Head Start State Preschool, Comprehensive Autism Related Education, Inc., the Child Development Institute, and several other key service providers to partner with 211 LA so that children who demonstrate elevated risk receive follow-up and continuing services. This powerful regional partnership attracted grant funding from the following foundations: W.M. Keck, Weingart, S. Mark Taper; and matching grants from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and First 5 LA to fund the specialized care coordination work at 211 LA and to expand the program to reach more children.

Results from the Intervention Early Developmental Screening:
The findings suggest that the project is consistently and continuously identifying children at a much higher risk for developmental delays and disabilities as compared to the general population. Close to 70% of the children being screened by the project are found to have some level of risk that requires follow-up and care coordination. This is disconcerting given that the proportion of children expected to have a “Path A” result from a PEDS screening is more typically 11%, while approximately 9.7% would be expected to fail the M-CHAT.

A new analysis of malaria mortality published in The Lancet this week suggests deaths to the parasitic disease worldwide have been grossly underestimated, especially in adults. If confirmed, the study has huge implications for how large amounts of charity money are spent in controlling the disease.

Washington Post

Colorado’s table was set for monster fire [Agriculture Dept., Forest Service, climate change] – Darryl Fears reports that the U.S. Forest Service chief says the record-breaking forest fires in western states in the last decade are due to climate change as temperatures increase, and estimates that the agency needs to clear 82 million acres of dead trees and grass in order to prevent fires from spreading; meanwhile, limitations on logging to protect animal species and expansion of residential areas have contributed to increased fire risk

New York Times

Judge strikes main element of for-profit college rules [Education Dept., for-profit colleges] – Tamar Lewin reports that a federal judge in Washington State struck down one of the Education Department’s new requirements for federal aid to non-profit colleges – that at least 35 percent of graduates must be repaying their loans – because that requirement did not measure whether a program was effective in preparing students; the judge let stand the department’s requirement that “career-college programs must disclose to students their graduation rate, their placement rate and their students’ median debt load”

Wall Street Journal

High Court rejects challenges to media rules [Federal Communications Commission] – Amy Schatz and Brent Kendall report that the Supreme Court decided not to hear broadcasters’ challenges to the Federal Communications Commission’s media ownership rules that limit cross-ownership of broadcast and newspapers in the same market – broadcasters had argued that FCC should no longer wield such power because there were many more media outlets today than when the Court held that the FCC’s power to impose ownership limits was constitutional; separately, the Court turned down the FCC’s appeal of a decision throwing out its ‘indecency” fine of broadcasters for airing “fleeting profanity and nudity” in the 2004 Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident

ProPublica

How a lone grad student scooped the government and what it means for your online privacy [Federal Trade Commission, online privacy] – Peter Maas reports that a graduate student in law and computer science at Stanford uncovered “digital shadowing” by Google, prohibited by the Federal Trade Commission, before the agency did and that European regulators are also ahead of the U.S. in uncovering invasions of online privacy; he concludes that “the FTC is ill-equipped to find out, on its own, what companies like Google and Facebook are doing behind the scenes”

Worldwide increases in the incidences of asthma, allergies, infectious and cardiovascular diseases will result from a variety of impacts of global climate change, including rising temperatures, worsening ozone levels in urban areas, the spread of desertification, and expansions of the ranges of communicable diseases as the planet heats up, the professional organization represen.

There are large differences in US health insurance coverage by racial and ethnic groups, yet there have been no estimates to date on how implementation of the Affordable Care Act will affect the distribution of coverage by race and ethnicity.  Using a microsimulation model to show that racial and ethnic differentials in coverage could be greatly reduced, potentially cutting the eight-percentage-point black-white differential in uninsurance rates by more than half and the nineteen-percentage-point Hispanic-white differential by just under one-quarter.

However, blacks and Hispanics are still projected to remain more likely to be uninsured than whites. Achieving low uninsurance under the Affordable Care Act will depend on effective state policies to attain high enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the new insurance exchanges. Coverage gains among Hispanics will probably depend on adoption of strategies that address language and related barriers to enrollment and retention in California and Texas, where almost half of Hispanics live. If uninsurance is reduced to the extent projected in this analysis, sizable reductions in long-standing racial and ethnic differentials in access to health care and health status are likely to follow.

The new UK alcohol strategy includes a plan to ensure that General Practitioners (GPs) advise heavy drinkers to cut down (The Government’s Alcohol Strategy, 23 March 2012, downloadable*). There is good evidence that this can reduce how much people drink.

Washington Post

Friday’s storm raises questions about safety of cloud computing [General Services Administration, cloud computing] – Craig Timberg reports that there are concerns about the government’s shift to cloud computing – a process of storing information remotely at data centers controlled by Amazon or Google – in light of power outages caused by severe storms across the Midwest and East that affected Netflix and Pinterest, large companies that use cloud computing

GlaxoSmithKline to pay $3B in largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history [Justice Dept., Food and Drug Administration] – AP reports that as part of its settlement of criminal and civil charges brought by the Justice Department, GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay the largest fine ever by a drug manufacturer for essentially bribing doctors to use an array of drugs for uses unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration and failing to report safety issues with the diabetes drug Avandia; the company’s unlawful practices were flagged by whistleblowers – salespeople at the company – over a decade ago

New York Times

Agency confronts hurdles in helping veterans match military skills to civilian jobs [Veterans Affairs Dept.] – James Dao reports on a job fair in Detroit arranged by the Veterans Affairs Department, part of the agency’s effort to help veterans who have difficulty convincing employers that their military skills translate to the civilian workplace

Cost to protect U.S. secrets doubles to over $11 billion [CIA, National Security Agency, Information Security Oversight Office] – Scott Shane reports that although there is an ongoing debate about how much government information needs to be classified, there is a move toward classifying more agencies’ information at an estimated cost of $13 billion –  an amount exceeding the budget for the entire Environmental Protection Agency

Bloomberg News

Fed officials signal tighter rules on bank-sponsored money funds [Federal Reserve] – Steven Sloan reports on comments made by Federal Reserve Bank officials that signal the Fed is ready to take action to increase oversight of the $2.5 trillion money market fund industry even if the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t impose regulations on it; he reports that the SEC is at an impasse in its consideration of regulations

Asian Canadian teenagers who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual are 30 times more likely to face harassment than their heterosexual peers – a factor that is linked to higher rates of alcohol or drug use, according to University of British Columbia research.

The online issue of the European Heart Journal reports that a study of almost 2,000 American men has demonstrated that men who survived a first heart attack and who consume alcohol in moderation have a lower risk of dying from heart disease or any other cause than non-drinkers.

Researchers at the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) have developed a computer application that allows georeferenced images that have been uploaded to social networks on the Internet to be recovered, located on maps and organized like a comic to create a visual perspective of a specific story, such as a crisis situation or an emergency.

Widely used antibiotics may increase incidence and severity of allergic asthma in early life, according to a University of British Columbia study. The study, published in the journal EMBO reports, shows that certain antibiotics that affect intestinal bacteria also had a profound impact on allergic asthma.

The journal Alcohol and Alcoholism has published a new review of studies that have researched the association between alcohol consumption and breast cancer. The findings revealed that the risk of breast cancer rises by 5% for low level or moderate drinkers, i.e. women who have one drink per day, whilst the risk for those who consume three or more drinks daily (heavy consumption) is 40-50% higher.

With the click of a mouse or touch of a mobile phone screen – in pajamas or jeans – gambling is now at our fingertips 24/7 with Internet play. With this increased access to gambling, are online gamblers more prone to risky behaviors than offline gamblers? A new study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, led by Sylvia Kairouz of Concordia University, has compared people who gamble offline only to people who also gamble online in an effort to answer this question. Her results show that alcohol and cannabis use are in fact associated with online users

To curb employees’ on-the-job substance use and intoxication, bosses need to do more than just be around their employees all day, according to a new study from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).

Men who are moderate drinkers and who have survived a first heart attack have a lower risk of death from heart disease or any other cause than non-drinkers, according to the results of a study of nearly 2000 men in the USA.

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued an opinion that upholds the Affordable Health Care Act

This includes the individual mandate for coverage.  The case challenged the constitutionality of several parts of the law, including the rule that most people in the U.S. must get health coverage.   We will continue to carry out provisions of the law by thoughtfully implementing the new requirements for customers and members. We will also continue to look for ways to address increasing costs that are crippling our health care system, including: ·      Advancing our partnership with primary care physicians announced earlier this year that we believe will substantially improve quality and member health, and potentially reduce the trend in overall medical costs by as much as 20% by 2015. ·      Coordinating patient care through the use of IBM-Watson technology to promote evidence-based health care and ensure that millions of Americans receive the most effective courses of treatment.  We look forward to continuing our efforts to work with policymakers and other key stakeholders to build a health care delivery system that provides security and affordability to all Americans.