SSM Health’s Post

Population Health Versus Precision Medicine More people can live longer, happier, and healthier lives if as a nation we focus on our environment, socio-economic status, ethnic variations, persistent gender discrimination, and other self-induced non-medical risks—rather than personalized medicine or precision medicine.   This thought was well developed in a New England Journal of Medicine “Perspective.” https://lnkd.in/eHxnS3uh   No doubt clinical medicine has changed the way we live for the better. However, the greatest change for the better in overall life expectancy in the history of civilization has been an effective sewer system combined with a safe drinking water supply.   There is great enthusiasm for precision medicine or any scientific medical research to move society forward, and this enthusiasm derives from the assumption that sophisticated and rapidly evolving science will contribute to clinical practice. The argument that research helps lower morbidity and mortality has already been proven many times. One noteworthy example in our lifetime is the prevention of polio worldwide, except for three countries that are unaccepting of modern public health measures (Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan).   “There is now broad consensus that health differences between groups and within groups are not driven by clinical care but by social-structural factors that shape our lives,” according to the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University.   We struggle with limited resources to care for our population and the world’s population by concentrating on prevention. But healthy eating, purposeful movement, work-life balance, and many of the nine principles of the Blue Zones Project would yield greater dividends than the vast spending on precision medicine. Realistically we as a nation and as a world civilization may get more “bang for our buck,” by preventing illness rather than developing new technologies for repair purposes.   Nonetheless, public investments in our nation’s public health versus precision medicine will continue to be debated—much the same way that funding pure science versus applied science has been debated for decades. There probably is no “right” answer, but looking at cost benefit with the focus on how many people will be helped by adding years of quality life is a reasonable metric. This measure is called a “quality-adjusted life-year” (QALY). It is a measure of both the quality and the quantity of life lived.   The United States spends about 18% on health care but ranks 37th out of developed nations for quality of healthcare according to the World Health Organization. Most other developed nations spend only high single digits of GNP, with longer and healthier life spans.   As a nation, we have opportunities we have always responded to. I’m optimistic we can both develop precision medicine and improve population health.

"Philosophers might comfort themselves with the awareness that new paradigms usually win in the end, but ME/CFS and long COVID patients cannot afford to wait as this process plays out. A new NIH institute or center for post-infectious illness is a promising prospect. However, any such initiative is unlikely to happen quickly, and obtaining actionable results would take even longer. In the interim, we believe that medical and public health authorities should not wait for the paradigm to shift by itself. Instead, they must push the paradigm and help ensure its onward passage against the forces of resistance and revanchism. We call on our colleagues and peers in the medical, scientific, public health, political, and patient advocacy communities to actively advance these important policy changes by raising awareness of the poor evidence base for traditional treatments for ME/CFS, and by extension for many cases of long COVID. It is essential to educate stakeholders on the scientific case for avoiding cure-focused psycho-behavioral therapies and, for the time being, seeking to alleviate the suffering from the day-to-day symptomology, as recommended in the revised NICE guideline." https://lnkd.in/dEJPntdw

PAST Thematic Overview: Modern Health and the State: Online course hosted by the National Archives. 2nd May 14:00-17:00 This half-day online workshop will provide an overview of the most useful sources and methods for research in this area, and what challenges a researcher may face. This will include how to uncover the lived experience of citizens who engaged with the state, and how they made their voices heard whilst navigating the bureaucracy of government. This workshop will provide researchers with the skills to begin tackling these challenges. It will offer: • An overview of the principal sources for the history of medicine.The workshop will give you an insight into the range of sources available for research in this area and offer advice from our specialists on how to approach the archive thematically and geographically. • Case studies on specific topics and records that facilitate the study of medical history in the archive. We will explore case studies including 19th and 20th century infectious diseases, venereal diseases, mother and child welfare, hospitals, NHS history, and health education. By the end of the workshop, attendees will be equipped with the skills to navigate government archives, and the strategies to locate sources for the study of the history of medicine. Programme 1. Welcome and introductions 2. Researching the history of medicine at The National Archives: an overview 3. 19th century health records 4. 20th century health records, including the NHS Tickets £15. Book here: https://lnkd.in/eFm68BDY

The organization’s three pillar programs come together in the same event, to present topics aimed at medical groups, health professionals and the public. #NewsismyBusiness

Insights from the first webinar in the "Breaking Barriers: Exploring the Future of Global Health Technologies" series. Read: https://hubs.ly/Q026Z0QV0

Insights from the first webinar in the "Breaking Barriers: Exploring the Future of Global Health Technologies" series. Read: https://hubs.ly/Q026Z1XZ0

Insights from the first webinar in the "Breaking Barriers: Exploring the Future of Global Health Technologies" series. Read: https://hubs.ly/Q026Y_tS0

Insights from the first webinar in the "Breaking Barriers: Exploring the Future of Global Health Technologies" series. Read: https://hubs.ly/Q026Z6kG0

John 8:32… “One of the most influential federal health journals in the United States has published unsupported claims about the benefits of masks in preventing transmission of COVID-19, according to authors of a manuscript recently accepted for publication in The American Journal of Medicine. … Researchers at the University of California–San Francisco and the University of Southern Denmark analyzed 77 studies published after 2019. Conclusions favoring masks were seen in over 75 percent of the studies. However, after further scrutiny, researchers discovered questionable qualities in most of the studies—qualities that could easily misrepresent results and confuse readers such as health care professionals, researchers, and the public. These qualities included poor study design, scarcity of statistical significance, dubious methods for assessing mask effectiveness, failure to cite conflicting data, and lack of randomization. Moreover, over 50 percent of the studies failed to use appropriate language when synthesizing findings, labeling results as causal instead of correlative or associative. Scientific principles dictate that causation cannot be inferred based on retrospective, cross-sectional, or observational designs—the only three designs used across all 77 studies.”…