The Hill (11/27, Choi) reports, “A new retrospective study of children’s health care coverage found that roughly 1 in 5 children did not have adequate health insurance, meaning coverage that met their needs and was reasonably affordable.”

The study, published in JAMA Health Forum, looked at “children’s health insurance coverage between 2016 and 2021. Of the more than 200,000 children that were included in the study, 34.5% had public health coverage, and 65.5% were commercially insured.” Additionally, “just 4.2% of children with public coverage and 1.4% of children with commercial coverage experienced inconsistent coverage.

Children with public health coverage, however, were less likely to experience inadequate coverage, with 12.2% having this issue, compared to 33% of children with commercial coverage.”

Related Links:

— “1 in 5 children in the US have “inadequate” health insurance coverage: Study,” Joseph Choi, The Hill, November 27, 2023

HealthDay (11/27, Thompson) says, “Whole grains could be the key to Black people protecting their brains against aging and dementia, a…study reports.” In the study published in Neurology, “among Black people, those who ate the most whole grains had brains about 8.5 years younger than those who ate the least.”

Related Links:

— “Whole Grain Foods Could Help Black Seniors Avoid Alzheimer’s,” Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, November 27, 2023

Healio (11/27, Monostra) says, “Transgender and gender-expansive young people report worse quality of life mental health scores compared with the general U.S. population, according to study data.”

In the study published in Transgender Health, over the past two years, “those who received multiple gender-confirming treatments had an increase in overall score, from 63.91 at baseline to 77.39 at follow-up. … Those who did not undergo treatment had decreases in family cohesion score from 61.67 at baseline to 30 at follow-up.”

Related Links:

— “Transgender young people report worse mental health than general population,” Michael Monostro, Healio, November 27, 2023

Healio (11/27, Welsh) reports, “About 1% of women who filled an opioid prescription after childbirth had evidence of persistent opioid use in the subsequent postpartum year, researchers reported in Obstetrics & Gynecology.” In the study, “of women who initiated opioid prescriptions after childbirth, 1,282, or 10.8 per 1,000 deliveries, had new persistent opioid use in the subsequent postpartum year

New persistent opioid use rates were higher after vaginal deliveries compared with cesarean deliveries (16 vs. 9.8 per 1,000), and rates decreased from 2013 to 2021 for cesarean (from 14.2 to 7.9 per 1,000) and vaginal (from 30.5 to 6.7 per 1,000) deliveries.”

Related Links:

— “About 1% of mothers had new persistent opioid use in the first postpartum year,” Erin T. Welsh, Healio, November 27, 2023

Medscape (11/22, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reported, “Longer cumulative use of medication to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) is associated with a small, but statistically significant, increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), results of a large Swedish nested case-control study suggest.” Published in JAMA Psychiatry, the study found “the increased risk was evident only for hypertension and arterial disease, was dose-dependent, and was higher for stimulant than nonstimulant AD/HD medications.”

MedPage Today (11/22, DePeau-Wilson) reported researchers “found that through the entire follow-up period, each 1-year increase in use of AD/HD drugs was tied to a 4% increased risk of CVD…and the corresponding increase for the first 3 years was 8%. … They said they saw similar results when looking at children or youth and adults separately.”

Cardiovascular Business (11/22, Walter) also reported.

Related Links:

— “ADHD medications associated with heightened CVD risk,” Michael Walter, Cardiovascular Business, November 22, 2023