Hello and welcome back to Community Health Roundup: your source for the latest in healthcare news and information. It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted and I apologize for the delay, but I think the articles I found this week will make up for my absence. This week we have articles about the effects of sitting, standing, and light exercise on the body, community health center visit rates, the chances of getting lung cancer when you stop smoking, and the impact of separating children from their parents.
We sit a lot: from sitting in planes, trains, and automobiles, sitting at home, sitting at work, sitting to eat, sitting at sporting/musical/theater events, sitting to take a break, etc. We spend a lot of time sitting and all this sitting is not really that good for us according to a new study out of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. While that statement is not all that shocking as this is something we’ve known for a while, the researchers also looked at the effects of standing and light walking and these results are interesting. Head over to the NY Times to learn more about what just an hour or five of light to moderate exercise can do for your body.
Community health center usage has grown 33% from 2010 to 2016, according to a new study out of George Washington University. This is an important figure as it highlights the work that CHCs are doing in communities and that thanks to access to healthcare, individuals are now able to utilize the services offered by CHCs. Read more about the study here.
Fact: After five years, quitting smoking reduces your chance of getting lung cancer by 39%
Fact: Quitting smoking may never eliminate your chances of getting lung cancer.
Fact: Lung cancer screenings tend to stop for ex-smokers after 15 years.
Fact: Quitting smoking may never eliminate your chances of getting lung cancer.
These facts come from a study out of Vanderbilt titled the “Framingham Study”, where researchers followed 8,907 ex-smokers for 25 to 34 years to assess their health. What they found is that while chances of getting lung cancer dropped by 39% in five years, four out of ten ex-smokers were still developing cancers 15 years or more after quitting. While this is kind of frightening to learn if you are an ex-smoker (and I am one and yes, it is kind of scary), it’s also a positive because the risk is still much lower than if you kept smoking. Read more about the study here.
Sometimes I find articles where I don’t have anything pithy to say and this is one of them. So all I will say is, separating children from their parents causes long lasting harm. Read about the effects of separating children from their parents over at OPB.
About the Author
William Jacob Amadeus Pinnock is a Research Coordinator at OCHIN where he assists with the creation, execution, and dissemination of research projects. He graduated with an MS in Communication from Portland State University where he focused on health communication, rural mass media, and qualitative research methods. He has experience working in commercial health insurance, healthcare research, and radio broadcasting. In his spare time, he is an Adjunct Instructor at Portland State University helping students master the art of public speaking.
