Healthy Communities Online

Each American now spends an average of nearly $13,000 a year on health care. We have one of the highest health care costs in the world but we don’t lead on the best outcomes. How can we get more value from the $4 trillion in total the U.S. spends on health care? Dr. Margaret Hamburg is co-chair of the Health Affairs Council on Health Care Spending and Value, which has been looking at that question. Their recommendations range from administrative…

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Acclaimed author Tracy Kidder has tackled another major public health story. This time he looks at Dr. Jim O’Connell’s “urgent mission to bring healing to homeless people” in Boston in the new book “Rough Sleepers.” Dr. O’Connell discusses the challenges running the nonprofit, hurdles to providing housing and the Biden Administration’s plans for reducing homelessness. This conversation with hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter is available now as we all seek to find ways to understand this growing public health…

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We’ve had 82 mass shootings in our country so far this year and the number keeps growing; we’ve never had so many occur in such a short time frame. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for young children and teenagers in the United States. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof shares with hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter smarter ways to reduce gun deaths as advocates look for answers to this public safety and health…

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Paxlovid is an oral antiviral pill to treat COVID; data show it reduces serious illness, hospitalization and cases of Long COVID. That’s why Michael Osterholm, Ph.D. wants more doctors to prescribe it. He serves as a White House advisor and is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He says, “People have died unnecessarily because they were unable to get Paxlovid when they could have and should have.” This compelling conversation with…

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Ben Jealous, the former NAACP president, is taking charge as the new executive director of the Sierra Club. It’s America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization with nearly 4 million members and supporters. With a strategy focused on equity and activism, Jealous and the Sierra Club are committed to retiring coal plants, preventing new fossil fuel plants from being built, and working to stop the expansion of fracked gas. Jealous joins hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter to talk…

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FDA vaccine advisor Dr. Paul Offit’s recent article in JAMA Pediatrics looks at the millions of 5- to 11-year-old children who received the COVID vaccine. His in-depth research review found that the mRNA vaccine was effective at preventing COVID, symptomatic infection, hospitalization, and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. The vaccine was also safe; myocarditis occurred in very rare cases. Dr. Offit joins hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter to discuss his findings and why he supports the end of the…

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