Health and Welfare

The Northern Kentucky Health Department is among the first in the county to land an accreditation that ranks it among the highest performing public health agencies in the United States. The national Public Health Accreditation Board on Monday unveiled the first 11 recipients of a five-year accreditation, which also included the Franklin County Health Department in Frankfort and the Three Rivers District Health Department in Owenton.

Supporters of a statewide smoking ban in Kentucky are once again trying to persuade a House committee to pass the the legislation this session.  The House Judiciary Committee is the second committee—after House Health and Welfare—to hear the smoking ban bill sponsored by State Rep. Susan Westrom, a Lexington Democrat.  This time, property rights and business rights were the main topic of questioning, but Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson told the committee that Kentucky's businesses have long supported smoking bans.

A year- long campaign to raise awareness of disaster and emergency threats begins this week.  The Kentucky Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program is launching ‘Be Aware, Learn How to Prepare.’  While much attention centers on activities at the Blue Grass Army Depot, emergency preparedness covers a lot of areas.  Monica French is with Kentucky Emergency Management.

Kentucky ranks next to last in the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being index, just ahead of West Virginia. The Bluegrass State ranked last in the index's Healthy Behaviors category, which measures the percentage of residents who smoke, exercise frequently and eat healthy daily.

As the bill for a statewide smoking ban lies on its deathbed in the General Assembly, new federal data show Kentucky still has the highest percentage of smokers (29 percent) of any state, leads the nation in the share of smoking high school students (24 percent) and spends only a miniscule portion of their tobacco revenues to fight tobacco use. Those figures come from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Tobacco Control State Highlights 2012 report. (For county-by-county figures, click here.)

Warm weather isn't far away, but winter remains, and precautions should be taken to steer clear of a big cold-weather killer -- the space heater -- for the season's remaining cold days. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that each year, space heaters cause more than 25,000 residential fires and more than 300 deaths, and more than 6,000 Americans get emergency-room care for burn injuries associated with room heaters.

A recent poll shows continuation of a trend threatening Kentucky's overall health: as the number of Kentuckians living in poverty goes up, the percentage of adults who report their health as excellent or very good goes down. Just over four in 10 Kentucky adults in the latest Kentucky Health Issues Poll described their health as excellent or good. In 2008, almost half used those descriptions.

Tyrone "Ty" Borders in the University of Kentucky College of Public Health's Department of Health Services Management, and Brady Reynolds in the UK College of Medicine's Department of Behavioral Science, have been named the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky endowed co-chairs in rural health policy.

The recommended treatment for an ear infection is evolving.  Antibiotics have been a common treatment option for years.  Now, University of Kentucky ear, nose, and throat specialist Matthew Bush says ‘watchful waiting’ might be the best approach.  “There is a move to try and distinguish between infection and inflammation.   Those are two different processes, although inflammation often accompanies infection,” said Bush.

Three Kentucky health departments are among the first in the nation to be considered for national accreditation, a process that could help improve patient care and put the agencies in closer touch with their communities' needs. The national Public Health Accreditation Board will make its first accreditation decisions next week.

Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. rose for the 11th straight year and accidental deaths involving addictive prescription drugs overshadow deaths from illicit narcotics, new federal data show. In 2010, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide, and prescription drugs were the cause of nearly 60 percent of them.  As in recent years, opioid drugs such as OxyContin and Vicodin were the biggest problem, contributing to three-fourths of medication-overdose deaths, report Lindsey Tanner and Mike Stoppe of The Associated Press.

St. Joseph London Hospital is taking heat over accusations of performing medically unnecessary cardiac catheterizations and other invasive cardiac procedures, and a look at the health data by a Kentucky physician suggests that the phenomenon is broader and reflects cultural problem in Eastern Kentucky.

Nearly three in 10 working-age adults in Kentucky are not covered by any form of health insurance, and the number who get health insurance from their employer, or their spouse’s employer, has plummeted since 2008, the first year of the Great Recession, according to the latest Kentucky Health Issues Poll. The decline accelerated in the last year, and was accompanied by a big jump in the percentage on public insurance.

Injuries are the third leading cause of death nationally, the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 1 and 44. Kentucky is among the nation's most problematic states, and it could take several more steps to prevent injuries, says a new state-by-state report on injury-prevention policy.

A state Senate committee has approved a bill that would require lawsuits against nursing homes to clear a review panel before going to court, a move that has drawn very sharp criticism from the editorial pages of the state's two largest newspapers. Meanwhile, the nursing-home industry is running television and radio ads urging calls to legislators in favor of the measure, which the Senate Health and Welfare Committee approved 7-4 last Wednesday without hearing from its opponents.

People with a Southern diet, or one heavy on friend food and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soft drinks, are more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds. It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain people in the nation's "stroke belt" or southern states suffer more of them, reports Marilynn Marchione of The Associated Press.