OH, SNAP
More than half of households receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits still report being food insecure, uncertain of having, or unable to acquire enough food because they have insufficient money or other resources. This argues for SNAP expansion: an increase in the benefit amount and/or eligibility for a wider group of households. Gundersen, Kreider, and Pepper calculated a “resource gap” of how much additional income households would need in order to be food secure. The average weekly resource gap was $41.62 for food-insecure SNAP households. The authors suggest that there would be a 100% reduction in the national food insecurity rate if we are willing to spend an additional $20.1 billion for current SNAP participants and $7.1 billion for currently SNAP-ineligible households.
PAY ME, VACCINATE ME
Medicaid pays physicians far lower fees than Medicare or private insurers. The gap in fees is particularly large for immunization services. This study examined the relationship between Medicaid vaccine administration fees and immunization of 1.7 million Medicaid-enrolled children in eight states. For every $10 increase in the payment amount, the probability of children making more than one vaccination visit increased by 7.2 percent. Routine childhood immunization is among our most cost-effective disease prevention programs. More generous Medicaid reimbursements would improve vaccination rates to low-income children.
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CLICK IT OR TICKET
Research shows that seat belts result in a decrease of 45-60% in fatality risk for front seat passengers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that seat belts saved more than 12,500 lives in 2013.
Seat belt usage in the United States increased from 79.2% in 2002 to 85.9% in 2012, but usage is still lower than in other high-income countries.
Approximately half of the 32,000 motor vehicle crash fatalities in 2013 in the US did not use seat belts. There was a 7.2% increase in fatalities in 2015, the largest percentage increase since 1966. This recent uptick in motor vehicle fatalities is cause for concern and is reason to re-examine seat belt policies.
A study in Health Affairs by Jacob Sunshine and colleagues shows the wide variance in seat belt usage across the country. Noncompliance rates were high in the 15 secondary enforcement states, where police officers are only allowed to write seat belt citations when the vehicle is pulled over for another traffic violation. High compliance is found in states that have primary enforcement laws, such as North Carolina, California, and Oregon.
This is not just a question of urban vs. rural areas. Rural areas, in general, have a lower rate of compliance than urban areas, but rural areas in primary enforcement states have a higher rate of seat belt usage than rural areas in secondary enforcement states.
—Qing Wai Wong, PHP Fellow
Map from Health Affairs Vol. 36, No. 4: Seat-Belt Use In US Counties: Limited Progress Toward Healthy People 2020 Objectives, by Jacob Sunshine, Laura Dwyer-Lindgren, Alan Chen, and Ali H. Mokdad. Published April 2017. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.1345
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