July 2018 Notable Media Mentions

We regularly share highlights from news coverage of our work, including the growing collection of results from our funded studies. Here are some recent examples:

Study Finds Health Risks for Transgender Women on Hormone Therapy
NBC News, July 9, 2018

This article highlights results from a PCORI-funded study examining health outcomes for transgender people. “This is the largest study of the health of transgender individuals on hormone therapy ever done,” says one of the study’s authors, Darios Getahun, MD, PhD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, California.

The article reports on the study’s publication in Annals of Internal Medicine  that transgender women on hormone therapy may have a higher risk of stroke, blood clots, and heart attacks than people who are not transgender. However, experts caution in the article that doctors shouldn’t use this result to justify denying patients hormone therapy.

Additional coverage of these findings appeared in MedPage Today, Reuters, Healio, The Week, and Physician's Weekly. A recent PCORI Blog post talks with the principal investigator and a stakeholder partner about the study’s results.

A Hospital’s Human Touch: Why Taking Care in Discharging a Patient Matters
Kaiser Health News, July 12, 2018

This article highlights the PCORI-funded ACHIEVE study on patients’ and caregivers’ experiences with care transitions, as from the hospital to a rehab facility or home. The column describes the study’s early results: that people prioritize feeling cared for and prepared for what lies ahead when they leave the hospital. Care transitions have caused problems for patients for decades, the article notes. Despite hospitals’ attempts to reduce readmissions, patients and caregivers often leave unaware of the challenges they will face.

Advancing a Health System Transformation Agenda Focused on Achieving Health Equity
Health Affairs, July 23, 2018

This blog post makes the case that efforts to improve patient care by changing how healthcare providers receive payments for services ignore an important flaw in our healthcare system. That problem, the piece says, is “persistent, extensive, severe, and costly health and health care inequities based on race, ethnicity, and geography, among other factors.” To remedy this problem, the authors of the blog recommend supporting “community-specific health system and delivery research,” such as the research that PCORI funds.

Research to Improve Mental Health for All
Research!America Blog, July 19, 2018

In an op-ed, PCORI Executive Director, Joe Selby, MD, MPH, and Grayson Norquist, MD, MSPH, Chairperson of PCORI’s Board of Governors, write about the need for research to improve mental health in America. “Too often, we know what the problems are but don't yet have the information needed to solve them,” Selby and Norquist write. “That's where research can help, by identifying which of the many available approaches to mental healthcare will work best for which patients, especially those living in minority communities.” Selby and Norquist describe a few of PCORI’s 107 research studies related to mental and behavioral health, of which 25 studies emphasize addressing racial and ethnic disparities.

Washington U Lands Grant to Study Childhood Obesity As Parents Grapple with Treatment Costs
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 14, 2018

This article focuses on one of PCORI’s newest projects, a Washington University in St. Louis study on childhood obesity. The study will test two approaches for treating obesity in both children and their parents. “Family-based therapy approaches the problem more holistically by counseling the child and other family members who are overweight or obese together. Parents can then act as role models and partners in the child’s treatment,” the article explains.

Optimal Health Behavioral Health Home Models
Rural Health Information Hub, July 10, 2018

This article features a PCORI-funded project that has tested a behavioral health program to help adults with serious mental illness improve their health. The project focused specifically on people who get care at rural facilities. The project found that the behavioral health programs it used in the study “significantly increased patient activation, engagement in both primary and specialty care, and improved client perception of their mental health status,” the article explains.

Stay tuned for more highlights of our work.