Social Drivers of Health

Telehealth visits for behavioral healthcare significantly increased during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but not all people adopted the technology equally. Researchers studied whether gaps in behavioral health care access and outcomes changed during the pandemic and whether telehealth availability played a role in any changes.

The number of people in the United States serving as unpaid caregivers is on the rise, sitting at 53 million as of 2020. They provide care in a wide range of situations -- for children, older adults, family or friends managing chronic conditions, or partners with specialized healthcare needs. Caregiver burden is also rising, leading to negative health outcomes like mental distress and sleep deprivation, in addition to issues with quality of life and work-life balance. Mobile applications to help caregivers are becoming popular, but there was no research on their effectiveness until now. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a mobile app in decreasing caregiver burden and increasing perceived support and well-being. The app chosen for this study, ianacare, was the 2020 winner of Elevance Health’s Fast-Track-To-Scale program.

In response to the need for pain relief therapies that don’t involve opioid medications, acupuncture is one recommended alternative in addition to cognitive behavioral therapy, physical therapy, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS) announced in January 2020 that it would cover acupuncture for chronic low back pain in Medicare beneficiaries, citing the potential for acupuncture to reduce overuse of and addiction to opioids. Although acupuncture has been proposed to reduce exposure to opioids, few studies have examined its effect on lowering prescribed opioid use because is very difficult to study due to variations in applied techniques and a strong potential for placebo effects. This study compared outcomes in people who used acupuncture to those who used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and and/or physical therapy (PT).