Health Care Notebook
Washington,
November 22, 2020
Health Care Notebook
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 11/22/2020 Child hunger put at 14% for state About 14% of Arkansas households with children "sometimes" or "often" didn't have enough to eat, according to a new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Only five states and the District of Columbia had larger shares of households with kids who went hungry, the analysis said. Its researchers estimated that 7 million to 11 million kids live in families that couldn't afford food in the previous seven days. The review based on U.S. Census Bureau data collected from mid-August through Oct. 26 also showed that almost 60% of Arkansas households with kids were not "very confident" that they would be able to afford food during the next four weeks. Nationally, that number was about 56% of families with kids. In a report, the center's director of research Joseph Llobrera wrote that the numbers point to "widespread food hardship" which is likely to continue into the holiday season. Many of those measures have worsened since the start of the pandemic, he wrote, and have not been remedied by new federal relief packages. $2.8M to help add rural health care The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences received an additional $2.83 million for a program that aims to expand access to health care in rural areas. The money from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services adds to an earlier $4.6 million award, a news release said. It supports programs meant to increase the number of doctors in rural and underserved areas. Part of the initiative works to increase the number of students from historically Black colleges and universities who pursue advanced degrees in medicine and the health professions. Sixteen of that effort's participants from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and Philander Smith College took the MCAT -- a test that's part of medical school applications -- this summer. Congressmen sign on to ALS measure All four members of Arkansas' U.S. House of Representatives delegation have backed a bill to improve access to treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Last week, U.S. Reps. Steve Womack, French Hill and Rick Crawford co-sponsored the bill. U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman became a co-sponsor in October. The proposed legislation directs the Health and Human Services secretary to support and expand research on ALS drugs. Sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS is a progressive, debilitating disease of the nervous system for which there is no cure. |
