health

Indiana health officials joined a webinar Tuesday to discuss COVID-19 vaccination advances and efforts to equitably vaccinate Hoosiers.

The Indiana Minority Health Coalition hosted the event to highlight the importance of the vaccine and to dispel myths about it. U.S. Surgeon General and former Indiana Health Commissioner Jerome Adams said COVID-19 laid bare health inequities.  

“The diseases that impact all of us,” Adams said, “almost always disproportionately impact people of color.”

Indiana has the sixth-highest rate in the country when it comes to new lung cancer cases, according to the recent State of Lung Cancer 2020 report by the American Lung Association. 

A labor union that represents meatpacking, grocery and health workers in Indiana is calling for hazard pay and mask requirements at work. It’s part of a broader effort to enforce national workplace health and safety standards amid the pandemic.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union held an online news conference calling for increased pay and safety requirements to be enforced. It would also like for larger companies to put data on workers affected by COVID-19 on a national public registry.   

As Indiana casinos reopen, they’re implementing sanitization and distancing standards at gaming sites, but some workers say one important virus-prevention strategy is being left out: access to affordable health insurance.

While celebrating 100 years, the Indiana Farm Bureau leadership is looking to the future and what needs to be done to continue advocating for Hoosier farmers. The organization presented its top legislative priority over the weekend: expanding health benefits available to the agriculture industry in the state.

Attendees at this year’s annual state convention were asked to share their health care stories in a video booth. 

It’s open enrollment season for the health insurance marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. But many people who need to sign up may not know it.

There’s a call out for data-driven solutions to address the state’s high rates of infant and maternal mortality.  The Healthy Mom + Baby Datapalooza competition is open to the public and will offer all the necessary data for teams to come up with solutions to improve maternal and infant health. 

Teams are encouraged to create data visualizations or analyses to better show the problem. 

K21 Health Foundation of Kosciusko County has announced grants for an ice rink and for some smaller communities in the county.

K21 Health Foundation was created in 1999 with money from the sale of a public hospital to a corporation. 

The grants are a little unusual. They are not yet granted to anyone. The foundation announced that it will award a million dollars to construct an ice rink and pavilion somewhere in the county. The foundation doesn’t know the location or organizations that will build and run the facility.

There’s a new way for Hoosiers to track their health and participate in research at the same time — a mobile app. 

The LIFE Extend App and its partnership with All IN for Health provides a free health tracker, scientific-based articles and a way to connect with friends. Its creators say they hope it will help address Indiana’s poor public health rankings. 

Don Brown is CEO of LifeOmic, the software company that developed the app. He says this is a win-win for Hoosiers. 

Data from one of the largest concussion studies is now available to scientists around the world. 

The CARE study has collected data from nearly 40,000 student athletes and military service members from 30 different organizations. It analyzes brains before and after injury – including head impact, detailed imaging and neurobiological effects.

The project is co-led by the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Almost every Lake Michigan beach that was tested in Indiana last year had at least one day where high bacteria levels could have threatened swimmers’ health. That’s according to a national report on beach water quality by Environment America. 

The report says heavy rains can cause human and animal waste to run off into our waterways and make people sick.

Indiana public defenders raised concerns in a House committee Monday about language in a bill that creates criminal and civil penalties for fertility fraud.

The committee opted to hold the bill for at least a week to work on that language.

Health researchers in Indiana are knocking on doors to collect surveys – and DNA samples. A growing number of studies factor in zip code when considering health outcomes.

More than 100,000 Hoosiers live with Alzheimer’s disease and that number is expected to rise 18 percent by 2025.

A new report on the disease highlights the need for better detection.