Impact of various media on health

Artificial Intelligence systems designed to predict the likelihood of a hospitalized patient dying largely aren't detecting worsening health conditions, according to a new study. Some machine learning models trained exclusively on existing patient data didn't recognize about 66 percent of injuries that could lead to patient death in the hospital, according to the research published in Nature's Communications Medicine journal. Researchers 

Patients across the rural South, Appalachia, and remote West are most often unable to make a video call to their doctor or log into their patient portals. Both are essential ways to participate in the U.S. medical system. In 2025, more than $42 billion allocated in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is expected to begin flowing to states as part of a national “Internet for All” initiative launched by the Biden administration.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX), Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Katie Britt (R-AL) introduced bipartisan legislation to keep kids off social media and help protect them from its harmful impacts. The Kids Off Social Media Act (S.278) would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media platforms and prevent social media companies from feeding algorithmically-targeted content to users under the age of 17.

The mortality rate from COVID-19 was about 50% lower in U.S. counties with higher internet access in the summer and early fall of 2020. A new University of Michigan study found that broadband connection was a key factor in reducing mortality and incidence during the early months of the pandemic. The average county with high internet access had 48%-53% fewer new COVID-19 deaths and 19%-34% fewer new COVID deaths per 100,000 residents than the average county with low internet access.

As they entered office at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2021, Xavier Becerra and his allies had a plan to restore Americans’ faith in the nation’s beleaguered public health agencies. Four years later, the pandemic has receded. But trust in America’s health agencies has not recovered.

The Federal Communications Commission announced the launch of a major update to the Mapping Broadband Health in America platform, expanding its capacity to analyze the intersection of broadband connectivity and a range of critical health outcomes, including new variables to better examine maternal health.

In 2022, President Joe Biden (D-DE) signed the Data Mapping to Save Moms' Lives Act, which directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “incorporate publicly available data on maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity into the agency’s Mapping Broadband Health in America platform, in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The bipartisan bill was introduced in 2021 by Sens.

The Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act directed the Federal Communications Commission to incorporate maternal health data into its Mapping Broadband Health in America platform. The agency took this task seriously and on June 20, 2023, first introduced this information on the platform, including public data about maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, as well as facts about race and ethnicity, maternal age, rurality, areas with maternity care deserts, and areas with shortages of mental health care providers.

The United States has the highest level of maternal mortality of any industrialized country.  And deaths from pregnancy-related causes strike women of color and those who live in rural communities especially hard.  This is a crisis.  It requires everyone to identify how they can help because so many studies show that most pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.... We used authority under the Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act to update the agency’s Mapping Broadband Health in America platform to include maternal health data.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Congressman Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) visited Sycamores Pacoima Community Based Services  to learn about the Centers’ collaboration with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and highlighted how georouting can improve the ability for people in crisis to receive the local care they need.