UW-SHARE’s first step is to capture the current, one-time pre-implementation moment using a mail survey of 40,000 households. The households, with at least one person between ages 18 and 64 years, were chosen randomly from the publicly available list of registered voters in Washington state.  (Residents in some of the smaller counties are being oversampled in order to obtain county-level estimates).

The overall purpose is to obtain a benchmark, pre-ACA picture of health-care use, health, health-related attitudes, and access to health insurance. According to Anirban Basu, an associate professor in the Department of  Health Services, which is leading the UW-SHARE effort, the primary goals are to understand:

–          How the ACA will affect access to health insurance;

–          Health care use and the burden of illness before and after the ACA;

–          Challenges in accessing needed care before and after the ACA;

–          How much of the enrollment in health care exchanges is driven by medical needs vs. political ideology.

“The results of this and another survey next year will inform the state and federal governments about what they might do in the future to help residents meet health care challenges, such as how to make the exchanges more efficient and identify counties with unmet needs,” said Basu.  Depending on funding, the School would like to do this survey annually, he added.

The four-page survey, which should take 10 to 15 minutes to complete, is being mailed this week. Participation is voluntary, but returned surveys will be eligible to win an iPad or Surface tablet.

The results should be available in the spring and will be published on the website:

Through imaginative storytelling and art, “The Return” conveys environmental health from a Native American perspective.  A center within the 91̽��School of Public Health worked with Native American tribes to create and publish the illustrated story as a 32-page comic book.

One of the goals of this Native Tradition, Environment and Community Health Project was to find out how Native American ways of understanding the world and our place in it differ from the Western concept of environmental health. Surveys, interviews, and talking circles identified three core themes of Native environmental health: community, wellness, and inter-relationship.

“The Return” was created from the findings. It is a dreamlike account of a Native woman and her baby, and tells how these three concepts are passed to the next generation.

Michelle Montgomery, senior fellow in the 91̽��Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the 91̽��Center for Genomics & Healthcare Equality, and Nicholas Salazar, a student at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., developed the book. Montgomery is a tribal member affiliated with the Haliwa Saponi and Eastern Band Cherokee.

The 91̽��Center for Ecogenetics & Environmental Health and the Northwest Indian College co-managed the project. The effort began in 2008 with a collaborative grant from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences.

The book was distributed at the 2013 American Indian Higher Education Consortium Student Conference in Green Bay, Wisc. More dissemination opportunities are planned. The end of the book contains a discussion guide and suggestions for related art projects.

“The Return” comic book is .

The research team analyzed responses collected in a 2010 Washington state survey of more than 24,000 public school students in grades eight through 12. The study found that 14 percent, 11 percent and 9 percent of male students in grades 8, 10, and 12 respectively reported being bullied because of perceived sexual orientation. For female students in those grades, the numbers were 11 percent, 10 percent and 6 percent respectively.

“These findings underscore the need for early prevention efforts before 10^th grade,” wrote the authors.

Being bullied because of perceived sexual orientation was linked to lower quality of life scores and increased the odds of depressed mood or consideration of suicide. Moreover, the size of these associations was greater than being bullied for other reasons

”Youth at this age group are extremely vulnerable to the effects of bullying when they are perceived rightly or wrongly to be gay, lesbian or bisexual. The effects are profound for many youth struggling with issues of identity and self-esteem,” said Patrick, principal investigator of the study.

“Bully-prevention or harm-reduction programs must address bullying because of perceived sexual orientation. All youths are entitled to safe school environments and support is essential for those who are most vulnerable to being bullied because of perceived sexual orientation,” the study concluded.

Read the in the American Journal of Public Health.

###