Tag: disability

Unhealthy Longevity in the United States

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2023/unhealthy-longevity-us/

PDF: https://www.soa.org/4a525c/globalassets/assets/files/resources/research-report/2023/unhealthy-longevity-us.pdf

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The SOA Research Institute’s Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program is pleased to make available a research report that quantifies differences in mortality and disease prevalence by health status. Additionally, period life tables by health status, sex, and age are available in Appendix D.

Author(s):

Natalia S. Gavrilova, Ph.D.
Leonid A. Gavrilov, Ph.D.

NORC at the University of Chicago

Publication Date: August 2023

Publication Site: Society of Actuaries

Report Highlights Public Health Impact of Serious Harms From Diagnostic Error in U.S.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/report-highlights-public-health-impact-of-serious-harms-from-diagnostic-error-in-us#:~:text=Results%20of%20the%20new%20analysis,of%20the%20public%20health%20problem.

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Improving diagnosis in health care is a moral, professional and public health imperative, according to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine. However, little is known about the full scope of harms related to medical misdiagnosis — current estimates range widely. Using novel methods, a team from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence and partners from the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions sought to derive what is believed to be the first rigorous national estimate of permanent disability and death from diagnostic error.  

The original research article was published July 17 by BMJ Quality & Safety. Results of the new analysis of national data found that across all clinical settings, including hospital and clinic-based care, an estimated 795,000 Americans die or are permanently disabled by diagnostic error each year, confirming the pressing nature of the public health problem.  

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To identify their findings, researchers multiplied national measures of disease incidence by the disease-specific proportion of patients with that illness who experience errors or harms. Researchers repeated this method for the 15 diseases causing the most harms, then extrapolated to the grand total across all dangerous diseases. To assess the accuracy of the final estimates, the study’s authors ran the analyses under different sets of assumptions to measure the impact of methodological choices and then tested the validity of findings by comparing them with independent data sources and expert review. The resulting national estimate of 371,000 deaths and 424,000 permanent disabilities reflects serious harms widely across care settings, and it matches data produced from multiple prior studies that focused on diagnostic errors in ambulatory clinics and emergency departments and during inpatient care.  

Vascular events, infections and cancers, dubbed the Big Three, account for 75% of the serious harms. The study found that 15 diseases account for 50.7% of the total serious harms. Five conditions causing the most frequent serious harms account for 38.7% of total serious harms: stroke, sepsis, pneumonia, venous thromboembolism and lung cancer. The overall average error rate across diseases was estimated at 11.1%, but the rate ranges widely from 1.5% for heart attack to 62% for spinal abscess. The top cause of serious harm from misdiagnosis was stroke, which was found to be missed in 17.5% of cases.  

Author(s):  David Newman-Toker 

Publication Date: 17 July 2023

Publication Site: Johns Hopkins, press release

Social Security denies disability benefits based on list with jobs from 1977

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/27/social-security-job-titles-disabled-applicants-obsolete/

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Every year, thousands of claimants like Heard find themselves blocked at this crucial last step in the arduous process of applying for disability benefits, thanks to labor market data that was last updated 45 years ago.

The jobs are spelled out in an exhaustive publication known as the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The vast majority of the 12,700 entries were last updated in 1977. The Department of Labor, which originally compiled the index, abandoned it 31 years ago in a sign of the economy’s shift from blue-collar manufacturing to information and services.

Social Security, though, still relies on it at the final stage when a claim is reviewed. The government, using strict vocational rules, assesses someone’s capacity to work and if jobs exist “in significant numbers” that they could still do. The dictionary remains the backbone of a $200 billion disability system that provides benefits to 15 million people.

It lists 137 unskilled, sedentary jobs — jobs that most closely match the skills and limitations of those who apply for disability benefits. But in reality, most of these occupations were offshored, outsourced, and shifted to skilled work decades ago. Many have disappeared altogether.

Author(s): Lisa Rein

Publication Date: 27 Dec 2022

Publication Site: Washington Post

What are the Implications of Long COVID for Employment and Health Coverage?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/what-are-the-implications-of-long-covid-for-employment-and-health-coverage/

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Preliminary evidence suggests there may be significant implications for employment: Surveys show that among adults with long COVID who worked prior to infection, over half are out of work or working fewer hours (Figure 2). Many conditions associated with long COVID—such as malaise, fatigue, or the inability to concentrate—limit people’s ability to work, even if they have jobs that allow for remote work and other accommodations. Two surveys of people with long COVID who had worked prior to infection showed that between 22% and 27% of those workers were out of work after getting long COVID. In comparison, among all working-age adults in 2019, only 7% were out of work. Given the sheer number of working age adults with long COVID, the employment implications may be profound and are likely to affect more people over time. One study estimates that long COVID already accounts for 15 percent of unfilled jobs.

Author(s): Alice Burns

Publication Date: 1 Aug 2022

Publication Site: KFF

Covid-19 Illnesses Are Keeping at Least 500,000 Workers Out of U.S. Labor Force, Study Says

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-illnesses-are-keeping-at-least-500-000-workers-out-of-u-s-labor-force-study-says-11662955321

Excerpt:

Illness caused by Covid-19 shrank the U.S. labor force by around 500,000 people, a hit that is likely to persist if the virus continues to sicken workers at current rates, according to a new study released Monday.

Millions of people left the labor force — the number of people working or looking for work — during the pandemic for various reasons, including retirement, lack of child care and fear of Covid. The total size of the labor force reached 164.7 million people in August, exceeding the February 2020 prepandemic level for the first time. The labor force would have 500,000 more members if not for the people sickened by Covid, according to the study’s authors, economists Gopi Shah Goda of Stanford University and Evan J. Soltas at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“If we stay where we are with Covid infection rates going forward, we expect that 500,000-person loss to persist until either exposure goes down or severity goes down,” said Mr. Soltas. That assumes that some of those previously sickened eventually return to work.

Author(s): Gwynn Guilford

Publication Date: 12 Sept 2022

Publication Site: WSJ