5/18
Penn in the News
A round-up of Penn mentions in local, national, and international media.
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Penn In the News
Claims of anti-vax nurses fueling hospital staff shortages ignore the limited support and lack of mental health care for COVID's frontline workers
Eileen Lake of the Nursing School researched the impact of poor working conditions on nurse-staffing levels. The study, supported by additional data, revealed that staffing shortages reflect systemic problems with pre-pandemic origins.
Penn In the News
Guess which states are best at requiring vaccines? Not the ones you might think
Alison Buttenheim of the School of Nursing says the success of vaccine policies can vary widely depending on how they are implemented.
Penn In the News
High pay for traveling nurses a symptom and cause of staff shortages
Karen Lasater of the School of Nursing said nursing jobs with good pay and reasonable staff-patient ratios are in short supply. “It’s not a nursing shortage,” she said.
Penn In the News
With COVID-19 still a big problem nationwide, large percentage of nurses struggling with burnout
Linda Aiken of the School of Nursing is quoted on nursing shortages and how funded, permanent, full-time positions in the settings where they’re needed will help.
Penn In the News
The F.D.A. grants full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine
Alison Buttenheim of the School of Nursing is quoted on the rates of vaccine hesitancy despite FDA vaccine approval.
Penn In the News
Yes, nurses are heroes. Let’s treat them like it
Linda Aiken of the School of Nursing wrote an opinion piece calling on policymakers to implement safer nurse-patient ratios. “While we long to go back to pre-COVID life, going back to chronic nurse understaffing in hospitals, nursing homes, and schools would be a big mistake,” she said.
Penn In the News
Decades of Penn research shows how structural racism affects Black children with type 1 diabetes
Research co-authored by Terri Lipman of the School of Nursing and Colin Hawkes of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that disproportionately poor health outcomes for Black children with Type 1 diabetes are predominately caused by structural racism. “There’s certainly an element of blame, when it’s proposed that patients need to be better or behaviors need to change,” she said. “The focus needs to be on the health care team.”
Penn In the News
What are the best approaches to engage the vaccine-hesitant now?
Alison Buttenheim of the School of Nursing spoke about ways to persuade people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. She said one effective method for changing minds is ongoing conversation “with a trusted peer who can listen to where you’re coming from, and acknowledge your concerns are valid, and perhaps quite slowly chip away at outstanding concerns you might have.”
Penn In the News
‘Those nerdy girls’ from Philadelphia, all female scientists, tackle COVID questions
Alison Buttenheim and Ashley Ritter of the School of Nursing spoke about their efforts to answer the public’s questions about COVID-19 through their online platform, Dear Pandemic. “We want it to sound like it comes from your neighbor who happens to have a Ph.D.,” said Ritter.
Penn In the News
In the same health system, Black patients are prescribed fewer opioids than white patients
Salimah Meghani of the School of Nursing commented on a study that found that white patients are prescribed opioids more frequently and in greater quantities than Black patients within the same health system. Because the study was conducted using data from before the CDC’s revised opioid prescription guidelines, it “may be underestimating the actual size of disparities,” she said.