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My colleague Brittany Trang and I duked it out for the Friday edition of Morning Rounds, and after twelve rounds in the ring, I won! (This is a lie, Brittany’s doing something much cooler now — subscribe to her AI newsletter coming in February!) You’re stuck with me on Fridays for 2025, fearless readers.
The Santa Ana winds, wildfires, and health
Wildfires raging in and around Los Angeles have killed five people, displaced thousands, leveled entire neighborhoods and blanketed the region in toxic smoke. And as of Thursday afternoon, there were warnings of more “fire weather ahead.”
The health effects of wildfires are varied, worrisome and, perhaps even more frightening, still somewhat unknown. Here’s two examples. One recent study linked more than 52,000 early deaths to chronic exposure to wildfire smoke’s dangerous particulate matter. Another report found that childhood asthma exacerbations skyrocketed 76% in the wake of a 2018 California wildfire. Further complications? The deleterious health effects often compound for communities of color.
I usually wait until autumn to read Joan Didion’s unnerving essay, first published in 1967, about wildfires and the Santa Ana winds. But thanks to fossil fuel-driven climate change, I re-read it the same day that I wished someone a happy new year.
Stay safe, everyone in L.A.
A med school readout on enrollment, post-SCOTUS race in admissions ruling
Data on the first medical school class selected since the Supreme Court banned the consideration of race in admissions in June 2023 show a marked decline in enrollment for students of color, reports STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling.
Many people who advocate for equity in medicine said they were saddened to see the numbers but not surprised. The data validated the concerns of those who feared the decision would lead to less diverse medical school classes and ultimately a less diverse medical workforce, harming efforts to end the country’s deeply rooted racial health disparities.
“The upsetting issue here is that medical schools have had the opportunity to take on holistic admissions processes with multiple successful examples to emulate that have preserved and not used the banned tactics… and yet they do not update their approaches,” Kameron Leigh Matthews, a family physician, posted on BlueSky.
Read more in Usha’s story.
First Opinion: The Trump Administration must continue emerging disease threat surveillance
The advance of H5N1 bird flu in the United States is an acute reminder of the risks we face from emerging biological threats, according to former Food and Drug Administration commissioners Scott Gottlieb and Mark B. McClellan.
The funding for health surveillance initiatives established after the Covid-19 pandemic is slated to lapse, and the investments could be scrapped altogether in response to a broader political backlash against public health measures. But funding these programs needs to be a top priority of the incoming Trump administration, Gottlieb and McClellan write in STAT.
Basic public health protections augment our national security protections, as rogue states maintain formidable biological weapons programs. The best bulwark against these risks is a robust system to detect such threats before they take hold in our population. Read more about this issue from the former FDA heads.
Racism and blood pressure might be linked
Gender-based racism and blood pressure may be linked, according to a new Hypertension study. Researchers followed people giving birth to see whether microaggressions or subtle unintentional slights, such as being told to calm down, led to an increase in postpartum hypertension. They found the correlation was most robust 10 or more days after delivery, when blood pressure is less likely to be tracked.
“It is well-known that Black, Hispanic and South Asian women experience microaggressions during health care. It is not as well known whether these microaggressions may have an association with higher blood pressure,” said lead study author, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York.
While the research is promising, the researchers did not track the participants’ blood pressure trends or other health information prior to pregnancy, meaning they did not know how pre-pregnancy trends may have affected the data.
There are more orphans in the U.S.
Opioids and the coronavirus pandemic are spurring an increase in orphanhood in the United States, according to a new Nature Medicine study. Imperial College London researchers found that the number of kids that have experienced the death of at least one primary caregiver has increased by 50% since 2000, or almost 3 million children.
The rates of orphanhood were highest in southern and Midwestern states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky. The authors suggest that they could be underestimating the actual number of orphans, as there can be uncertainty surrounding deaths due to drug overdoses and Covid. They also write that while society recognizes that the loss of a parent or caregiver can be extremely difficult, public health officials need to treat the issue as a public health crisis.
What we’re reading
- Inside Trump’s Search for a Health Threat to Justify His Immigration Crackdown, New York Times
- Climate Change Threatens the Mental Well-Being of Youths. Here’s How To Help the Cope, KFF Health News
- Why everyone has a gnarly stomach bug right now, explained in one chart, Vox
- Here’s Why Bad Sleep and Toxic Thoughts Go Hand-in-Hand, Scientific American