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Good morning! I hope you got some sleep last night. It’s Wednesday, let’s get right into it.
A second Trump presidency
Donald Trump has been called the winner of the election. As STAT’s Sarah Owermohle writes, Trump’s second term as president could have massive implications on a range of health topics, from the Affordable Care Act to abortion policy to gender-affirming care.
Depending on how control of Congress shakes out, lawmakers could also take a crack at changing the Inflation Reduction Act, which for the first time allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Advocates have been particularly worried about what a Trump administration could mean for public health and health agencies, particularly with Trump empowering Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaccine activist who in the closing days of the campaign called for removing fluoride from drinking water.
We’ll have more throughout the day as races are called, and what they could mean for health, on STAT.
What a Republican Senate means for health care
Republicans will also take control of the Senate next year, with at least 51 seats in the chamber come January. This means GOP lawmakers will have chairmanships of plum committees, and a new group will gain power and influence as Congress faces some big-ticket health care issues. Read STAT’s Rachel Cohrs Zhang on the key Republican lawmakers poised for influence in health care when the party takes power.
Abortion loses on the ballot in Florida
A massive drive to rally voters around reproductive rights took its first major hit last night. Florida rejected a ballot initiative that would have reversed a six-week abortion ban and protected access to the procedure up to a fetus’ viability. It’s the first state initiative on abortion rights to fail since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. But Florida is a unique case: The state requires 60% of voters to approve amendments to the state constitution, as opposed to the simple majority requirement in many other states.
Nine other states voted on abortion rights on Tuesday, including Arizona, which passed an initiative to protect abortion in its constitution up to a fetus’ viability. Read more from Sarah on what we know.
Genetics could be driving how you feel right now
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, here’s something that may or may not help: Did you know that your political stress could be genetic? On today’s episode of the First Opinion Podcast, Torie Bosch speaks with Kevin Smith, a professor and researcher focused on the intersection of political attitudes, biology, and evolution. It’s a fascinating conversation about human nature and ideology that I highly recommend. Take a listen.
For the deep dive into all the election results so far, read D.C. Diagnosis — if you don’t already subscribe, today’s special issue will be up on the site later this morning.
18.5 million
That’s the estimated number of people worldwide who will die from cancer in 2050, according to a study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. It would be an almost 90% increase from the estimated 9.7 million who died in 2022. The pandemic and armed conflicts around the world have been challenges in cancer prevention and care, the authors wrote. (Last month, the New York Times published a heartbreaking story on Gazan cancer patients.)
Countries with low “Human Development Index” scores — a composite of indicators like life expectancy, education, and income — will be particularly hard hit, experiencing a three-fold increase in cancer cases and deaths, the authors estimate. They point to the expansion of universal health insurance and better access to primary health care globally as promising strategies to reduce disparities and improve cancer outcomes.
New research for the ‘health care worker burnout’ files
You may have seen the story in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend about a generational rift between younger doctors who want better work-life balance, and older ones who say that long hours are part of the job. “We have to take care of ourselves in order to take care of other people,” one 40-year-old doctor told WSJ. Burnout is a hot topic among people in the profession. Two new studies in JAMA Network Open added to the body of research:
- Burnout is associated with worse patient safety, more hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, and adverse events, according to a systematic review of 85 studies that included more than 288,000 nurses. Previous research estimates that somewhere from 11-56% of nurses suffer from burnout.
- Physicians’ burnout decreased when they perceived their primary care teams to be efficient and their own use of electronic health records proficient, according to an observational study including more than 10,300 family physicians. Collaborating with registered nurses was associated with more team efficiency, and collaborating with PAs was associated with better odds of physicians feeling less burdened by the amount of EHR work they have to do at home.
15.8%
That’s the percentage of U.S. adults who had diabetes (either diagnosed or not) between August 2021 and 2023, according to new data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Prevalence was higher among men than women, and decreased as people’s level of education increased.
If you missed it last week, read Liz Cooney’s story on how limiting sugar in infancy is tied to less diabetes and hypertension in adulthood.
What we’re reading
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A brilliant cure but we lost the patient, Believer
- Supreme Court justices appear split on case over $9 billion hospital payment program, STAT
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I’m not throwing away my black plastic spatula, Slate
- Sutter Health CEO donates to Harris, whose investigation led to 2019 antitrust settlement, STAT
- How we talk about harmful chemicals in the environment, Nature
- Ways to respond when you’re stressed and someone tells you ‘not to stress,’ New Yorker