Health and Welfare

Drug overdoses, driven largely by prescription drug abuse, overtook motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of unintentional deaths in Kentucky back in 2010 and remain the state's leading cause of death. From 2000 to 2010, the number of drug-overdose deaths in Kentucky rose a staggering 296 percent, highlighting the state's drug abuse epidemic that now kills more than 1,000 Kentuckians a year. But a recent poll suggests many Kentuckians are not fully aware of the state's drug problem.

Oldham is the healthiest county in Kentucky. The least healthy? Floyd County in eastern Kentucky. The ranking of health outcomes among Kentucky's 120 counties considers tobacco use, diet and exercise, access to healthcare and other factors. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute did the analysis.

Frankfort - Oldham County has the healthiest residents in Kentucky, according to the fourth annual County Health Rankings released Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

FRANKFORT - The Kentucky Department for Public Health has been awarded a federal grant to help curb rates of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes among residents of the state. The award, worth $134,380, comes from the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Similar awards will also go to seven other states.

The Kentucky General Assembly has joined other states in easing the restrictions on physician assistants’ medical practice, but has held up a similar move for advanced registered nurse practitioners. Both issues relate to the shortage of medical practitioners in many Kentucky counties, and the quality of medical care.

Kentucky's supply of mental-health services is much lower than demand for those services, in terms of state funding, and the state spends only 45 percent of the national average in mental-health funding per person. In 2010, Kentucky dedicated about $232 million to mental-health services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is $54 per person, compared with a U.S. average of $121 that year. That ranks Kentucky among the bottom 10 states without including individual mental health reimbursements for Medicaid, reports Chris Kenning of The Courier-Journal.

In 2011, despite economic and financial obstacles, Kentucky hospitals' estimated value of benefits to their communities up 17 percent from the year before, to $1.96 billion. So says the Kentucky Hospital Associated 2011 Community Benefits Report, compiled by the Kentucky Hospital Association with data submitted by hospitals. (Chart gives a breakdown of hospitals' total community benefits and services expenditures in 2011.)

FRANKFORT - The Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, in cooperation with Appalachian Regional Commission and Operation UNITE, will present workshops to educate medical providers about prescription drug abuse and diversion at four locations across Kentucky this spring.

The Northern Kentucky Health Department has taken a step toward considering regulations to prohibit smoking in public places. Board members voted Wednesday to request information from the Bullitt County Health Department and review them in committees for consideration and a possible recommendation. Bullitt County introduced regulations on smoking in public places, which have yet to be implemented because of legal challenges. The Northern Kentucky Health District includes Boone, Campbell, Grant and Kenton Counties.

A half million dollars in state money will colon cancer tests for the low income residents of ten counties.  Kentucky Pink Connection is administering the screening in Fayette County.  Executive Director Vicki Blevins-Booth says they’ve tried to make it easy.  "There’s really no excuse not to have this, either the fit test or colonoscopy, if needed.  We provide great support, education, transportation is provided,” said Blevins-Booth.

Generic versions of popular pain relievers must be made harder to abuse, in order to curb prescription drug abuse that is epidemic in many states, Attorney General Jack Conway and 47 other attorneys general said in a letter sent to federal officials Monday.

A new poll suggests that most Kentucky health-care providers follow guidelines for discussing HIV screening with their patients, despite the the importance of early treatment to prevent its progression to AIDS. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends routine HIV screenings for most patients, just 32 percent of Kentucky adults aged 18 to 64 report discussing HIV testing with their medical provider, according to the Kentucky Health Issues Poll.

A bill encouraging Kentucky schools to stock EpiPens, or epinephrine auto-injectors, to stop anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction, has passed will soon be signed into law by Gov. Steve Beshear. When someone has anaphylaxis, the sooner you use an EpiPen, the better the outcome can be, said Thomas Sternberg, an allergist at Graves-Gilbert Clinic in Bowling Green, told Alyssa Harvey of the Daily News.

A pain reliever that has been recalled and declared dangerous by the Federal Drug Administration is still circulating around southern Kentucky. The drug marketed under the name Reumofan Plus is being distributed in Elkton and the broader Pennyrile Region, despite being recalled, and a local doctor's office says patients on the drug have had dangerous side effects, reports Nick Tabor of the Kentucky New Era.

"Nightmare bacteria" leading to deadly infections that are difficult and sometimes impossible to treat are on the rise in American hospitals, and threaten to spread to otherwise healthy people outside of medical facilities, according to a federal Centers for Disease Control Vital Signs report published Tuesday.