What the U.S. can learn from Portugal’s health system

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Police arrest person in connection with killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Authorities on Monday said they arrested a 26-year-old man carrying a gun and an anti-corporate manifesto in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Luigi Mangione was arrested in the Pennsylvania city of Altoona, about 280 miles east of New York City, on gun-related charges. The Associated Press reported he had a handwritten manifesto that criticized the health insurance industry.

Late Monday, New York prosecutors reportedly filed additional charges against Mangione, including murder.

Read more from STAT’s Tara Bannow.

Asthma data reveals more disparities

One in six people with asthma in the U.S. say that financial costs have stopped them from taking their medication as prescribed, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Thorax. Researchers analyzed data from national surveys done between 2011 and 2022, which included about 30,700 adults with asthma. The results showed that 12% of respondents skipped doses, 12% took fewer doses than prescribed, and 15% delayed renewing a prescription.

This is especially concerning given the results of another study, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open, which built on previous understanding about racial disparities in asthma. Researchers disaggregated racial data from the California Department of Public Health to find an even greater disease burden among American Indian people, Black Alaska Native people, and Alaska Native people of multiple races. To cite another great Usha story, we already know how the use of a broad “Asian American” category can obscure health disparities among different ethnic groups.

What Americans can learn from Portugal’s health system

Portugal has a life expectancy of about 82, nearly four years longer than the U.S., despite spending just 20% of what the U.S. does on health care per person. It wasn’t always that way. In 1950, the U.S. had a life expectancy of 70 years, while Portugal’s lingered at 60, among the lowest for developed nations.

So what changed? STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling spent two weeks reporting in Portugal earlier this year to find out, speaking with dozens of health care workers, patients, and policy experts. Usha told me she’s obsessed with Portugal, and has visited quite a few times. “I wondered how does this little tiny country, far from rich, do so well?” she said in a DM.

Central to Portugal’s success is a focus on locally available primary and preventative care. It’s not a perfect system, but it may be better than ours. Learn more in Usha’s fantastic story. I read it yesterday and am still thinking about an older woman that Usha spoke with at one clinic, who left, then came back to say one more thing. She was concerned about what might happen if something negative was written about the national health system. “It’s the only chance the poor people get,” she said.

After reading that story, check out the second one about what surprised Usha most in her reporting: Like many European countries, Portugal does not collect information on race. This means there is no good understanding of how bad racial disparities there are.

E-scooter injuries triple since 2019

The number of injuries that people get while riding e-scooters and e-bikes in the U.S. has tripled since 2019, a jump fueled largely by alcohol and drug use, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Injury Prevention.

Researchers performed a retrospective analysis of emergency room data from the 2019-2022 National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. There were about 4,000 total emergency department visits related to these accidents, the vast majority of which were from scooters. (Just 320 injuries were from e-bikes.) Alcohol use was reported in 8.6% of e-scooter injuries, and younger males had higher odds of being in an accident related to alcohol or substance use.

Will Congress reauthorize this groundbreaking mental health law?

In 2022, two years after emergency physician Lorna Breen died by suicide, federal legislation was passed in her honor to protect the mental health of clinicians. The act has helped develop suicide prevention resources tailored to health care workers, supported well-being programs at 45 local hospitals, and provided training for health care leaders to tackle the root causes of burnout.

The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act expired this year, and has yet to be renewed. In a new First Opinion essay, two authors (including Breen’s brother-in-law, Corey Feist) argue that without reauthorization, any progress that’s been made could stall or disappear entirely. Read more. And from the archives, you can listen to former STAT editor Pat Skerrett interview Feist and psychiatrist Wendy Dean about mental health, burnout, and moral injury among health care workers when the act was first proposed.

What we’re reading

• Was this half-billion-year-old wrinkled sack with no anus, previously believed to be our earliest ancestor, actually a baby penis work? Defector

• Spying on student devices, schools aim to intercept self-harm before it happens, New York Times

• The pharma industry isn’t lobbying against RFK Jr.’s nomination for a top health role, STAT
• Yes, the number of food recalls has been rising. Here’s what you need to know, NPR
• Do GLP-1s work for Parkinson’s? A health tech startup pitches pharma on quick answers, STAT