first opinion
While incarcerated, he served as a CNA during Covid. Here's what he saw
David Goldman/AP
In Connecticut state prisons, the work of caring for sick, injured, or dying people often falls to certified nursing assistants who are incarcerated themselves. Abraham Santiago trained while incarcerated in a maximum security prison to become a CNA, just in time for the pandemic to hit. He then spent two years taking care of people in a special medical isolation unit.
By the spring of 2023, 30 men from the state's prisons had died with Covid, many of them holding Santiago's hand. Working 24 hours a day in two-week stints, Santiago monitored patients; fed, clothed, and bathed them; helped them do physical therapy exercises; cleaned their wounds. "For this work, we earned $1.75 a day," he writes in a new First Opinion essay.
"Being a CNA utterly transformed my life and, most importantly, my soul," he continues. Read more in Santiago's intimate essay about the people he met during that time, and how they changed him.
public health
A state-by-state breakdown of LGBTQ+ youth mental health
Yesterday, the Trevor Project released new state-by-state analysis of its annual national survey of queer young people. The survey, administered to more than 18,000 people ages 13 to 24 last year, is one of few large datasets on LGBTQ+ people and their mental health — it asks the same questions about suicide as the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey, so that the results can be compared to the general population of young people. There's already a dearth of health data on trans people especially. And now that the CDC has said it will stop processing trans identity data, including on the YRBS, research like this from the Trevor Project may become even more critical.
The data for last year's report was collected between September and December 2023. Here are some interesting findings from the latest analysis:
- LGBTQ+ young people living in southern states had some of the highest rates of wanting, but being unable to access, mental health care. (This was the case for 63% of respondents in South Carolina and 60% in Texas, compared to 50% in California and 44% in New York.)
- Those in Southern states also suffered from some of the highest rates of discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. (In Arkansas, 66% of respondents, but 54% in Massachusetts.)
- LGBTQ+ young people living in the Midwest reported some of the highest rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts. (In Ohio, 43% of respondents reported suicidal thoughts and 12% reported attempts. In Rhode Island, it was 37% and 8% respectively.)
health tech
How Trump's early actions imperil efforts to improve AI in medicine
In his confirmation hearings, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called on technology to solve America's rural health care crisis. For years, there's been a massive push to adopt AI across the American health care system, especially in underserved areas. But as STAT's Katie Palmer reports, that vision is far from reality. And now, critical work to improve that technology and narrow performance gaps is being delayed and stifled in response to President Trump's early executive actions.
"You cannot do AI without a focus on equity and disparities and fairness," said Leo Celi, who directs research at an MIT lab. Researchers, health systems, and regulators are struggling to interpret the impact of executive orders, communications freezes, and staff reductions across federal health agencies. As researchers prepare for deeper cuts, the uncertainty is already having a chilling effect on clinical AI research. Read more from Katie.
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