Thursday, October 28, 2004

Trends in Health Insurance Coverage and Access Among Black, Latino and White Americans, 2001-2003
A "Tracking Report" from the Center for Studying Health System Change - " Overall health insurance rates changed little among nonelderly black, Latino and white Americans between 2001 and 2003, according to new findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). But sources of coverage shifted—especially for Latinos—from employment-based insurance to public coverage, suggesting the economic downturn took a greater toll on Latinos. Low-income Latinos and whites were particularly hard hit by declines in employer coverage. Shifting sources of coverage had little effect on access to medical care. With the sole exception of decreased access to specialists among blacks, access to care did not change between 2001 and 2003. Significant gaps in access to care among Latinos, blacks and whites persisted, with Latinos and blacks consistently reporting lower levels of access than whites."  
  

Medical journal to be available online
Seattle Post Intelligencer story - "A new online medical journal will make its research articles available to the public free of charge and accessible through the Internet. The Public Library of Science Medicine (PLoS Medicine) was launched earlier this month and will be available to physicians, patients, scientists and anyone with Internet access. ... Readers will be able to copy and distribute the articles for teaching or personal purposes and thereby further expand the reach of the research. The directors hope that people in poor countries or scientists at small research colleges will be able to benefit from medical research that otherwise would be unavailable without an expensive subscription." See also the PLoS Medicine web site.