Insights

<p>Have you ever gone in for an oil change and left with the suspicion that the mechanics didn’t do anything beyond opening your hood?</p> <p>Anemona Hartocollis at <em>The New York Times</em> has exposed this same type of behavior in a much more critical venue: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/nyregion/26hospital.html">a local hospital</a>. She <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/nyregion/26hospital.html">wrote</a>:<…;

<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>A new CDC report offers state-by-state stats on hospital infections – but you have to read between the lines for the real story. &nbsp;</strong></p>

<p>Decades of anti-smoking public health campaigns have turned into background noise. We all know smoking is bad for us, but yet we allow ourselves to get caught up in the sexiness of it when a show like Mad Men comes along. Even our president has admitted to a regular habit.</p>

<p>When radio reporter <a href="../../../../../../../../users/devinelizabeth">Devin Browne</a> began her foray to the edges of journalism, media commentators seized on her project quickly. Her multimedia journal uses prose, images and audio clips to tell a story about how she and a photographer moved into the cramped apartment of an immigrant family in MacArthur Park to learn Spanish. <a href="http://the-entryway.com/">The Entryway</a>, so called for the small space Browne rented, was quickly and harshly criticized for exoticizing Los Angeles' large Latino population.

Lots of coverage today on a new study linking frequent indoor tanning with a higher risk of getting melanoma, one of the more deadly types of skin cancer. But why aren't more reporters also writing about the absolute risks?

<p>What does it take for your record to be blemished if you’re a doctor in Florida?</p> <p>Would attempting to have sex with a child leave a dent?</p> <p>Apparently not.</p> <p>As <a href="http://muckrack.com/SShealthwriter">Bob LaMendola</a> at the Florida <em>Sun Sentinel</em> <a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-05-15/business/fl-florida-doctor-…;, Dr. Stuart F. Tillman, a Tallahassee anesthesiologist, was busted in July 2009 and charged with soliciting sex online from a 14-year-old girl.</p>

<p>At a conference like today's "Improving Health Literacy in Los Angeles," which focused on the sensitive issue of improving health literacy in some of Los Angeles' underserved communities, racial stereotypes should be a far-away concern.</p><p>But when the time came for tables of conference attendees to report back to the whole after doing a group interactive activity, it became clear that even the most well-meaning and forward-thinking health professionals have far to go.</p>

<p>The focus of today's conference, Improving Health Literacy in Los Angeles, was on ways in which medical providers can improve the community's understanding of health concerns and health care.</p><p>We are “focusing on expanding health literacy in L.A. and the western region,” said Ellen Iverson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the USC Keck School of Medicine, who introduced the conference panelists.</p>

<p>For journalists, the topic of health care disparities — particularly in Los Angeles — is a familiar concept. Exploring the discrepencies in care between various socioeconimic and ethnic groups often leads down a road of dismal statistics and frustrating realities.&nbsp;</p><p>But what happens if we refocus our gaze away from the patients and onto the providers?</p>

<p>As one of the largest, most expansive cities in the country, Los Angeles faces huge challenges in getting out health-related messages that resonate with the city's myriad cultures. Lack of health literacy, or having trouble understanding either the benefits or the details of modern, often Western medicine, has ripple effects, including patients being less likely to seek preventive care and more likely to use hospital emergency rooms for routine medical care.&nbsp;</p>