IHPI Informs - February 2022

February 2022

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Poll: Health apps could help older adults to manage challenges ranging from sleep to diabetes, but most don’t use them

Mobile apps make it possible to track everything from exercise to managing a chronic health condition. But a new survey from the National Poll on Healthy Aging shows that most people over age 50 aren’t using such apps—and that those who might get the most benefit are less likely to use them.

Read the Report

Poll Extra

Pandemic disruptions mean many older adults still have not received needed health care

Bell appointed to National Advisory Committee on Seniors and Disasters

Sue Anne Bell, Ph.D., M.S.N., M.Sc, FNP-BC, assistant professor of nursing, will serve a two-year term on the National Advisory Committee on Seniors and Disasters. In her role, she will help evaluate issues and provide recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to enhance medical preparedness and response, and recovery activities to better address the unique needs of older adults.

Learn About the Committee

Sue Anne Bell

Fit as a family: Classroom fitness program expands to living rooms, parks

An exercise platform first designed to get kids moving in the classroom and led by Rebecca Hasson, Ph.D., associate professor of kinesiology, has transformed since the pandemic to reach communities across the state of Michigan. Interrupting Prolonged Sitting with Activity (InPACT), a fitness program developed by U-M with state and national partners, received $1 million in COVID-19 CARES funds and solidified a partnership with PBS Michigan Learning Channel to air exercise videos on television beginning in January 2021.

In the news

IHPI members making headlines

ZIP codes matter when it comes to severe COVID-19

A new study, led by Renuka Tipirneni, M.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of internal medicine, and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, showed that patients from more socially vulnerable areas were sicker when they got to hospitals, but did just as well by the time they left—suggesting the importance of early and equal access to care.

Follow-up costs can add up if a free cancer screening shows a potential problem

Recent research led by A. Mark Fendrick, M.D., professor of internal medicine, shows that removing patients’ out-of-pocket costs after free cancer screenings increases the number of people—especially women and members of underserved populations—who will follow up on abnormal test results. Failure to complete the screening process could lead to cancer progressing, potentially leading to worse patient outcomes and high medical costs.

Domestic violence levels remained flat in Michigan during early pandemic, but abuse was worse

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, media reports warned of skyrocketing domestic violence. According to a new study co-authored by Sarah Peitzmeier, Ph.D., MSPH, assistant professor of nursing, roughly 1 in 7 Michigan women and trans/nonbinary people experienced intimate partner violence during the early months of the pandemic—similar to pre-pandemic levels—but 1 in 10 experienced new, more frequent or more severe violence.

Prevention suffers when doctors drop out of Medicare’s ACO program

A new study, led by Yajuan Si, Ph.D., M.Sc., research assistant professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research, and John Hollingsworth, M.D., M.S., professor of urology, finds that in the first two years after their providers’ practices left an Accountable Care Organization (ACO), older adults received fewer screenings than their counterparts whose providers stayed in an ACO.