| | | | |  | | By Erin Schumaker, Ruth Reader, Daniel Payne and Carmen Paun | |  U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has declared loneliness an American epidemic. | Susan Walsh/AP | If health officials want to follow in the footsteps of San Mateo, California, which last week became the first county to declare loneliness a public health emergency, they have an innovative new tool at their disposal. It’s a social connection data dashboard that uses information from sources like the American Community Survey, the Environmental Public Health Tracking Network and County Health Rankings to assess county-level measures of social connection. Big picture: San Mateo’s declaration builds on a groundswell of loneliness policy efforts last year, most notably Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's advisory report, which cited a growing body of evidence linking loneliness to cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression and anxiety. “When I released my Surgeon General’s Advisory on loneliness, I outlined what localities can do to promote connection,”Murthy wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Grateful to San Mateo County for becoming the first county in America to recognize loneliness as a public health emergency.” How it works: Users can enter their county in the dashboard to see how it stacks up to their state and the nation on key social connection measures like the percentage of people living alone, the level of residential segregation and access to parks, transit, vehicles and the internet. The dashboard, launched late last year, was developed through a partnership among two nonprofits, the Foundation for Social Connection and the Institute for People, Place, and Possibility. It’s also part of a larger action guide for building socially connected communities meant to give local leaders tools to measure social connection in their communities, make a plan to target areas that need improvement and measure their progress. In San Mateo, for example, the dashboard data shows low volunteering rates and above-average segregation between Black and white residents plus a large share of residents ages 65 and older, a group particularly at risk for being disconnected and feeling lonely. What’s next: The Foundation for Social Connection seeks local partners who want to develop social connection plans for their communities. It’s also developing tools for the data dashboard to measure perceived emotional and social support and perceived isolation, which should roll out sometime this year.
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Azores Islands, Portugal | Erin Schumaker | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. A face recognition app for dogs could help control human rabies globally. Using the app, a team led by researchers at Washington State University identified about 76 percent of dogs vaccinated against rabies and almost 99 percent of unvaccinated dogs in rural Tanzania. That could help in the future with the mass vaccination of dogs, which could in turn prevent people from getting infected with rabies. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | |  Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, speaks to reporters after a weekly Democratic policy meeting at the Capitol on Sept. 21, 2021. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo | Lawmakers are circling around potential guardrails for artificial intelligence that determines when an insurer will cover patient care. In a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, senators expressed concern about reports that health insurers use algorithms and AI to systematically deny Medicaid and Medicare patients coverage for care they’re entitled to. “The Department of Health and Human Services does not as of today really oversee the use of these systems,” said Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) during a hearing Thursday. “Big problem, folks,” he added. What the experts say: A panel of health lawyers, technologists and academics said having a human review coverage decisions made by AI isn’t enough to fix this problem. They said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should instead: — Audit insurer coverage decisions and look for patterns in denials — Use Medicare’s conditions of participation to set AI standards — Specify in guidance what it deems proper or improper use of an algorithm What’s next: The committee is investigating whether AI causes coverage gaps for Medicaid managed care recipients. Meanwhile, Wyden is pushing his Algorithmic Accountability Act, a bill that would increase transparency into health care AI. Even so: The committee might have its work cut out for it. Experts at the hearing pointed out that reviewing coverage decisions for Medicaid would be difficult because, unlike Medicare, the data isn’t located in a single place. That would make it harder for lawmakers to see patterns in coverage refusals.
| | | | DON’T MISS POLITICO’S GOVERNORS SUMMIT: Join POLITICO on Feb. 22 to dive into how Governors are wielding immense power. While Washington remains gridlocked, governors are at the center of landmark decisions in AI and tech, economic development, infrastructure, housing, reproductive health and energy. How are they setting the stage for the future of American politics, policies and priorities? How are they confronting major challenges? Explore these questions and more at the 2024 Governors Summit. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | The convergence of AI, biotechnology, and the ability to automate data generation to train AI models is going to transform pandemic preparedness and response, according to Shankar Sundaram, a special assistant to the president and senior director for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council. This convergence could help detect when an outbreak is starting; develop vaccines, tests and treatments; design protective equipment for health care workers; and help inform non-medical measures that impact infection risk, he said at a Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security panel in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. But there’s a catch: “Unfortunately, there are bad actors in the world, and we’ve got to make sure that we are preventing them from misusing any of this technology, by whatever means that we can take,” he said. How to do it: Get there first, argued Michelle Rozo, the vice chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, which Congress tasked with reviewing how biotechnology advancements and progress in related fields shape national defense. “One of the risks that we're examining at the commission is the risk that we don't reach this inflection point at the convergence of AI and biotech before an adversary does, particularly an adversary that has different ethics, different beliefs than we do,” she said at the panel. The commission is expected to submit its report to Congress in December. What’s next: Additional controls need to be introduced on synthesizing DNA, where everything starts, Sundaram said. President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI last year was a first step: It told U.S. agencies to tighten rules, including demanding providers of synthetic nucleic acid sequences identify biological sequences that could be used to engineer bioweapons, and to screen their customers for bad actors. HHS released guidance for those providers in October. The Biden administration plans to build a set of requirements for synthesizing DNA, Sundaram said. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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