Health screening for low-income women under health care reform: Better or worse?

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

8-May-2014

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, May 8, 2014When Massachusetts enacted its own statewide health insurance reform in 2006, low-income women transitioned from receiving free, federally subsidized screening for breast and cervical cancer and cardiovascular disease risk to an insurance-based payment system. The effects on screening rates in this vulnerable population are explored in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/jwh.2013.4612.

A group of authors from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and several women's health centers and community hospitals in Boston, MA gathered data to evaluate whether the prevalence of screening mammography, Pap smear, and blood pressure measurement improved, stayed the same, or declined pre- and post-health insurance reform. In the article "Preventive Care for Low-Income Women in Massachusetts Post-Health Reform," the authors reviewed screening information for women treated at five community health centers between 2004 and 2010, spanning the period before and after the introduction of health reform.

"There are lessons learned from the Massachusetts experience of health care reform that can help inform health care changes nationally," says Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women's Health, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health, Richmond, VA, and President of the Academy of Women's Health.

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About the Journal

Journal of Women's Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. The Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women's healthcare issues. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh. Journal of Women's Health is the official journal of the Academy of Women's Health and the Society for Women's Health Research.

About the Academy

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Health screening for low-income women under health care reform: Better or worse?