Health Insurance Marketplace Opens on Oct. 1st

Sep 26, 2013

Did you know that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance marketplace will open on Oct. 1? The health insurance marketplace will provide opportunities for the uninsured, and those seeking a better healthcare plan, to access quality, affordable healthcare. Community coalitions can play a role in reducing the number of uninsured Americans by helping to raise awareness of these new insurance opportunities.

SAMHSA has created valuable resources for multiple audiences, and has engaged a number of national partners, including CADCA, in the development of materials.  The goal is to help you learn more about a role your local organization can play in the new healthcare marketplace.  Your community coalition may be well-positioned to reach special populations of uninsured individuals for enrollment, partner with federally qualified health care providers or engage in improving systems as this new marketplace moves forward. 

To learn more about the health insurance marketplace and to access a toolkit developed for community organizations, visit: 
http://beta.samhsa.gov/health-reform/samhsa-health-reform-efforts/enrollment-coalitions-initiative.Note that the initial open enrollment period ends on March 31, 2014 so it’s important to act now.

Coalitions should scroll down and click on the “Community-Based Prevention Organizations Toolkit.”  CADCA asks all interested coalitions to review the SAMSHA materials and we welcome your feedback on these resources.  Please email your questions or comments to Mary Elliott at melliott@cadca.org and be sure to write “enrollment coalitions” in the email subject line.  

Coalitions can also access CADCA’s publication, Coalitions and Community Health: Integration of Behavioral Health and Primary Care, which outlines specific action steps for coalitions to educate their community about some of the key provisions of the ACA that are already being implemented, as well those taking effect in January 2014 and beyond. It also offers suggestions for how coalitions can get at the table with community stakeholders that are involved in planning and implementing integration efforts. The publication was developed in partnership with the SAMHSA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions.

Raise Awareness of the Dangers of Prescription and Over-the-Counter Medicine Abuse this October

You may be aware that prescription drug abuse is at epidemic proportions in our nation, but did you know that roughly one in three teens knows someone who has abused over-the-counter cough medicine to get high? Help educate your community about the dangers of medicine abuse by participating in theCADCA 50 Challenge this October.

The CADCA 50 Challenge is an attempt to get prescription and over-the-counter medicine abuse on the radar screens of families across America. To participate, simply host an educational event on medicine abuse during National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month this October. 

To register for the CADCA 50 Challenge, visit www.PreventRxAbuse.org. By registering, you're automatically entered in a drawing for a free iPad!
The website also includes a host of helpful tools to assist you in the planning of your event, including a new Grassroots Media Kit. The Grassroots Media Kit includes several resources to help you plan and promote your National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month event so that your message reaches a broader audience. You’ll also find other useful tools, such as PowerPoint presentations, videos and our Rx Abuse Prevention Toolkit: From Awareness to Action.  

For more information, visit www.preventrxabuse.org or contact Natalia Martinez Duncan atnmartinez@cadca.org.

More Than 100,000 Americans Quit Smoking Due to National Media Campaign

An estimated 1.6 million smokers attempted to quit smoking because of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Tips From Former Smokers” national ad campaign, according to a study released by the CDC. As a result of the 2012 campaign, more than 200,000 Americans had quit smoking immediately following the three-month campaign, of which researchers estimated that more than 100,000 will likely quit smoking permanently.

The study surveyed thousands of adult smokers and nonsmokers before and after the campaign. Findings showed that, by quitting, former smokers added more than a third of a million years of life to the U.S. population. 

The Tips campaign, which aired from March 19 to June 10, 2012, was the first time a federal agency had developed and placed paid advertisements for a national tobacco education campaign. Ads featured emotionally powerful stories of former smokers living with smoking-related diseases and disabilities. The
campaign encouraged people to call 1-800-QUIT-NOW, a toll-free number to access quit support across the country, or visit a quit-assistance website. 

The study on the campaign’s impact is published this week by a medical
journal, The Lancet. 

“This is exciting news. Quitting can be hard and I congratulate and celebrate with former smokers - this is the most important step you can take to a longer, healthier life,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “I encourage anyone who tried to quit to keep trying – it may take several attempts to succeed.’’

According to the CDC study:
•    Millions of nonsmokers reported talking to friends and family about the dangers of smoking and referring smokers to quit services. 
•    Almost 80 percent of smokers and almost 75 percent of nonsmokers recalled seeing at least one of the ads during the three-month campaign.
•    Calls to the quitline more than doubled during the campaign and visits to the website were more than five times higher than for the same 12-week period in 2011.

Visit http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/ to view ads in the “Tips from Former Smokers Campaign”. 

In June, Tiffany Roberson, one of the individuals featured in the CDC campaign, wrote a guest post on CADCA’s Blog. Click here to read her post.

E-cigarette Use More Than Doubles among U.S. Middle and High School Students

The percentage of U.S. middle and high school students who use electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, more than doubled from 2011 to 2012, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The findings from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, show that the percentage of high school students who reported ever using an e-cigarette rose from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10.0 percent in 2012. In the same time period, high school students using e-cigarettes within the past 30 days rose from 1.5 percent to 2.8 percent. Use also doubled among middle school students. Altogether, in 2012 more than 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide had tried e-cigarettes.

"The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling," said CDC Director Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. "Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes."

The study also found that 76.3 percent of middle and high school students who used e-cigarettes within the past 30 days also smoked conventional cigarettes in the same period. In addition, 1 in 5 middle school students who reported ever using e-cigarettes say they have never tried conventional cigarettes. This raises concern that there may be young people for whom e-cigarettes could be an entry point to use of conventional tobacco products, including cigarettes.

“About 90 percent of all smokers begin smoking as teenagers,” said Tim McAfee, M.D., M.P.H., director of the CDC Office on Smoking and Health. “We must keep our youth from experimenting or using any tobacco product. These dramatic increases suggest that developing strategies to prevent marketing, sales, and use of e-cigarettes among youth is critical.”

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are battery-powered devices that provide doses of nicotine and other additives to the user in an aerosol. E-cigarettes not marketed for therapeutic purposes are currently unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA Center for Tobacco Products has announced that it intends to expand its jurisdiction over tobacco products to include e-cigarettes, but has not yet issued regulatory rules. Because e-cigarettes are largely unregulated, the agency does not have good information about them, such as the amounts and types of components and potentially harmful constituents.

Click here to read a recent blog CADCA published about e-cigarettes.