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COVID Is Prompting Youthful Vapers to Quit

06Jun
Green KeyHealthcare

COVID-19 has had at least one positive effect on health: Vaping, the use of e-cigarettes, among teens and young adults has decreased markedly since the beginning of the pandemic.

A survey reported Dec. 3 on the JAMA Network Open says almost a third — 32.8% — of young adult users 13-24 that changed their e-cigarette use since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic quit vaping. Another 35.3% reduced their use of e-cigarettes. Not all e-cigarette users changed their smoking habit, but 56.4% of the survey participants did.

One of the two researchers, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a developmental psychologist and professor of pediatrics at Stanford University, told HealthDay, “One of the main reasons they quit is that they were worried about lung health, and we think that’s important, that they thought they could hurt their lungs.”

Vaping already was on the decline according to a CDC and FDA survey conducted just before the COVID shutdown in March. The report published in September found 20% of high school students and 5% of middle school students were vaping in early 2020, compared with 28% of high school students and 11% of middle school students in 2019.

The just published survey said who quit or decreased their use out of concern for their health accounted for 25% of the total. Because they were at home and their parents would know caused 15.2% to quit or cut back. Another 19.5% said it was because they couldn’t get the products. Almost a third (32.1%) said a combination of those factors were responsible.

There’s good reason for youthful vapers to quit. Research has revealed that 13-24 year-old cigarette and e-cigarette users were much more likely than non-smokers to be diagnosed with COVID-19. Dual-users who vaped and smoked cigarettes were 7 times more likely to get a COVID diagnosis. Those who vaped only were 5 times more likely.

The newest survey also found those adhering to the stay-at-home orders were 1.5 times more likely to have reduced or quit e-cigarettes, a consequence of access being limited, a lack of socializing with other users or worries about parents or a combination.

“In this study, sheltering-in-place policies that may have limited access to retail store purchases may have helped facilitate quitting or reduced use among both underage youth and young adults,” the researchers noted.

However, they also found that “that vape shops and online platforms are routinely selling to underage youth during this pandemic.”

Photo by Chiara Summer on Unsplash

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No one who’s ever been in a hospital, even as just a visitor, will deny that nursing is a frontline, adrenaline charged job. The nurse you see calmly entering patient information one minute may be racing the next to provide life-saving care.

Yet even among all the demanding nursing specialties, one stands out for its high altitude adrenaline rush. Flight nurses, also known as transport nurses, perform their patient care in helicopters and airplanes.

“These specialized nurses,” says Nurse.org, “provide comprehensive pre-hospital, emergency critical care, and hospital-level care either from the scene of an accident or while transporting inter-facility from hospital to hospital. They are often charged with the care of a vast scope of patient populations.”

It helps to be an adrenaline junkie, Nurse.org agrees. That’s particularly so for nurses working on helicopters. Fixed-wing air ambulances typically transport patients between medical facilities after they’ve been stabilized. Helicopters perform that function too, but they also are summoned to the scene of major accidents and disasters to carry seriously injured victims to trauma centers.

It takes a special personality to perform well, often working alone in the cramped space of an aircraft while doing the same things an ICU or ER nurse in a hospital does.

Flight nurses – rotor wing, air ambulance and commercial medical escort – are almost all RNs. Most jobs require a minimum of 3-5 years’ experience working in an emergency room or ICU. In addition, employers look for certification as a flight registered nurse from the Board of Certification for Emergency Nursing.

Other certifications may also be required, said Bob Bacheler, managing director of Flying Angels, a service that provides RN escorts for non-emergency patients on commercial flights.

Speaking to Minority Nurse, Bacheler said ”165,000 nurses are providing direct patient care in the transport environment.” Men, who comprise about 11% of the nation’s 3.2 million RNs, make up about 18% of flight nurses, he noted.

Average pay for a flight RN is right around $71,000, according to PayScale. But the range is broad. In Seattle, the average for a flight nurse is $88,000.

Kelley Holdren, administrative director and chief flight nurse at the University of Chicago Aeromedical Network, told Nurse.org that pay can be as high as $120,000.

She says the field is competitive and difficult to enter, “but not impossible.” “Flight nurse positions can be found at various teaching/university hospitals and aviation companies that operate in many communities.”

“It’s just an amazing role to be a flight nurse, to be able to make a difference in so many lives, never knowing who you may be picking up to transport, using your critical thinking skills, all while flying around… I couldn’t ask for a better career or office.”

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Telemedicine Use Surges As People Avoid Personal Contact

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Telemedicine Use Surges As People Avoid Personal Contact

Faced with limits on in-person visits and constrained by directives to stay home, an ever-growing number of consumers are turning to telemedicine.

Telehealth provider MDLive says it is fielding nearly double the number of daily calls it gets during a normal flu season. CEO Charles Jones says most of the telehealth visits are not coronavirus-related, but for more usual reasons such as a cold.

Jones said the calls are coming from “people who have normal healthcare needs who now decided they’d rather do it by video.”

Forrester Research says at the current rate, virtual healthcare interactions could hit 1 billion by year’s end. In the past, telehealth growth was limited by public awareness and the easy access to in-person care.

“President Trump talking about the benefits of virtual care, I think, helped reduce one of those barriers that we found in our research of awareness,” analyst Arielle Trzcinsktold CNBC.

A survey in mid-March, just as businesses and schools were being ordered closed, found 42% of respondents unfamiliar with telehealth. Of those who were aware, 20% had used telehealth to consult with a provider. Another 40% were considering it, but had not yet had a telehealth appointment. But if they felt they were experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, 73% would consider a telehealth visit; 12% then already had one.

At about the same time, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services loosened the rules on telehealth, greatly extending who can use the service from mostly rural areas to the entire nation and allowing telehealth services to be accessed from home. It also increased the types of providers delivering telehealth services to include a broader range of doctors, nurse practitioners, clinical psychologists, and licensed clinical social workers.

The pandemic has also encouraged individual doctors and medical clinics to arrange for telehealth visits with their patients. According to a survey by medical technology provider Kareo, 75% of practices are now providing telemedicine services or will be deploying one soon.

Health insurance provider Cigna is encouraging its customers to make greater use of telemedicine, waiving out-of-pockets for all COVID-19 related visits including those by phone and video. MDLive, which partners with Cigna to provide mental health services, said calls from those anxious about health or jobs have also increased.

Ironically, as the number of telehealth video users increases, the internet itself could become a limiting factor. IT network professionals and telecoms say that a surge in internet traffic is placing an unusually heavy demand on the infrastructure.

Chintan Patel, Cisco’s chief technologist in the UK, told CNBC, the network is designed to cope with peak traffic times, “It’s just that the peak is at a longer time and longer duration now.”

Still, streaming services like Netflix and Disney have taken steps to reduce network congestion. The European Union is asking that streaming services cut video quality to reduce the demand for the system. Besides Netflix, Google and Amazon have complied. Sony said it would slow PlayStation downloads.  

Photo by Kendal on Unsplash

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