It’s the Midday Healthwatch with Dr. Leana Wen, the Health Commissioner of Baltimore City.  There’s good news for babies in Baltimore: the infant mortality rate fell to record low levels in 2015.  And there is an effort afoot to help those healthy babies grow into healthy teenagers.  We’ll look at the ways the city is implementing its new Youth Health and Wellness Strategy.  Plus, the future of Obamacare:  If President Elect Trump makes good on his promise to repeal and replace the ACA, what will that mean for local health departments struggling to address the needs of the uninsured, and the under-insured?  Even though rates for some plans are rising, is the ACA still a good deal for some people?

Listen to the segment here: http://wypr.org/post/healthwatch-dr-leana-wen-record-low-infant-mortality-youth-health-strategy-obamacare

BALTIMORE, MD (November 15, 2016)—Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen today announced the start of Baltimore City’s Code Blue program for the coming winter. Code Blue is a multi-agency effort to reduce hypothermia deaths by protecting homeless individuals, seniors and other vulnerable populations from extreme cold weather.

On Tuesday, BCHD staff and volunteers were in the community at five Baltimore City polling stations to teach residents waiting in line to vote how to use the life-saving opioid overdose reversal medication, naloxone. Residents were also able to get their flu shot before or after casting their vote.

As Dr. Wen says, “Every interaction is a point of intervention,” which means that we take every opportunity to teach about opioid use and demonstrate what someone can do to help during an overdose. In 2015, Dr. Wen issued a standing order for naloxone to be available to any person in Baltimore who takes the training.

It's late August and Dr. Leana Wen is standing underneath the soaring dome of City Hall, a bank of cameras pointed at her as she leads a news conference to mark National Overdose Awareness Day.

As Baltimore’s health commissioner, substance abuse and addiction are among her top priorities, not to mention issues of national importance. Last year, more Baltimoreans died from overdoses (393) than from homicides (344). So she’s here—flanked by Senator Ben Cardin, Congressman John Sarbanes, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, Fire Chief Niles Ford, and others—to sound the alarm about the nation’s opioid overdose epidemic and tout the city’s innovative response to the crisis.

There’s much to tout. In October 2015, Wen became the first health commissioner in Maryland to issue a blanket prescription allowing all Baltimoreans to obtain naloxone, a medication that can reverse an in-progress opioid overdose. The bold move attracted national attention and helped earn her a spot on a panel with President Barack Obama at the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in March.