Infants who are diagnosed with drug withdrawal after birth who are treated with medication as outpatients at home are treated three times longer than infants treated solely as inpatients, according to a new Vanderbilt study.

Generic drug options did not reduce prices paid for the cancer therapy imatinib (Gleevec), according to a Health Affairs study released this week.

“State Health Policy: Does Evidence Really Make a Difference” was the title of the spring Research into Policy and Practice Lecture, April 11 in Light Hall. The semi-annual lecture is sponsored by the Department of Health Policy.

In the United States, one infant is born every 15 minutes with withdrawal symptoms after being exposed to opioids before birth, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics.

Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, assistant professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy in the Division of Neonatology at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, testified before Congress recently about the rise and impact of drug withdrawal symptoms in newborns, also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).

Opioid users have a significantly increased risk of infections severe enough to require treatment at the hospital, such as pneumonia and meningitis, as compared to people who don’t use opioids.

A new study from researchers at Vanderbilt and Harvard universities, published this week in the journal Health Affairs, uses federal health survey data to evaluate community-based efforts to address smoking, obesity and other health conditions such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension.