HealthConnections

When gyms, yoga studios and other exercise spaces closed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials recommended people head outside. And many did. Now that cooler months are setting in, how can you stay physically active, maintain physical distancing and keep yourself safe?

Everyone gets nervous from time to time. Most of the time, anxiety is about something specific, like flying on an airplane, or giving a speech, or looking over the edge of a canyon and seeing how far down the bottom is. And there is also a moment of release. When that plane lands or your speech is done, you feel better and the anxiety goes away.

On November 3, the nation will vote to determine who will be President of the United States for next four years.

While the major-party presidential contenders have not made health care a front-and-center issue this year, the topic is a perennial priority for voters.  In this election, Donald Trump and Joe Biden offer starkly different approaches for health care.

The pandemic, political chaos, disruptions to old norms of social contact, economic worries, concerns about the present and future -- the events of 2020 are enough to get anyone down. Unsurprisingly, more Americans have reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially younger adults, people of color and people in the health care field.

In the dark days of the Second World War, the letter V meant victory. Today, the letter V stands for something just as hoped-for: a vaccine against COVID-19. Pharmaceutical companies around the world are scrambling to invent a vaccine that will protect us from the pernicious effects of the novel coronavirus. But any vaccine must also be safe for humans.

A word of caution: This topic may upset some listeners.

The suicide rate among the general population has increased 30% since 2000. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people 10-34 years old.

Suicide is an even more challenging concern in the world of health and medicine.  Health care professionals, including physicians, veterinarians, and nurses have considerably higher rates of suicide than the general population.  Sadly, we even sometimes see suicide referred to as an occupational hazard for health care professionals.

For years, going to your health care provider meant going to the provider – being physically present in the waiting room when you name was called. Advocates for telehealth say you don’t always need to do that. Meeting your provider remotely, by video or phone, could expand access to health care services.

Adopting telehealth has been relatively slow, in part because of restrictive state and federal regulations, technology problems, including broadband access, and whether or not patients feel comfortable interacting with their providers remotely.

Many of us have COVID anxiety to one degree or another. But we can’t forget that children are also aware things are different and unsettling now. As school starts back, parents and kids probably have lots of questions about what happens next, and how they will stay safe.

In this edition of HealthConnections, the University of Tennessee's Dr. Allyson Neal tells us how to talk to kids about COVID worries and how you can help them deal with uncertainty. HealthConnections creator Dr. Carole Myers is your host.

Some Tennesseans are skeptical about COVID-19. They equate safer-at-home orders with tyranny. They don't like the idea of having to wear masks. They want stores to open and stay open. They are a mix of residents, business owners and elected officials. And they get a lot of attention on the news and in social media.

But are they representative of Tennesseans in general? Not according to a serial survey conducted by a team of University of Tennessee researchers.

Close to half a million Tennessee children are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches. For many of those students, the food they eat at school might be the most substantive meal they get all day. When schools closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, that reliable daily connection to nutrition was severed. School systems scrambled to provide workarounds, usually in the form of food pickup sites.