Health and science briefs May 16, 2009

| The New Mexican

5/15/2009 - 5/15/09

Cancer group seeks health fair volunteers

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer organization, is seeking volunteers to help staff its booth at the Santa Clara Pueblo Health Fair.

The fair will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 6 at the pueblo's senior center.

The organization needs help staffing both the 9 a.m. to noon. shift and noon to 3 p.m. shifts. Volunteers will hand out educational materials and oversee a prize wheel.

To volunteer, call Susan in Albuquerque at 505-265-4649.

UNM's ICU gets health care award

University of New Mexico Hospital's Medical/Cardiac Intensive Care Unit has received the Beacon Award for Critical Care Excellence from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.

The award recognizes the nation's top pediatric, progressive and adult critical-care units at several hospitals. It is presented to ICUs that achieve the highest quality patient outcomes and demonstrate excellence and innovation.

UNM is one of 133 ICUs chosen out of more than 6,000.

Report: 475,000 New Mexicans spend more than 10 percent of income on health care

A report by Families USA has found that 475,000 New Mexicans under age 65 are in families that will spend more than 10 percent of their pre-tax incomes on health care in 2009.

Of those families, 74.3 percent have insurance. There are also 159,000 New Mexicans in families that will spend more than 25 percent of their pre-tax income on health care this year.

Nationally, the group found there are about 64.4 million people under ages 65 that will spend more than 10 percent of their pre-tax income on health care, and 82.6 percent of them are insured. That's an increase of 22.7 million since 2000.

"As our findings make clear, high health care costs are not just a problem of the uninsured," said Ron Pollack, executive director of the group. "More and more families with insurance are affected by rising health care costs and, for many, the burden of these costs is becoming too great to bear."

The report is available online at familiesusa.org.