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Health care spending for the privately insured increased 4.6 percent nationally in 2015, higher than the hikes in the prior two years, according to a report released Tuesday. The report from the Health Care Cost Institute said the biggest factor in the higher spending was an increase in prices for services such as inpatient hospital care and for brand-name prescription drugs. (Miller, 11/22)

Minnesota officials are lauding gains made in reducing obesity rates among low-income children. A study released Tuesday notes that the state’s obesity rate for children ages 2 to 4 in low-income families participating in the Women, Infant and Children Program (WIC) fell from 12.7 percent in 2010 to 12.3 percent in 2014. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of Agriculture study found Minnesota’s rate the eighth lowest in the nation. The national rate was 14.5 percent in 2014, the latest year figures are available. (11/22)

Living in well-to-do Washington Park or in the Valverde neighborhood on Denver’s west side can mean a difference in average life expectancy of 11 years. Depression and childhood obesity rates are four times higher in some Denver neighborhoods, and tobacco use is six times higher in certain areas of the city. The health disparities are severe, and thanks to data emerging from death certificates and the electronic health records of tens of thousands of Denver residents, public health officials can map the variance down to specific pockets of town. Armed with blunt facts, the public health community has renewed its effort to intervene and help improve outcomes in the unhealthiest neighborhoods. (Brown, 11/22)

The State Medical Board of Ohio has closed its investigation into physicians at Women's Med Center in suburban Dayton  who performed an abortion on a woman seemingly high on drugs. Paul Coudron, executive director of Dayton Right to Life, said Tuesday he was notified by the board that there was insufficient evidence that any state laws or professional regulations had been violated. (Candisky, 11/22)

The Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine will receive $138 million in federal funds that will support the work of the newly created Center for International Health, Education and Biosecurity to build programs in Africa to combat HIV/AIDS. The money will enable the Baltimore-based institute to continue working in countries that persistently suffer from high rates of HIV infections. The goal is to stem new infections and to find and treat more people already infected so the virus becomes more of a chronic condition, much like it is in the United States, rather than a death sentence. (Cohn, 11/22)

Sexually transmitted diseases — chlamydia, gonorrhea, and early (infectious) syphilis — have mostly been on the rise in the Bay Area over the past six years, according to state Department of Public Health statistics. One local health official said the trend reflects fewer people using condoms and increased reporting of the diseases by medical clinics. (Richards, 11/22)

[Andrew] Aboujaoude founded Hearts for the Homeless Orlando with Alexis Ghersi, also premed, and Jennifer Carvel, who's planning to study clinical psychology. Since August, the trio and their pack of volunteers have been going to food-sharing sites in downtown Orlando one or two nights a week for a few hours to offer blood pressure screenings to homeless people who drop by for food. (Miller, 11/22)

[Katie] Minser, who holds a bachelor’s degree in theater design from Ohio State University, prides herself on making medical-training simulations as realistic as possible. That means using cadavers and cadaver parts, cow eyes and pig lungs, mannequins, skin-color craft supplies, items from the grocery-store baking aisle and party-store swag — all to create lifelike medical training on a minuscule budget. (Viviano, 11/23)

Franklin County have been working for years to understand why some parts of central Ohio don’t have easy access to healthful food. Now, they say, they have a plan to address it. The city and county unveiled on Monday their Local Food Action Plan, the product of a two-year effort to address access to nutritious food, economic-development issues around food, and food waste in the region. (Rouan, 11/22)