December 2015

The first time I heard a preschooler explaining a classmate’s disruptive behavior, I was surprised at how adult her 4-year-old voice sounded. Her classmate “doesn’t know how to sit still and listen,” she said to me, while I sat at the snack table with them. He couldn’t learn because he couldn’t follow directions, she explained, as if she had recently completed a behavioral assessment on him. Months before either of these children would start kindergarten,...

When a family has been divided by divorce, it creates added stress during the holidays with regard to visitation, gift giving and attending year-end school events. But it doesn't have to be that way. Divorced parents can set aside their differences; focus on communication, cooperation and compromise; and make the holidays less stressful on everyone. This was Ted and Linda's goal when they split up. "Since our separation happened just before Thanksgiving, Ted and I realized we needed to...

A s if it weren't enough to experience abuse, neglect, homelessness, hunger, or some combination of all of those things, many children face a world of adults who don't really understand how to help. Study after study documents the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on a person's health and brain development. Most recently, research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that the more ACEs people had, the higher their risk of suffering heart disease,...

An international group of scientists meeting in Washington called on Thursday for what would, in effect, be a moratorium on making inheritable changes to the human genome. The group said it would be “irresponsible to proceed” until the risks could be better assessed and until there was “broad societal consensus about the appropriateness” of any proposed change. The group also held open the possibility for such work to proceed in the future by saying that as knowledge...

In 2013, an obese man went to Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark to have his stomach stapled. All in all, it was ordinary bariatric surgery — with one big exception. A week before the operation, the man provided a sperm sample to Danish scientists. A week after the procedure, he did so again. A year later, he donated a third sample. Scientists were investigating a tantalizing but controversial hypothesis: that a man’s experiences can alter his sperm, and that those changes in turn may...

Nearly half of U.S. homes don't have a landline and rely on cellphones instead, according to a federal report out this week. The number predictably has been climbing over the years, now surpassing even the households with both a landline and a mobile phone. And it's tracked by of all agencies the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [For more of this story, written by Alina Selyukh, go...

Twenty years ago — under threat from Congress — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped studying gun violence. That didn't stop Dr. David Livingston and his colleagues: In a new study, the researchers in Newark, N.J., found — among other things — that over a 12-year period, gunshot wounds have gotten more lethal, and that more patients had multiple wounds. Livingston explains the results. [For more go...

Connecting with ACEs Connection has helped me to see and meet so many caring, compassionate people. Every time I visit this site I find something enlightening and positive for me to think about. Thank you Jane and all of you who have shared your insights and your hearts and souls with me. I am bird with wings–with song

The San Francisco Bay Area—stretching from San Jose and Silicon Valley in the south to Oakland, Berkeley, and the city of San Francisco in the north—is the world’s foremost tech hub. But the city and region also suffer from deepening urban challenges such as an acute housing affordability crisis and rising inequality. Congestion in the area is rising, commute times have become unbearable, and long-time residents and even members of the creative class are being priced out of...

Child Trends has a new partnership with the Aspen Institute’s Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) to work together on initiatives to support Native American communities. Founded in 2011 by former U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, CNAY is dedicated to improving the health, safety and overall well-being of Native youth. Given that much of the research on this population has focused on negative outcomes and risk factors, we’re excited to partner with an organization that takes a...

Group homes , which lack the kind of nurturing parental relationships thought to be developmentally necessary for healthy children, have historically been a last resort for foster kids.   But a family placement does not guarantee a happy child; as Natasha Vargas-Cooper reported for Pacific Standard in the 2013 September/October issue, foster children typically bounce between at least three family placements, and often as many as 10 or 12 different homes. Vargas-Cooper's piece...

2015 Call for Proposals Systems for Action (S4A) is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that studies novel ways of aligning the delivery and financing systems that support a Culture of Health . Building on a foundation of scientific progress from both health services research (HSR) and public health services and systems research (PHSSR), S4A uses rigorous methods to test strategies for improving the reach, quality, efficiency, and equity of services and supports that...