December 2023

By Dara Mathis, Photo Illustration: Alanna Fields; Photo: Spelman College Archives, The New York Times, November 11, 2023 On June 24, 1983, Byllye Avery welcomed busloads of Black women to the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta. She was in a state of disbelief. The women had traveled from Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania — even as far away as California — for a three-day event billed as the First National Conference on Black Women’s Health Issues. She had hoped that 200 women would...

By Jillian McKoy, Photo: KATE_SEPT2004/iStock, The Brink, October 31, 2023 Charlene Coyne often thinks back to how her mother, Donna, struggled with severe hypertension for most of her life, battling complications that led to a heart attack and stroke by the time Donna was in her thirties. She also recalls the dismissive response from a doctor when her mother voiced concerns about the severe side effects—blurry vision, severe headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue—of her blood pressure...

By Isaiah Thompson, Photo: Shelly Shell/Unsplash, Nonprofit Quarterly, November 16, 2023 In a time when reproductive rights are under threat and being actively eroded in the United States—and when Black people simultaneously face a landscape of unequal and inequitable access to healthcare—what does an agenda centered around Black reproductive justice look like? A new report from In Our Own Voice , the 2023 National Black Reproductive Justice Policy Agenda , seeks to answer that question. The...

By Victoria Hughes-Barrow and Aaron Johnson, Photo: Paolese/stock.adobe.com, Pharmacy Times, November 9, 2023 The importance of mental health, although neglected in the past, has become much more prominent since the COVID-19 pandemic. Emotional, psychological, and social aspects that constitute well-being were impacted, bringing mental health to the forefront of conversations about health and wellness. Now more than ever, it is essential to consider the mental health of populations that were...

By Natasha Crooks, Illustration: from article, Ms., December 16, 2023 As of this fall, GOP leaders and lawmakers in over a dozen states, including Iowa, Arkansas, Indiana, Idaho, New Hampshire and Kentucky, have passed bans on teaching human sexuality or stymied federal grants aimed at addressing sexual behaviors and lowering rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Six states—Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa and South Carolina—have discontinued their...

By Colleen DeGuzman, Photo: E+/Getty Images, California Healthline, December 5, 2023 Many people from racial and ethnic minority groups brace themselves for insults and judgments before medical appointments, according to a new survey of patients that reaffirms the prevalence of racial discrimination in the U.S. health system. The KFF survey of nearly 6,300 patients who have had care in the past three years found that about 55% of Black adults feel they have to be very careful about their...

Crystal Pérez Lira, founder of Bloodys Red Tijuana. Ana Ramirez for STAT By Olivia Goldhill, STAT, December 7, 2023 Just over a decade ago, when Crystal Pérez Lira needed an abortion, she had to leave Mexico. The procedure was illegal in her home state of Baja California and so deeply stigmatized that even Pérez Lira supported the procedure only for those who were raped. Until she unexpectedly got pregnant. She traveled to the U.S. for help, walking alone across the border from Tijuana to...

The research calls for greater attention to the long-term health of women and girls – both before and after pregnancy. Photograph: Rogelio V Solis/AP By Andrew Gregory, The Guardian, December 6, 2023 More than 40 million women a year experience lasting health issues after childbirth, a global review has found, prompting calls for greater recognition of common postnatal problems. The sweeping analysis of maternal health worldwide shows a very high burden of long-term conditions that last for...

Leslie McIntire, 69, is part of the baby boomer generation that is entering older age amid a historic affordable housing shortage and rising wealth inequality in the U.S. Keren Carrión/NPR By Jennifer Ludden, National Public Radio (NPR), November 30, 2023 A few decades ago, Leslie McIntire thought she was doing everything right for a comfortable life. She was a tax accountant in Washington, D.C., and co-owned a not-for-profit bookstore. "I had good savings," she says. "I was quite happy,...

Recently arrived migrants congregate outside of the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan on September 28, 2023 in New York City. Schools are preparing for disruption as a new shelter stay limit approaches for migrant families. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) By Michael Elsen-Rooney, Chalkbeat, November 29, 2023 New York City schools have started preparing for a massive reshuffling of students as early as next month, as thousands of migrant families face a...

By Catherine Hajnal and Seanna Quresette, Photo: from article, Career Wise Weekly, November 30, 2023 Do you ever wonder why you are drawn to a helping profession? As career professionals, we constantly help people through life transitions in wide-ranging ways. Along with our knowledge, skills and abilities, we bring to this work our personal perspectives and frameworks on what it means to “help” and who exactly needs helping. When we look at what gets in the way of well-being for clients,...

By Laura Gallant, 12.7.23, https://positiveexperience.org/blog/ Last year we posted a blog about 10 ways to practice positive childhood experiences (PCEs) during the holiday season . By popular demand, we created a new resource based on the blog that can be downloaded and easily shared. These holiday tips were adapted from our original 10 ways to promote positive experiences fact sheet. Through this seasonal resource, we want to share that no matter what or how you celebrate, there are big...