February 2016

On a Tuesday afternoon in December, Richard Walker stood on the corner outside the citys social services building and hollered. Hey! Im helping people whove got a felony conviction like me get their rights back. You know anybody like that? Walker, 57, called out to office workers in suits, the women in line for cheap cell phones and the young man pushing a baby stroller down East Marshall Street. He jogged alongside people hurrying toward a line of purple city buses who wanted to know more...

Millions of family and friends who help older, disabled adults manage medications and navigate the health system may be sacrificing their own well-being, a new study suggests. Caregivers who provided "substantial help" with health care in these settings were roughly twice as likely to experience physical, financial and emotional difficulties as those who did not provide that help, the study found. Such caregivers, if they worked for a living, were three times more likely to be less...

Texas prisons are filling up with the old and the ill at enormous expense. Benito Alonzo is a short, 140-pound 80-year-old. His quiet-spoken manner, drooping jowls and gray hair, trimmed in a buzz, give him the appearance of a benevolent grandfather, and indeed, he is a grandfather. In thick-framed black eyeglasses, he bears a resemblance to the defanged and aging Henry Kissinger. But Alonzo is neither a celebrity nor a statesman. Hes a convict who has lately grown infirm. He says hes been...

Dr. Seth Ammerman listens intently to his new, 21-year-old patient. Ernesto, who does not want his last name disclosed, is homeless. He is earning a high school degree and working part time, but at night, he and his brother share a tent that they set up on the streets of San Jose, Calif. The daily stress of being homeless is wearing Ernesto out, and making him light up too many cigarettes. "I just want to cut down on my smoking," says Ernesto, in a tentative, soft voice. "I've been on the...

Children of alcoholics and other parents dealing with a substance use disorder are often struggling with a multitude of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): early substance use, neglect, family violence and emotional, physical and even sexual abuse. Commonly there is parental separation or divorce, and often one or both parents are dealing with mental illness and incarceration as well as a substance use disorder. The children and teens are among those at highest risk for future physical and...

[Photo by Paul David ] Q: Ive heard of children in schools learning yoga, meditation and mindfulness. Does this help even the kids who have experienced the most challenging situations in life? A: Close to a year ago, I listened to Dr. Camara Jones describe her Cliff Analogy at a conference. In her description, the health care system is portrayed as a cliff, where different types of interventions are in place to prevent people from falling, or being too badly injured by a fall, from the top.

[Photo by Daniel Parks ] Amber Hensley rushed from Thurston High Schools cafeteria to meet her mom in the parking lot. Shed forgotten her orchestra uniform and needed it for a concert that day May 21, 1998. As she walked through a breezeway between buildings, the high school junior brushed by her classmate, Kip Kinkel. He was headed into the school. Their eyes met. Hensley smiled. He stared blankly. I was like, OK, she said. Something seemed off. A few seconds later, Kinkel pulled a gun from...

In a city that often struggles with its public perception, less visible battles appear to plague Falls' youth. Data collected by a 2015 behavior survey was presentated to the Board of Education at a meeting last month. Falls teenagers proved safer than state averages in elective health behaviors, choices like smoking or handling weapons, Psychologist Michael Lewis, a grant coordinator in the district, told the Board of Education in January. In "social-emotional needs, psychological issues,...

More than 200 educators, advocates and community members participated in a four-hour session Feb. 9 to learn what role trauma plays in the lives of Monroe County school students and how they can help students succeed. Data and analysis from the most recent Monroe County Youth Risk Behavior Survey helped set the stage for the mornings discussion. The local survey, completed 11 times since 1992 by students ages 13 and older, has typically measured youth risk behavior, which includes drug use,...

Since 1984, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health-care experts, has regularly issued recommendations for doctors and patients about the best strategies for preventive care, including screenings, counseling services, and medications that help ward off disease. These recommendations dont take cost-effectiveness into account, instead focusing entirely on maximum benefit for the patient. And a few weeks ago, the USPSTF took a dramatic step in the realm of...

The tech company Slack recently made headlines when its CEO sent four African American women to accept an award on his behalf . This was a radical move in the tech sector, which is as a whole decidedly male. While other industries lack of gender diversity may be less glaring, its an issue economy-wide . Diversity has become such a ubiquitous concern in hiring that the writer Anna Holmes wondered whether the term has lost its meaning . New research shows that theres one reason why companies...

Success in life depends on a lot of things: talent and practice, for sure, and perhaps something called grit, a combination of perseverance and consistent interests over long periods of time. Grit, in fact, has gotten a lot more attention than the other two lately. But a new study suggests the role of grit, in academic achievement at least, might be overstated. In fairness to Angela Duckworth , the University of Pennsylvania psychologist behind the grit concept, she and her colleagues never...