May 2018

Housing is healthcare. That’s a common refrain among leaders working on public health issues that range from substance abuse to food insecurity. Fighting poverty and homelessness, and treating the many negative health outcomes associated with living outside shelter, starts with helping people secure safe, affordable housing. It’s the bedrock tenet of the “ housing first” movement. This intersectional approach to public health can be witnessed in dozens of cities across the country . But the...

Changing people's minds on emotionally charged issues is an enormous challenge. But new research reveals a technique that is more effective than most: You just need to lay out the facts—while exerting intense peer pressure. "While information plays a role in changing a person's opinion, the social delivery of that information has the greatest effect," write Daniel Mallinson and Peter Hatemi of Pennsylvania State University. "Humans have a demonstrated proclivity to conform to their peers...

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced earlier this month he would send 35 more federal prosecutors to districts along the U.S.-Mexico border to focus on prosecuting immigration offenses, it was only the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s war on illegal immigration. The announcement came on the heels of a Justice Department memo last month to prosecutors in border districts, asking them to prosecute more people for immigration offenses. If the suggestion is that the government...

Sherri Eddings and her daughter live in South Los Angeles. They’re tenants in a home owned by Invitation Homes, a company that owns and manages more than 12,000 single-family home s in California. Eddings has lived in her home since 2013, originally paying $1,800 a month. She says that every two years, her landlord has tried to raise her rent by $500, but she was able to negotiate a $200 increase over two years. However, this year she received a letter saying that her rent would go up in the...

No one wants to hang out with me. I’m a failure at school. All my other friends seem happy. What’s wrong with me? These kinds of negative thoughts are becoming more common in our homes and schools. Teens are experiencing increased anxiety , and studies indicate that college students in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are becoming more perfectionistic over time, measuring themselves against unrealistic standards. Why is this happening? We can’t say for sure—but we do know...

Heart disease is the most common killer of men in the United States, and high blood pressure is one of the greatest risk factors for heart disease. Despite knowing this for some time, we have had a hard time getting patients to comply with recommendations and medications. A recent study shows that the means of communication may be as important as the message itself, maybe even more so. Also, it suggests that health care need not take place in a doctor’s office — or be provided by a physician...

To read more of this article by Justin Jouvenal , please click here . Photo by Whitney Curtis.

In an era of “us” and “them,” be an “other” -- someone trying to understand how we all live together. Journalism about the multicultural nation America will become -- with Otherhood, a PRI podcast created and hosted by Rupa Shenoy. [To listen to this podcast by Rupa Shenoy, go to https://www.pri.org/programs/otherhood/why-its-so-hard-talk-about-racism-happens-school ]

A controversial state bill in Michigan would exempt certain counties from new work requirements proposed for recipients of Medicaid. On paper, the bill looks like it would rescue rural white constituents from work requirements while imposing the new standards on their urban black counterparts. Yet the bill's likely effect may be vastly overstated—a marker of the uncertainty surrounding Republican efforts to tighten welfare. Just last month, Michigan's senate passed a law that would require...

As a teen mom in foster care with a baby of her own, New Yorker RaiLei Girard resolved never to become “known.” To be “known” meant possibly having her own child placed in foster care — to be accused of child neglect or abuse, then becoming “known” to a child welfare system that takes children from teen moms in foster care at an alarmingly high rate. Girard, who entered foster care at age 3, avoided that outcome. But another challenge emerged raising her son in her foster parents’ home. [For...

The haunting of my family I know now that a ghost haunted my family’s dinner table. Growing up, my mom prepared sumptuous Korean meals and in response, my siblings and I told her daily that the meal was masisseoyo (맛있어요). But otherwise, silence ruled our meals as if an invisible dinner guest bound our tongues. Or perhaps instead the silence provided for a vacuum that the ghost filled. Perhaps it was a bit of both. As a result, I have only bits and scraps of the life stories of my parents and...

Campaign for Trauma Informed Practice and Policy Webinar Tuesday, May 22, 2018 3:00PM - 4:30 PM EDT Parental Substance Use, Opioid Misuse, and Child Welfare In this webinar we will present results from a mixed methods study demonstrating that there is a relationship between substance use and opioid misuse prevalence, and child welfare outcomes. The presenters will discuss the unique challenges the current opioid epidemic is presenting to child welfare systems. Presenters Annette L. Waters ,...