Blog

Alarmed that the U.S. is the most dangerous affluent country in which to give birth, state and local lawmakers around the country are adopting a flurry of bipartisan bills aimed at reforming how maternal deaths are identified and investigated. In Indiana earlier this month, Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a bill creating a maternal mortality review committee to scrutinize deaths and near-deaths among expectant and new mothers and make policy recommendations to improve maternal health.

One winter, I went camping with my friend Bob in the backcountry near Sequoia National Park. After spending the day slogging uphill through deep snow, we were exhausted but needed to make camp. As the temperature rapidly dropped, Bob began shivering uncontrollably. He had poured out so much energy without refueling himself that he was sliding into hypothermia, the first stage of freezing to death. We hurried to set up the tent, get into our sleeping bags, light the stove, drink hot water,...

What does it take to widen the circle of opportunity in a rapidly diversifying America? Few questions are more pressing for the country. The Census Bureau recently forecast that racial and ethnic minorities will become a majority of the nation’s under-18 population by 2020, most of the under-30 population by 2027, and a majority of the under-40 population just six years after that. These young people represent the nation’s future—its workers, consumers, taxpayers, and voters. Yet despite...

Gentrification can be hazardous to your health, according to a team of New York City researchers. Their recently published study finds that hospitalization rates for mental illness—including schizophrenia and mood disorders—are two times as high in displaced people versus those who remain in their neighborhood. It is one of the first U.S. studies to quantify the hidden mental health consequences of gentrification. The potential public health implications are significant: Nearly a million...

"This isn’t a King–Stokely situation.” The reverend’s voice on the telephone was deep and deliberate. He was trying to dissuade us from heading to the Florida statehouse, where a massive sit-in had been organized by young activists protesting the murder of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, and the acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman. The demonstrators, with their zeal and style—their use of social media, their graphics and videos, their hoodies—appealed to our North Carolina group of...

When is the last time a stereotype popped into your mind? If you are like most people, the authors included, it happens all the time. That doesn’t make you a racist, sexist, or whatever-ist. It just means your brain is working properly, noticing patterns, and making generalizations. But the same thought processes that make people smart can also make them biased. This tendency for stereotype-confirming thoughts to pass spontaneously through our minds is what psychologists call implicit bias.

For once, Casey is optimistic about his future. After 16 years of struggling with drug addiction, he no longer feels the need to use. He has a steady job doing hazard tree removal for a Fortune 500 energy company. He’s working on getting specialized training for a license to help him land better-paying jobs. He’s even going to the gym. But Casey, who asked that I only use his first name for this story, knows this could have turned out very differently. In fact, it had the past few times he...

Mary Rojas and Jan Fenty (wearing sunglasses) on the bus with me and other neighbors on the way to the Saturday’s March for Our Lives in Washington, DC ______________________________________________________ For Saturday’s March for Our Lives in Washington, DC, Jan Fenty repurposed the signs she uses for the weekly Monday morning anti-gun demonstrations in front of the White House, giving me an extra sign as we rode the bus to the March site. As I reflected on the day—an event full of...

The deliberative portion of juvenile court proceedings focuses intently upon the “actor,” or minor respondent, once the facts of the “act” have been adjudicated by an affirmative plea or after a trial where a finding of delinquency has been entered. Juvenile court judges then weigh the facts of the act on the same scale that considers all the aggravating and mitigating life circumstances present in the “actor’s” life before determining the most appropriate disposition (sentence). In most...

I am no electrician but I can certainly replace a wall switch if I have to. But I have one switch in our home, the light over our mantle, that, when it is turned on and even sometimes when it is turned off will come on without any prompting and turn itself off. I am perplexed, and after throwing cuss words at it, which I have yet to figure out why that doesn’t work, and replacing the switch with a new one, it is still coming on and going off. I think it is haunted frankly or as “Paw-Paw”...

From birth, we are told implicitly and explicitly that there are "rules" to how we must conduct ourselves within our community. But what are these rules? Can you sit down right now and make a list? Would your list be the same as that of someone living on the other side of the planet? On the other side of town? Even on the other side of your dining room table? The truth is, there are as many interpretations of relationship rules as there are individuals on Earth. Much human conflict is the...

Blog Written by Jeff Hild Policy Director, Redstone Center for Prevention and Wellness At the Building Community Resilience (BCR) collaborative and network — based at the Redstone Center for Prevention and Wellness , George Washington University School of Public Health — we are working to improve the health and wellbeing of children, families and communities across the country. We do this by working to align systems to address the “Pair of ACEs”  — adverse childhood experiences in the...