The Supreme Court seems eager to hear a case on the constitutionality of a distinctively American form of punishment: prolonged solitary confinement. “Years on end of near total isolation exact a terrible price,” Justice Anthony M....
Norman Francis was just a few years into his tenure as president of Xavier University of Louisiana, a small Catholic institution in New Orleans, when a report that came across his desk alarmed him. It was an accounting of the nation’s...
America's childhood poverty numbers aren't pretty, but they are even uglier than you might think. Take a snapshot of the U.S. today, and you'll find that 22 percent of all children live in families that are below the federal poverty...
As he ordered a salmon salad for lunch at a downtown hotel on Thursday, Leon Williams looked out the window and reflected how much San Diego had changed since he arrived here in 1941. Almost all the buildings in view along Broadway were built...
When Michael Hollister was tasked with creating a hunger heat map for the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., the initial hot spots were right where everyone expected—the District’s poor...
The minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $8.54 per hour , after adjusting for inflation. The current $7.25 is far too low for the 3 million hourly workers who earn at or below that threshold, and certainly not at...
On Friday , I shared 15 ways we can boost our health and well-being, which have nothing to do with weight. Health is very personal, and how you define health is entirely up to you. My intention is to show that there are many, many ways we...
In a classroom in the Bronx borough of New York City on a recent school day, a little boy in a green shirt got very frustrated. He was sitting on the floor with his fellow second-graders as they were going over a math problem with their...
In the kick-off to its new webinar series on the "Impact of Racism on the Health and Well-Being of the Nation," APHA began a discussion on how racism continues to weaken the nation. About 7,000 people registered for the July 21 webinar, which...
A unique and exciting opportunity for every person, organization or community interested in participating in building a trauma-informed U.S. takes place at the end of this month. It’s a chance to rub shoulders (virtually or in person) with...
Inside Precious Lamb Preschool , eight three- to five-year-olds sit in miniature blue chairs around a white table, eating cereal. Their gaze drifts often to a four- year-old who sits apart, alone, against a wall. He wears a turquoise polo...
Can events you endured as a child really impact your ability to have children yourself? New research in the Journal ofPsychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecologyexamines the mechanism by which adverse experiences in childhood impact female fertility. In their paper 'Adverse childhood event experiences, fertility difficulties and menstrual cycle characteristics', Marni B. Jacobs et al. explore the hypothesis that negative experiences in childhood can result in menstrual cycle...
Sara Bennett has been a criminal defense lawyer in New York for 30 years. She has represented men and women who have committed terrible acts; many have spent decades in prison, some have died there. “The longer you’re an attorney...
Disrupting a child’s trajectory into the juvenile justice system holds great promise for increasing life opportunities for that youth and for creating safer communities. Growing concern over zero tolerance policies in schools across the country...
Minnesota has the potential to become a trauma-informed state if the hard work is done to raise awareness of ACEs and the impact of toxic stress on brain development, says third-term state representative Rena Moran (D-St. Paul). Moran led the effort...