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When Blue Hess was with his biological family, both his parents and their extended family abused and neglected him and his siblings. They had drug abuse problems, and problems with alcohol. According to Blue, his dad would beat and punch him all the time. In the documentary film License to Parent , Blue tells the story of how he was at his father’s house in his room and was hungry. “I was so hungry and I know my dad was in the house but I couldn’t get the food because I’d get in trouble. So...

How high economic inequality negatively impacts nearly every aspect of human well-being—as well as the health of the biosphere. [For more on this collection of stories, go to https://www.scientificamerican.com/report/the-science-of-inequality1/ ]

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) — Amy Cross has a hard time explaining the stress of living in a city that was splintered by Hurricane Michael . She's fearful after hearing gunshots at night, and she's confused because she no longer recognizes the place where she's spent her entire 45 years. "I just know I don't feel real, and home doesn't feel like home at all," Cross said. Health workers say they are seeing signs of mental problems in residents more than a week after Michael, and the issues could...

When I recently moved my youngest son into college and felt unexpected grief at my “empty nest,” I turned to my friends for help. These are women I’ve known more than 40 years, who know me better than anyone else and gave me exactly what I needed: a sympathetic ear, lots of hugs, time in nature, a dose of laughter, and the warm feeling of being loved and understood. Despite how much we rely on friends, there is little science about the power of friendship. In part, that may be because...

In April of 2016, the New York Times declared that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump had set himself apart from the rest of the Republican Party in one unusual manner: his embrace, relative to his colleagues, of LGBT rights. Americans "[should] use the bathroom they feel is appropriate," Trump famously said amid the outcry over a North Carolina bathroom law that prohibited citizens from using a public restroom that didn't match their gender identity at birth. Months later, following...

The global “war on drugs” is a “spectacular” failure that has led to thousands of murders, public health crises and human rights abuses, a new report showed. Released on Monday, the report from the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a global coalition of 170 nongovernmental organizations working on drug policy issues, overviewed the failure of the 10-year global strategy from the United Nations, which intended to eradicate the illicit drug market by next year. Instead of curbing...

Community builds resilience, and resilience builds community. And it often comes in the strangest, or perhaps the most mundane of places, according to Mark Nepo. Nepo, 67, is a poet, philosopher, teacher and cancer survivor. He said his very first experience with discovering an authentic community happened 30 years ago when he almost died from a rare form of lymphoma. [For more on this story by Heather McElhatton, go to...

Chirlane McCray is passionate about mental health. The first lady of New York City openly discusses how mental illness has affected her own family, including diseases like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, PTSD and a relative who died by suicide. She brought that passion to her Oct. 19 lunchtime keynote at AHCJ’s Urban Health Journalism Workshop . McCray founded ThriveNYC , a broad-based mental health initiative designed to reach deep into communities throughout the five boroughs and...

Young children and their families can be tremendously affected by trauma, with significant implications for well-being well into the future. And while young children can be very expressive, they often do not have the skills or ability to use words to express how they are feeling. Adults may notice a variety of unexpected, atypical behaviors, and may need help understanding and nurturing infants and toddlers who have been affected. Fortunately, there are infant and early childhood mental...

The place you live is more than your home; it defines your life, from job opportunities and consumer choices, to the quality of education, to air quality and exercise options. And just a few miles can make a dramatic difference. The American Communities Project combined its community types with data from the County Health Rankings to explore the intersection of health and geography in the United States in 2018. [To download this report, go to...

Democracy requires public participation and community engagement to engender a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Local governments have a responsibility to engage their community members in a robust and equitable manner in order to effectively carry out the key functions of government, such as crafting and implementing laws, budgets, plans, directives, and strategic visions. However, government practices often fall short of this ideal, even though many take an active...

More than 100 people gathered at a session entitled “Passing the Torch: Increasing Access to Support the Whole Child" at the 2018 National ACEs Conference held in San Francisco Oct. 16-17, 2018. We heard from four panelists that do varied work around trauma in prenatal, infant care and early childhood. Julie Kurtz, the Co-Director of Trauma-Informed Practices for Early Childhood Education at the Center for Family & Child Studies at WestEd, started off by giving a tour of the neurobiology...