Blog posts -- Healthcare

By Amanda Merck, Salud America!, February 12, 2020 Early childhood adversity like abuse and divorce is a root cause of many of the greatest public health challenges we face today. But doctors don’t even screen children for exposure to adversity. That’s changing in California, thanks to Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and other child advocates. As of Jan. 1, 2020, almost 100,000 physicians in 8,800 clinics will be reimbursed for routinely screening Medi-Cal patients for adverse childhood experiences...

SAN FRANCISCO , Jan. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ The Center for Youth Wellness announces the release of an in-depth study on the health-related cost of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the state of California . A number of studies have investigated the cost of child maltreatment, but the current study, entitled " Adult health burden and costs in California during 2013 associated with prior adverse childhood experiences ," is the first to examine the cost associated with adult health...

Primary care doctors are a hot commodity across California. Students are being lured by full-ride scholarships to medical schools. New grads are specifically recruited for training residencies. And full-fledged doctors are being offered loan repayment programs to serve low-income residents or work in underserved areas. These efforts are intended to ease or stave off the physician shortage expected to peak within the next decade in California. By 2030, the state will be short some 4,000...

Going to see a health care provider is often a frustrating and demeaning experience for people of color, as well as those who are LGBTQ or have disabilities, according to a preliminary report by the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. The health advocacy group collected testimony from dozens of health care consumers, including Asian and Latino immigrants in Southern California, Native American residents in Sacramento, LGBTQ individuals in Ventura County, black women in Los Angeles, and...

The state Department of Health Care Services wants to interrupt the cycle between the street, the hospital, and back again by trying to house the most vulnerable and reduce their health care costs. The project began in 2016, and is known as “ Whole Person Care .” The pilot project is intended to model how Medi-Cal could take a more active role in addressing the state’s homeless crisis. For now, more than two-dozen county level health agency administrators are given state funding with the...

Instead of trying to powerwash the problem away, California’s hospitals, public health departments and homeless service organizations are increasingly sending trained health practitioners into homeless encampments in a quest to improve health outcomes for individual homeless people. The reality of California’s homelessness crisis is that it has a bodycount. Life expectancy for those who are living outside is about 30 years shorter than those who are housed. The median age of death outside is...

To access The Lancet Public Health research, please click here. Background An increasing number of studies are identifying associations between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and ill health throughout the life course. We aimed to calculate the proportions of major risk factors for and causes of ill health that are attributable to one or multiple types of ACE and the associated financial costs. Methods In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched for studies in which risk...

The mental health crisis in Sacramento is getting worse. We need a plan to turn things around. On a recent Monday, I began my clinical rounds at UC Davis Medical Center’s emergency department providing initial care for 25 adults and four children suffering with psychiatric emergencies. These patients represented one-quarter of all patients in our emergency department that morning. The company executive with depression and alcohol problems who had suicidal thoughts after losing custody of his...

The deadline to show your support for the Family Urgent Response System (FURs) is just ONE WEEK away! Please take a couple of minutes to sign on to ensure kids in foster care and their caregivers have the supports and services that are needed to strengthen their bond and create a stable, healing environment. If you're having trouble accessing the link above, copy and paste this URL into your browser:...

Around California, people with mental illness—and their family members—describe pleading with insurance providers for treatment. Their stories share an underlying premise: Despite policy advances in the past two decades intended to compel insurance companies to provide patients with equivalent levels of care for physical and mental illnesses, the reality on the ground still looks very different. A statewide poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the California Health Care Foundation found...

In recent years, the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society has turned its focus to caring for caregivers. The medical society, one of the oldest medical societies in the west, celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, is attempting to curb the effects of physician burnout through its Joy of Medicine program. The program is a multi-disciplinary approach to address burnout by encouraging wellness and resiliency among physicians in the region. It was designed with input from all of the...

Mental health disorders in childhood and adolescence are extremely common. Studies estimate between 13 and 20 percent of American children experience a mental disorder in a given year. National survey data indicates that one in five children and teens will suffer a mental disorder that severely impairs daily life. Common mental illnesses include anxiety disorder, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Yet research also indicates that many children in need of mental...