As California Stays Home Again, Volunteers Reach Out to Isolated Seniors
The holiday season is further adding to social isolation and feelings of loneliness many seniors have experienced during COVID-19. Many won’t be able to celebrate the holidays with loved ones and some...
View ArticleHow California Can Fix Its Hospice System and Reduce Care Inequities
When done right, hospice care can provide immense comfort to terminally ill patients and their families. But fraud, malpractice, unchecked growth, and lack of effective oversight from the state and...
View ArticleOpinion: Vaccines Are Coming. What Can We Do Until Then?
I felt relief as I received my shot. After months of relentless pandemic care on the front line, we have finally received a vital tool in the fight against COVID-19 that will help California return to...
View ArticleFor Seniors of Color, Improving Access to Vaccine Is Key
Since people of color are contracting coronavirus at disproportionately high rates, experts say it’s crucial for them to get inoculated to stop the spread. That’s especially the case for seniors of...
View ArticleAnalysis: We Can Build an Equitable Health Workforce. Here’s How
California’s leaders must build a diverse and culturally competent health workforce. This starts with making investments in the communities that are most vulnerable and medically underserved....
View ArticleAs Need for Mental Health Care Surges, A Funding Program Remains Underused
The need for mental health services has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing pressure on California’s already beset mental health care system. Yet one source of funding that could...
View ArticleHospitalized For COVID-19 Without Information: What Californians Who Speak an...
Tens of thousands of Mexican and Central American immigrants in California speak Mixteco and other indigenous languages. Despite laws requiring medical facilities to offer interpretation, indigenous...
View ArticleOpinion: I’m a Doctor. The Kids I’m Seeing Need to Be Back in School
With the ongoing closures of schools, playgrounds, sports and other extracurriculars, children are missing out on large pieces of their development. I'm seeing a spike in children with anxiety,...
View ArticleOpinion: After COVID-19, Here’s How We Can Make Sure Everyone Can Heal
We are going to need a “healing surge” that will match our vaccine surge — and health equity must guide how we allocate those resources. We have learned the lesson in this crisis that public health is...
View ArticleOpinion: Arts Education Is a Student Right, Especially During a Pandemic
Arts education has the power to emotionally and academically rebuild students — and the world around us. I come from an immigrant community, where people routinely shift between English and Spanish in...
View ArticleFew Native Americans Access Hospice Care. A New Effort in Yolo County Hopes...
Native American seniors are much less likely than other racial and ethnic groups to receive hospice and palliative care, but a new partnership between a Capay Valley tribe in Yolo County and a local...
View ArticleColor Blind Ambition
Since the death of George Floyd nine months ago prompted America to re-examine entrenched racism in all its institutions – from police departments to corporations and colleges – the child welfare...
View ArticleOpinion: COVID-19 Shows Us Why California Must Declare Racism a Public Health...
Long-standing racist policies and practices have determined where and how Californians live, work, receive health care, attend schools and more. For Black Californians, Latinx Californians, and other...
View ArticleTo Counter Domestic Violence, Some Native Americans Embrace Tradition
Mike Duncan is founder of Native Dads Network, a Sacramento-based nonprofit that runs workshops on healthy parenting and relationships. The workshops draw on traditional Indigenous teachings about the...
View ArticleAnalysis: Why California Should Expand Health Coverage to Undocumented Seniors
While President Barack Obama’s 2010 health reform bill, the Affordable Care Act, greatly expanded insurance access, it excluded undocumented immigrants across the country. This likely contributed to...
View ArticleA Law Designed to Protect Health Consumers Has Ended Up Hurting Them
Network directories — lists of providers contracted with health plans — form the heart of decision-making for health care consumers. They can help people decide which health plan to choose if they want...
View ArticleHow to Better Serve Latinx Children with Special Needs: A Conversation with...
California's regional center system the system has struggled to provide services to Spanish-speaking families at the same rate it does to English-speaking ones. Claudia Harty with Parents Helping...
View ArticleFor Spanish-Speaking Families, an Uphill Battle for Special Needs Services
A 2020 Public Counsel study of youth ages 3 to 21 living at home found that, for every $1 an English-speaking child received in fiscal year 2018-2019, a Spanish-speaking child received 82 cents — a...
View Article‘I’m Scared of Getting Sick From the Water’
Like more than 300 communities across California, the tiny town of El Adobe in Kern County lacks safe drinking water. Since 2008, the arsenic levels in one of its two wells have regularly exceeded the...
View ArticleCalifornia Tribes Call Out Degradation of Clear Lake
Seven years ago, after the fish died, Sarah Ryan decided she couldn’t wait any longer for help. California was in the depths of its worst drought in the last millennium and its ecosystems were gasping....
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