Analysis: It’s Time to End the Racially Unjust Medical Debt Crisis
It’s the kind of case attorney Helen Tran deals with all too often. An Asian-American small business owner came into her office at Neighborhood Legal Services in Los Angeles begging for help with a...
View ArticleThe Promise and Limits of Restorative Justice for Youth
Restorative justice is now a standard offering across the U.S., increasingly relied upon by schools and law enforcement to divert low-level juvenile offenders away from the criminal justice system. But...
View ArticleAnalysis: Want a Mostly Normal School Year? Get Kids to Wear Masks!
We made the decision to send our son back to in-person school last year despite his vulnerability to infection because our district came up with a reasonable, safe plan to make it possible: Every...
View ArticleGrowing Up is Hard, Especially for People with Disabilities
For young adults with serious disabilities, the transition to adulthood is filled with challenges. In interviews with the California Health Report, young people and their families described the...
View ArticleOpinion: Why This Teacher Supports Bill to Improve Teen Mental Health
I have spent the past 30 years of my life as an educator in California, and I know firsthand that California teachers and schools are not currently prepared, staffed, or resourced to respond to...
View ArticleOpinion: Doctors Are Infrastructure
Report findings predict that by 2034, there will be a shortage of 124,000 doctors, with much of the shortage occurring in the field of primary care. With COVID-19 exposing immense inequity throughout...
View ArticleCalifornia Laws Don’t Prevent Minors from Marrying Adults
In California, a person under 18 can marry with the consent of one parent and a judge. The state is one of only nine in the nation that do not set a minimum age for marriage. People married as children...
View ArticleOpinion: Federal Legislation Can Advance Oral Health Equity and Racial Justice
High costs, lack of clarity over which benefits are covered and limited providers, especially ones that reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, have forced historically excluded...
View ArticleOpinion: Congress Must Act to Address California’s Mental Health and...
An estimated 9,886 Californians lost their lives to overdose between January 2020 and January 2021, a 50 percent increase from the previous year. Suicide remains the second leading cause of death for...
View ArticlePregnant Behind Bars, Part One: Second Chances
Women have become the fastest-growing incarcerated population in the U.S., even as overall national incarceration numbers have begun to slowly recede. Approximately 80 percent of the 2.9 million women...
View ArticleFor Children with Disabilities, Climate Change Brings Multiple Threats
Climate change is a growing threat to people with disabilities. Not only is the weather getting hotter, but Californians are facing more frequent wildfires, poor air quality, evacuations and power...
View ArticlePregnant Behind Bars, Part Two: When Housing Changes Everything
The process begins with a list of names. Every few days, the obstetrics team inside Los Angeles County’s main women’s lockup, the Century Regional Detention Facility, sends the county’s Office of...
View ArticleStriving to Meet the Mental Health Needs of Children with Physical Health...
Research shows children with chronic illnesses are at least twice as likely as healthy children to develop a mental health disorder. They’re at higher risk for neglect and abuse. Their caregivers and...
View ArticleAnalysis: How Schools Can Ensure an Equitable Recovery from COVID
While California has one of the lowest COVID-19 transmission rates in the nation and a high vaccination rate, the reopening of schools has proven rocky. To better understand how the reopening effort is...
View ArticlePregnant Behind Bars, Part 3: When Things Go Wrong During Diversion
Diverting pregnant people from LA County’s jails is a complex process involving many moving parts and many players — including the diversion court, probation, child welfare, health care clinicians,...
View ArticleOpinion: Governor’s Veto Widens Health Disparities
Even as Governor Newsom’s administration is working to help Californians access care more easily through technology, it is preventing providers from connecting virtually to better meet the needs of...
View ArticleOpinion: LGBTQ Youth Are Facing a Mental Health Crisis Too
Approximately 9.5 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 living in the U.S. identify as LGBTQ. Even before the pandemic, these kids were 4 times more likely than heterosexual youth to attempt suicide. Those...
View ArticleAnalysis: The Vaccine Is a Health Equity Issue for Kids Like My Son
The COVID vaccine for children is safe and effective, and it’s the best way to protect not only children but also the larger community. Was I concerned about the risks of the vaccine? No. COVID is a...
View ArticleAgriculture interests say canal fixes will help vulnerable communities....
California’s San Joaquin Valley is one of the richest agricultural regions in the world, but unfettered groundwater pumping has caused the land to sink and the regional canal system to break. If the...
View ArticleThis Central Valley Town Has a Carcinogen in its Water. Why Are Solutions So...
Although California has set high standards for controlling some chemicals in water, actual enforcement and removal of contaminants is generally slow, and frequently stymied by high treatment costs and...
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