Programs to fight the commercial sexual exploitation of children have drawn more and more attention to the problem of prostituted girls in the city of Oakland. But some advocates ask: is the attention to younger people sufficient to stamp out the problem?
Three Richmond youth who would once be inclined to shoot at each other recently took a trip to South Africa together. What caused that kind of change? Here’s a look at a Richmond program that puts resources into people who want to better their lives.
As California begins to build a new health benefits marketplace that will be part of federal health reform, counties are debating whether to allow their public health insurance programs to be among the plans offered to consumers. Orange County has quickly decided to keep its public program out of the marketplace, but other counties, including Santa Barbara and San Francisco, may go the other way.
Chronic disease — heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and others — afflict nearly half of Californians and account for a big share of health care costs. But medical professionals believe much of that cost could be eliminated with better prevention and better management of chronic disease once it strikes. In San Diego, competing health care systems are coming together to launch a united front against chronic disease. One audacious goal: to make the county a heart-attack and stroke-free zone.
Fresno State, located in the heart of industrial farming country, finally embraces organic farming. Their students need knowledge of organics to compete for jobs – but their introduction of these classes coincides with big cuts to state colleges’ budgets. Will organic training survive the budget crunch?
California is taking the first steps toward building a far-reaching, online health insurance market overseen and regulated by the government. The exchange will be a key part of the federal health reform passed last year.
Disabled people and seniors in the Salinas area may be hit by cuts to Medi-Cal and Medicare that threaten the funding for their in-home care. Reimbursements for providers are dropping as eligibility requirements are becoming more stringent. How will service providers, the disabled and seniors cope with the cuts?
Volunteers spend three days interviewing homeless people before dawn, when experience has shown they’re easiest to locate. Questions range from age and length of time on the street to whether a person has liver disease or HIV/AIDS to injuries related to cold weather. From that, the Harvard-designed survey seeks to extrapolate respondents’ health risk, and then find housing for the most vulnerable first.
Bob Dittmar’s day begins on the roof at six in the morning. The late summer sun is punishing even at this early hour. This isn’t one of the new suburban houses that crop up quickly in the northern parts of Fresno. Dittmar is downtown, in a long-neglected area known as the Lowell neighborhood, which takes its name from the nearby elementary school, though its roots, and its struggle with poverty, go back generations.
Californians caring for aging, ill or disabled loved ones are stressed out and making some poor health choices for themselves, according a new report by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The analysis finds that Californians looking after relatives or friends who can no longer manage on their own report higher levels of serious stress and are more likely to smoke or be obese than those who don’t shoulder the responsibilities of caregiving.