By Brenda Duran
Long Beach City College is developing a program to help the fastest growing population of students – Latinos – succeed in higher education.
Month: January 2012
By Melissa Flores
Finding a interpreter who speaks Triqui, Mixteco and Zapotec – the indigenous languages of the Oaxacan region of Mexico – can be a challenge. A Salinas hospital is going to train trilingual, low-income women to fill these in-demand positions.
By Heather Gilligan
Men and boys of color face unique challenges. Local leaders and state assembly members met in Oakland on Jan. 20 to talk about policies and programs to address these challenges – steps that important to the U.S. as a whole, not just to disadvantaged communities, advocates and experts said.
Zara Marselian sits in the top-floor conference room of the recently completed La Maestra Clinics headquarters. One of the few tall buildings in the heart of City Heights, its windows look east to rooftops and mountains, fast food restaurants and the crowded streets of one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the nation. A relentless advocate for immigrants and their impoverished neighbors, Marselian is already plotting the organization’s next steps to support the community she serves with great vigor and compassion. She hasn’t had much time to look out the windows – she sees her community at the street level. “There is so much need here,” Marselian says. “We are here to learn how to make the services work for the people who need them most. This is our community and we serve it best by building our circle of care for the community.”
We get a lot of blank stares when we tell people what we do for a living. Our title is unfamiliar, but once we explain what we do, heads begin to nod. We are Patient Navigators, a health care position that has emerged recently and must be commonplace if we’re to adapt to the changes that health reform will soon bring.
By Rosa Ramirez
If the doctor ordered you to eat one additional serving of fruits and vegetables each day as a way to improve your health, would you do it? Recently a group of pediatricians, trying to get young children to swap unhealthy foods like fries and burgers for eggplant dishes and quinoa salads, began to take a new approach: they’re giving children a prescription for daily vegetables.
California is rolling out healthcare reform in advance of 2014, when healthcare reform takes effect nationally. HIV/AIDS service providers want to make sure that the changes healthcare reform brings won’t further compromise care for any of California’s 190,000 people living with AIDS or HIV.
As we ring in 2012, most of us take stock of this new beginning by creating New Year’s resolutions. We think about life’s everyday realities, such as what we eat, our exercise habits, our aspirations, and vow that this year will be different – better. As a physician, I encourage New Year’s resolutions, especially when they involve altering your lifestyle to support healthy aging. This year, I suggest a different kind of resolution, one that may be more difficult to consider. I invite you to think about what aging with dignity and independence means. Then take time to have the tough conversations with your loved ones about what is important to you as you grow older, and how you will get help should you require daily assistance.
By Jessica Portner
Jamie Oliver’s food truck stops in Long Beach to teach local kids about the benefits of healthy home cooking.
World renowned for its Pacific coast beauty, Beat poetry, and rich cultural artistry, San Francisco is now home to a special events meeting place for older adults that is redefining the aging process with this creative mantra: “Art stimulates and engages the mind and body.”