A rag-tag band of protesters is becoming familiar on the streets of Oakland and they’re not part of the Occupy movement. This miniature society, which calls “Hep C Free Oakland” its goal, is a group of patient-volunteers and staff members from a medical clinic that centers on treating hepatitis C in people with addiction problems.
Month: May 2012
Long commutes to work may be hazardous to your health. Longer daily drives are associated with decreased fitness and increased weight, a new study suggests.
Where you live determines your health. This idea has been steadily gaining traction as emerging research continues to highlight the connection between place, lifespan and quality of life. As calhealthreport.org recently reported, for instance, researchers have found that stress can get under your skin and that violence can alter a child’s DNA. The poorest counties in California have the worst health, while the richest, generally, have the best.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to make it optional for counties to implement a portion of a new state law that extends foster care to age 21 could leave thousands of young adults without appropriate housing, opponents say.
The Girl Scouts of Troop 1427 from Huntington Beach sing the hiking song “Star Trekking Across the Universe” to eight older women gathered from all over California. In response, the women – most of them former Girl Scouts – regale their younger counterparts with the scout song “The Happy Wanderer.” Then, together they sing “Make New Friends,” a familiar song to generations of scouts. These two distant ages share laughs and memories despite one shocking limitation: the sing-a-long is held entirely by phone.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget for the coming year proposes deeper cuts in the health and social safety net, with hospitals, nursing homes and home care for disabled people and older adults taking the biggest hits.
The grim effects of smoking, drinking, and poor eating are commonly cited by doctors as appalling and expensive health scourges. Yet for aging Californians, an often hidden health plague can be just as deadly: loneliness. Social isolation and its common offspring – loneliness – became a political hot potato when California recently cut back on its adult day health care program, disqualifying 20% of the state’s older and disabled citizens from its attendance rolls. Families who depended on the centers for medical supervision and social interaction suddenly had to scramble to find new programs to care for these relatives.
Dr. Dimitri Sirakoff, the founder and medical director of Serve the People Health Center, rushed around his small, bright clinic tucked into an office complex in Santa Ana one recent afternoon. Whipping around in his white-coat and clutching charts in hand, the doctor has the impatient demeanor of a man on a mission. Sirakoff started this clinic with a skeleton staff because he saw in his own private practice a great need to serve the community of poor, low-income, and primarily Latino patients in Santa Ana who could not afford health care.
Researchers who crunched the numbers on county health want to go beyond a best and worst list. That’s why this year’s data also includes information about projections about counties’ future health and incentives, in the form of grant money, to take a turn towards healthful living.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to shift nearly 1 million children from subsidized private insurance into the state Medi-Cal program is running into a wall of opposition from children’s advocates, health care providers and faith-based groups, who are now pushing an alternative that would dramatically scale back the governor’s plan.