As California’s Latino population ages, promatoras are increasingly seen as a way to boost senior health in a way that honors their culture.
A promotora typically receives specialized training to provide information to residents in the Latino communities in which they live. Promotoras make house calls, go to PTA meetings and offer informal presentations in school classrooms.
If the Senate bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act becomes law, more than 5 million California children would be at risk of losing health coverage and some of the state’s hospitals may not be able to keep their doors open, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday.
Minorities would be particularly affected. According to the Medi-Cal Monthly Enrollment Fast Facts report in January, 48 percent of Medi-Cal recipients are Hispanic, 13 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander and 8 percent are African-American. Twenty percent are white and 12 percent didn’t report a race.
A four-category system for intimate partner violence that Susan Holt created with her colleagues at the Los Angeles LGBT Center has become a standard of practice at the non-profit, the largest provider of LGBT medical and mental health services nationwide. But Holt and her colleagues are still working to spread the word about the four categories, which, Holt believes, can be helpful for treating the wider community as well.
In California, we need to begin creating and implementing standards for palliative care sooner rather than later, due in part to a new state law. SB 1004, approved by the California legislature in 2014, requires the state’s low-income health plan, Medi-Cal, to provide access to palliative care services.
Nora Barich, a kindergarten teacher at Hoover Elementary said that in past years many teachers gave out morning snacks every day, which they bought with their own money, “but I haven’t had to provide morning snacks since we started the [new] breakfast program.”
A San Francisco program connects low-income seniors who have become socially isolated, have trouble connecting with others (or even leaving their homes) with companionship.
Food banks and advocates for seniors are nervously eyeing a looming threat to the nutritional wellbeing of the poor, elderly and disabled: a proposed $193 billion cut to federal funding for SNAP over the next 10 years. The cuts to the program, which was once called food stamps and goes by the name CalFresh in California, were proposed as part of President Trump’s 2018 budget.
Aid and Assistance, a benefit for low-income veterans and their survivors, is underused, according to veteran service officers. Though there are 21 million vets nationwide, only 116,000 veterans and 126,500 survivors participate in Aid and Assistance.
Realizing a one doctor’s dream, a combined housing and senior services center serves one of San Francisco’s historically African American neighborhoods.