Psychiatry continues to classify anxiety as an abnormal experience among people who are living in poverty, when stress is often a reasonable response to their circumstances. Their anxiety is not always psychiatric, but rather a reaction to severe environmental deficits as a result of living in poverty, according to a recent study.
A San Diego YMCA offers special classes for women only to accommodate Muslim women whose religious beliefs prevent them from swimming in front of men.
Claudia Lopez tries to comfort her 9-month-old son Brian as the doctor examines the baby to figure out why he’d been vomiting all night. She explains, in Spanish, why she relies on this low-cost clinic: “I need this place because I make so little at work and I don’t have insurance.”
Latinas in Long Beach gather in a day-long event as part of their mission to top domestic violence, provide access to legal and immigration services, promote affordable housing, and advocate for better air quality in underserved Long Beach neighborhoods.
A nonprofit program in Riverside County reaches out to undocumented, uninsured and poor residents to connect them to health services for which they are eligible.
Getting information out to Asian Pacific Islanders about sexual health and HIV is important, according to advocates, because the topics are taboo. “From my experience, as an Asian American, these are topics we don’t about, it’s hush, hush,” said Ethan Giang, an HIV program specialist with the Asian Americans for Community Involvement, a group within the Asian HIV/AIDS Collaborative of Santa Clara, which sponsored the San Jose event. “HIV, sexual health and homophobia it’s all a part of that.”
The growing number of immigrants from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries into Ventura County has led to a shortage of bilingual providers that the nonprofit Centers for Family Health are attempting to address. All of the receptionists at the 11 Ventura County Centers for Family Health speak Spanish, much to the relief of the clinics’ patients.
African American students with disabilities are far more likely than white students to be suspended from California schools, according to the most recent data. Overall in the state, African Americans with disabilities have a 28 percent risk of suspension, compared to an 11 percent risk for white students. Researchers, advocates and family members say schools often show less tolerance for minority children who misbehave than they do for white students.
If you’re poor, you are also more likely to be sick with chronic diseases. Studies have demonstrated this truth time and again. For years, people have been trying to determine what exactly it is about poverty that causes poor health. Stress had always been a likely culprit, but scientists didn’t know how stress makes the body vulnerable – but new research is providing some clues.
More children than ever before are being diagnosed with autism, a developmental disorder that impairs the brain’s ability to build communication and social skills, according to a report released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Autism has been detected in about one in 88 children, a 23 percent increase from the CDC’s last count in 2006 and almost double the number of diagnoses found ten years ago.