The Tongan Community Service Center in Los Angeles is working with the city of Carson to develop anti-tobacco policies with federal stimulus money in an effort to reduce the incidence of asthma and other diseases related to smoking and poor air quality.
A state program that screens low-income women for breast cancer has been paying doctors and clinics $12 million a year to track women whose mammograms showed they were cancer-free. The program –- known as Every Woman Counts -– stopped accepting new patients Jan. 1 because of a self-described lack of funds. The $50 case management fees have been questioned by the Department of Finance, which says other big states don’t pay them, and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst, which recommended eliminating them. The money saved could be used to once again offer mammograms to women who qualify for the program.
Legislation that would reverse major cuts to a program that provides free mammograms for low-income women passed unanimously through the Senate Thursday and was sent to an uncertain fate in the office of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The violence between rival Sacramento gangs with Southeast Asian lineage veils a complex set of internal conflicts that circle a core problem: how to successfully integrate into American life. A network of ethnic organizations is working to improve understanding among Hmong, Mien and Laotian immigrants and their children.
Seven months after freezing new admissions to a program that screens low-income women for breast cancer, California’s Public Health Department is still spending money to educate those women about a service they can no longer receive. The department has contracts with nonprofit groups around the state to provide education and outreach about the program, known as Every Woman Counts. But while the state began blocking new admissions to the program on Jan. 1 to save money, it did not reduce spending or change the requirements in its contracts that inform women about the screenings and encourage them to get mammograms.
California is preparing for a major expansion of support and funding for promotores – grass roots health workers who work within their own communities to reach out to rural, remote and otherwise underserved populations. Federal health reform includes $15 billion for prevention programs, including promotores, and California will be competing for a share of that money.
Farmers markets across California are reaching out to low-income residents with programs that allow food stamps and WIC vouchers to be exchanged for fresh produce.
Last year 1.9 million California children who were eligible for free meals in the summer months did not take advantage of the program. This year, summer program managers are trying to make sure that any child who needs a meal, gets one.
San Jose pediatrician Daniel Delgado has a big problem. His young patients – all from low-income families – are overweight or obese and in danger of developing diabetes. Many don’t have access to the fresh fruits and vegetables vital for better nutrition. How to connect his patients with the foods they so desperately need?
The neighborhood kids who spend afternoons playing in Santa Ana’s Chepa’s Park may have heard tales of Josephina “Chepa” Andrade. The woman known as “La Reina de la Logan” united a generation of activists in a fight against city hall and helped to create the park that now bears her name. But they probably aren’t aware that her legacy is living on at the other side of the park’s handball court. One of Chepa’s four daughters recently moved with her extended family into a new, four-bedroom home after winning a city lottery to buy the house at below market rates.