The impact of stress and trauma on people’s physical and mental health looks set to become a central focus of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration in the wake of his appointment of the state’s first surgeon general.
Disparities
Last week saw some good news about cancer from the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) annual checkup report—a 25-year decline in cancer rates and a 27 percent drop in the overall cancer death rates in the United States. But the news was not nearly as good for low income people and people of color.
As the partial government shutdown hurtles toward a fourth week, organizations that help California’s food insecure are scrambling to prepare for potential disruptions to the nation’s food stamp program. Another, even more immediate concern for food banks is the impact of the shutdown on federal workers residing in California.
Having a disposable phone, or no cell phone at all, makes it difficult for people living on the streets to maintain relationships with the case workers and health care providers critical to remaining healthy and becoming housed, according to a new study.
A California regulator has imposed a six-figure fine on Molina Healthcare for significant lapses in the insurer’s grievance process for enrollees. It’s the third large fine imposed on Molina related to its handling of enrollee grievances since 2015.
Vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, the poor, disabled, and racial and ethnic minorities are particularly at risk for health consequences as the climate warms.
Health care providers who work with low-income people in California are worried. Federal attempts to undermine the Affordable Care Act, along with hostile policies toward immigrants, are threatening to unravel the state’s progress toward getting almost all children insured.
State regulators this week called for tighter restrictions on the use of a controversial pesticide linked to developmental disabilities and health problems in children, but advocates for farmworker communities called the proposal inadequate.
The Trump administration’s Health and Human Services Department is poised to redefine gender as an immutable characteristic dependent on a person’s biological sex assigned at birth. Yet medical science knows that biologic sex cannot always be predicted by a quick inspection of a baby’s genitals in the delivery room (the basis of many birth certificates) or even a chromosome count.
The Trump administration’s proposed changes to public charge rules for deciding immigration cases could push thousands of Californians out of government assistance programs and result in billions of dollars of losses to the state’s economy, according to a forthcoming analysis from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.