- California Healthline Original Stories 1
- Nonprofit Bets Asian-American Students Can Learn To Avoid Unhealthy Gambling
- Public Health and Education 2
- Rains Help California's Firefighters Contain Deadliest, Most Destructive Wildfire After 17 Days
- In This Suburban Neighborhood, Poverty Is Quiet, But Just As Insidious To Children's Well-Being
- Hospital Roundup 1
- Dignity Health-Catholic Healthcare Initiatives Deal Approved With Conditions By California Regulators
Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Nonprofit Bets Asian-American Students Can Learn To Avoid Unhealthy Gambling
It’s not clear why Asian-American college students have higher rates of compulsive gambling than their peers, but a nonprofit in the San Francisco Bay Area arms them with strategies to avoid getting hooked. (Katherine Kam, )
More News From Across The State
Rains Help California's Firefighters Contain Deadliest, Most Destructive Wildfire After 17 Days
But the victory of extinguishing the Camp Fire flames was made bittersweet by the realization that the death count will rise, as well as statistics that show an increase over the past 20 years of deadly and destructive fires. In other news, survivors from earlier blazes relive the horrors and discuss the difficulty of moving on afterwards.
The Washington Post:
Camp Fire, California’s Deadliest Wildfire In History, Has Been Contained
The Camp Fire — the deadliest, most destructive blaze in California history, which has killed 85 people, destroyed 14,000 residences and charred an area the size of Chicago — has been fully contained, authorities announced Sunday. Cal Fire, the state’s forestry and fire protection agency, made the announcement after spending 17 days beating back a blaze that has roared through 153,000 acres of Butte County, which is north of Sacramento. Three straight days of rain helped more than 1,000 firefighters get a foothold. (Wootson, 11/25)
The Wall Street Journal:
Deadliest Fire In California History Deemed Contained
“We’re confident that it’s not going to move out of the containment lines,” said Jennifer Erickson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. The fire was contained, but it wasn’t completely out, with sections still smoldering. “There definitely are areas of smoke that probably will be going for a while,” Ms. Erickson said. (McWhirter, 11/25)
The Associated Press:
What Makes A California Wildfire The Worst? Deaths And Size
The so-called Camp Fire in Northern California in many ways has become the worst wildfire in the history of a state whose topography and climate have long made it ripe for devastating blazes. With terrain ranging from steep, tree-topped mountains to dry, brush-covered hillsides, and matched with a climate that frequently varies from light rainy seasons to drought years, California has been home to deadly, destructive wildfires since record-keeping began in the early 20th century. (Rogers, 11/23)
The Wall Street Journal:
In California, Last Year’s Wildfire Victims Struggle To Recover
Wendy Haynes lives 150 miles from the Camp Fire that has killed more than 80 people, but the smell of smoke and reports of devastation have rekindled memories of when flames raced toward her a year ago. “There’s a sense of reliving everything,” said the 63-year-old physical therapist. Ms. Haynes’s home was one of the few left standing after the 36,807-acre Tubbs Fire roared through Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood on Oct. 8, 2017. But she suffered emotional trauma from running for her life as fist-sized embers rained around her. By the time it was all over, more than 5,100 homes in this bedroom city north of San Francisco were lost and 22 people were killed. (Carlton, 11/25)
In This Suburban Neighborhood, Poverty Is Quiet, But Just As Insidious To Children's Well-Being
You don’t see sprawling tent villages on the streets around Telfair, and there’s little of the squalor so starkly evident on skid row and elsewhere. Instead, poverty is hidden in the fabric of the suburban design. Los Angeles Times investigates the toll the housing crisis is taking on families who live there.
Los Angeles Times:
Hidden In L.A. Suburbia, Wrenching Poverty Preys On Children And Destroys Dreams
Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest public school system in the country, is more than a sprawling collection of campuses — it’s one of the nation’s largest depositories of child poverty. About 80% of the more than 600,000 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. When I heard from Supt. Austin Beutner that nearly a quarter of the students at Telfair last year were classified as homeless, I began visiting the school and the neighborhood, hoping to give some human shape to the numbers. You don’t see sprawling tent villages on the streets around Telfair, and there’s little of the squalor so starkly evident on skid row and elsewhere. Poverty is quieter here. It lives indoors for the most part. To an extent, it’s hidden in the fabric of the suburban design, and for all the focus on homeless encampments in Los Angeles, far more people cope with cramped, inadequate, barely affordable housing. (Lopez, 11/25)
In other public health news —
Ventura County Star:
Out Of Backpacks, Ventura County Doctors Serve The Most Vulnerable
The group that visited a known homeless encampment on a recent Monday was part of a new effort geared at delivering medical care to some of the most vulnerable in the community. Over the past five months or so, the Ventura County Backpack Street Medicine team has visited river bottoms, street corners, parks, valleys and parking lots. Their immediate goal is to provide basic medical treatment and preventive care. The longer goal is to develop relationships. (Martinez, 11/22)
Modesto Bee:
Clinics To Bring Free Health Care To Homeless And Poor In Turlock
Mobile health clinics will make two stops in Turlock next week to offer free medical services to the homeless and low-income individuals and families. Legacy Health Foundation provided grant funds for Castle Family Health Centers in Atwater and the UCSF-Fresno Residency Program to bring services to people with limited access to health care in Stanislaus and Merced counties. (Carlson, 11/23)
KPBS:
Policing Tactics Can Affect Health Inequity, Association Says
The debate over police-community relations isn’t just a political concern but also a matter of public health. That’s according to the American Public Health Association, which unveiled new findings in San Diego during its annual conference focused on health equity. KPBS Reporter Tarryn Mento heard the details from Executive Director Dr. Georges Benjamin. (Mento, 11/23)
Over the public comment period, concerns were raised about job security, hospital closures and Catholic views on reproductive services, but regulators are giving the green light to the merger. The conditions that were part of the approval process require the combined company to maintain emergency services and women’s health care services for 10 years.
Ventura County Star:
State OKs Dignity Health Merger Involving St. John's Hospitals
The California Department of Justice on Wednesday conditionally approved a merger agreement between Dignity Health and Colorado-based Catholic Healthcare Initiatives. Dignity Health, which operates 39 hospitals, including St. John’s Regional Medical Center hospitals in Oxnard and St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital Camarillo, will merge with the 101-hospital Catholic Health Initiatives system. The merger will create what is believed to be the nation’s largest nonprofit hospital group. (D'Angelo, 11/21)
Sacramento Bee:
California Attorney General Approves Merger Of Dignity, CHI But Sets Conditions
Anthony Wright and other consumer advocates at Health Access California said they were pleased that the AG”s 351-page decision was requiring [the hospitals] to maintain emergency services and women’s healthcare services for 10 years, but there were areas such as LGBTQ protections where they felt the AG could have been more forceful. (Anderson, 11/21)
In other hospital news —
The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Alvarado Hospital Opens New 30-Bed Geriatric Psych Unit
At a time when many hospitals across the nation are cutting mental heath beds, Alvarado Hospital Medical Center is expanding its offerings, recently turning a full wing at its La Mesa complex into a 30-bed behavioral health unit set up to serve patients age 65 and older. At a cost of nearly $3 million, the project took more than a year to complete and complies with new federal guidelines designed to remove features that patients could use to harm themselves. (Sisson, 11/23)
Could Virtual Reality Help Ease Anxiety In The Spanish-Speaking Parents Of Pediatric Patients?
Cultural and language barriers can often increase anxiety in the Spanish-speaking families of some young patients, and a Stanford researcher thinks virtual reality might help with that. The headset transports the parent into a calming natural world where a waterfall flows and an aurora of colorful lights fill the night sky.
Stat:
Inside A Stanford Study On Virtual Reality Aimed At Helping Pediatric Patients
Virtual reality is often confined to the usual Silicon Valley crowd — mostly white and mostly wealthy. But at Stanford University, a new clinical trial is testing the technology in an underserved population: Spanish speakers with limited proficiency in English. The idea for the trial was dreamed up by a 24-year-old researcher who noticed that Spanish-speaking parents of pediatric patients undergoing medical procedures were showing more anxiety than is typical in those cases, often because of language and cultural barriers. That parental anxiety could sometimes trickle down to their kids, making them more anxious about their own procedure. (Robbins, 11/21)
In more news from across the state —
San Francisco Chronicle:
DNA Testing Companies Get Into The Black Friday Game
If you’ve noticed a flood of ads on TV and social media for DNA test kits featuring smiling families gathered around a dinner table, you’re not alone. Consumer genetic testing companies like Burlingame’s Color Genomics and Mountain View’s 23andMe are trying their hand at Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, adopting marketing tactics of more traditional retailers and playing up a familiar theme that resonates with many during this time of year. (Ho, 11/23)
Los Angeles Times:
With Jeff Sessions Out At The Justice Dept., The Marijuana Movement Exhales
Once, during a drug hearing when he was a Senator, he said he wanted to send a clear message: “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.” So when Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions was ousted recently, a collective sigh of relief rose up from proponents of legalized pot — activists, politicians, investors — who felt targeted by the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Sessions’s departure has translated into spiking stocks for cannabis companies and a reset of sorts for the legalization movement which, since 2012, has seen nearly a dozen states pass recreational pot measures. (Lee, 11/25)
Republicans still maintain control of the Senate and the White House, so Democrats' election-season promises to shore up the health law may not be quite as easy to fulfill as promised. Meanwhile, sign-ups on the exchanges continues to drag from last year's numbers, but the CMS numbers don't include enrollment in states that operate their own exchanges, nor do they include those who will be automatically enrolled in plans during the last week of open enrollment.
Politico:
Can House Democrats Really Protect Obamacare?
House Democrats who swept back into power on the promise to protect people with pre-existing conditions face tough legal and political choices as they try to make good on that vow. Those promises galvanized millions of voters. But now, like the Republicans previously elected on promises to repeal and replace Obamacare, they face the formidable challenge of turning campaign rhetoric into reality. (Ollstein and Cancryn, 11/24)
Modern Healthcare:
HealthCare.Gov ACA Enrollment Lower By 400,000
A little more than 1.9 million people signed up for health insurance in the first three weeks of the Affordable Care Act open enrollment for 2019 coverage. That compares with almost 2.3 million during the first three weeks of open enrollment last year, which included an additional day. Americans are signing up for coverage through the federal marketplace at a slower rate this year, but the CMS numbers don't include enrollment in states that operate their own exchanges. It also does not include those who will be automatically enrolled in plans during the last week of open enrollment, which ends Dec. 15 in most states. (Livingston, 11/21)
In other national health care news —
The New York Times:
Trump Administration Invites Health Care Industry To Help Rewrite Ban On Kickbacks
The Trump administration has labored zealously to cut federal regulations, but its latest move has still astonished some experts on health care: It has asked for recommendations to relax rules that prohibit kickbacks and other payments intended to influence care for people on Medicare or Medicaid. The goal is to open pathways for doctors and hospitals to work together to improve care and save money. The challenge will be to accomplish that without also increasing the risk of fraud. (Pear, 11/24)
The Hill:
Five Controversial Health Actions On Trump's Agenda
The Trump administration is expected to push ahead with a range of controversial health policies next year despite Democrats retaking the House. Democrats captured the House majority in part on their health-care message. But despite that there are a slew of actions where the administration is moving ahead on its own agenda. (Weixel, 11/24)
The Associated Press:
Fights, Escapes, Harm: Migrant Kids Struggle In Facilities
In one government facility for immigrant youth, a 20-year-old woman who had lied that she was 17 sneaked a needle out of a sewing class and used it to cut herself. In another, cameras captured a boy repeatedly kicking a child in the head after they got into an argument on the soccer field. One 6-year-old tried to run away from the same facility after another boy threw his shoes into the toilet. Three employees had to pull the boy off a fence and carry him back into a building. (11/24)
Stat:
Senators Press Insurers For Reams Of Pricing And Rebate Info On Insulin
As tensions persist over the cost of insulin, two U.S. senators want three of the nation’s largest health insurers to provide a raft of data about pricing, rebates, and plan coverage. In each case, Aetna (AET), Anthem (ANTM), and UnitedHealthcare (UNH) are being asked to fork over information about the effect that rebates have on their insulin spending, how rebates from drug makers may reduce expenses for beneficiaries, and the relationship between insulin pricing and what patients pay at pharmacies, among other things. (Silverman, 11/21)
The New York Times:
Federal Ban On Female Genital Mutilation Ruled Unconstitutional By Judge
More than two decades ago, Congress adopted a sweeping law that outlawed female genital mutilation, an ancient practice that 200 million women and girls around the world have undergone. But a federal court considering the first legal challenge to the statute found the law unconstitutional on Tuesday, greatly diminishing the chances of it being used by federal prosecutors around the country. A federal judge in Michigan issued the ruling in a case that involved two doctors and four parents, among others, who had been criminally charged last year with participating in or enabling the ritual genital cutting of girls. Their families belong to a small Shiite Muslim sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, that is originally from western India. (Belluck, 11/21)
The Hill:
Trauma Surgeon Creates Twitter Account To Organize Doctors Against Gun Violence
A Twitter account for “Medical Professionals who care for #GunViolence Victims” has reached over 15,000 followers since it was created by a trauma surgeon earlier this month. The account @ThisIsOurLane has grown in popularity as health care professionals clash with the National Rifle Association (NRA) after the gun rights organization tweeted “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” (Axelrod, 11/21)
The Washington Post:
Number Of Abortions In U.S. Hit Historic Low In 2015, The Most Recent Year For Which Data Is Available
Fewer U.S. women are having abortions than at any time since Roe v. Wade, according to new government figures released Wednesday. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, a total of 638,169 abortions were reported, a decrease of 2 percent from 652,639 abortions in 2014. The abortion rate was 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 2015, compared with 12.1 in 2014 and 15.9 in 2006. (Cha, 11/21)
The Wall Street Journal:
When Mental-Health Experts, Not Police, Are The First Responders
They are the kind of calls that roll into police departments with growing regularity: a man in mental crisis; a woman hanging out near a dumpster at an upscale apartment complex; a homeless woman in distress. In most American cities, it is police officers who respond to such calls, an approach law-enforcement experts say increases the risk of a violent encounter because they aren’t always adequately trained to deal with the mentally ill. At least one in every four people killed by police has a serious mental illness, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit based in Arlington, Va. (Elinson, 11/24)