Latest California Healthline Stories
California Sees Increase in Parents Seeking Exemptions From Vaccination Requirements
Oakland pediatrician Bruce Horwitz, Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center, John Talarico of the state Department of Public Health and a parent who plans to apply for a personal belief exemption spoke with California Healthline about the growing trend of parents seeking vaccine exemptions.
San Diego Barbershops Offer Shave, Haircut and Health Screening
Volunteers this month will descend on barbershops in Southeast San Diego to screen African-American men for diabetes and high blood pressure during a multicity event aimed at raising awareness and addressing health disparities.
Health Facilities Get Improvement Boost
The federal government yesterday issued $722 million in renovation and construction grants to community health centers, including $122 million in grants to California facilities.
Dean Germano, CEO of Shasta Community Health Center in Redding, said his center’s $5 million capital grant announced yesterday will pay for about half of a planned $10 million building addition.
“The plans are completed, and we were waiting on a decision from HHS to see if we could do this,” Germano said.
Misuse of Prescription Painkillers Becoming More Widespread Among Young Californians
Tom Lenox of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Michael Plopper of Sharp HealthCare Behavioral Health Services, Sherrie Rubin of the not-for-profit organization HOPE and Robert Wailes of the California Medical Association’s board of trustees spoke with California Healthline about prescription drug misuse.
Food Distribution Inequity a Target of Talks
Paula Daniels is the senior advisor on food policy in Los Angeles County, but a lot of people don’t really understand what she’s working on.
“People don’t always get it,” Daniels said. “There’s an enormous amount of policy that’s related to the food system. When you think about the whole system, the kind of food, how it’s grown, how you get it, where it’s distributed, there’s regulatory policy, there’s economic policy. And from an environmental justice point of view, it cuts across every line.”
Daniels spoke yesterday in Los Angeles at an event called “An Appetite for Equity: Ensuring Access to Healthy Foods.” It’s the first of three meetings across the state sponsored by the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. The next event is Apr. 11 in Fresno; the final one is Apr. 19 in Oakland.
Report Shows Health Disparities in Valley ZIP Codes
An in-depth study of Central Valley neighborhoods indicates that social determinants such as poverty, exposure to environmental hazards and lack of fresh food predict the health and life expectancy of residents.
Kim Dempsey of NCB Capital Impact Discusses Ways To Boost Capacity of Community Clinics
Kim Dempsey, director of innovation and strategy at NCB Capital Impact, spoke with California Healthline about recommendations for improving the operations of community health centers.
Survey: Californians Concur on Need for Prevention
At a joint Assembly and Senate health hearing yesterday, results of a Field Poll unveiled a few days shy of the official release indicate that an overwhelming majority of Californians (about 80% of those surveyed) believe government and schools need to pitch in to fight childhood obesity and that preventive health programs pay for themselves in reduced health care costs to the state.
That tied in nicely with the intent of the hearing, which was convened by the two legislative health committees to look at ways to focus health policy toward prevention of chronic conditions such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
“When we look at the fact that individual [health] behavior and people’s environment contribute to about 70% of our health care costs, it should really be addressed,” according to Larry Cohen, founder and executive director of the Prevention Institute and a panelist at the hearing. “But our health care investment is only about 4% in prevention.”
Dental Problems Showing Up as Emergencies
A study being released today by the Pew Foundation found that 83,000 emergency department visits in California in 2007 were due to preventable dental problems. That rate of dental emergencies is likely growing quickly, according to Shelly Gehshan, director of the national Pew Children’s Dental Campaign.
“It is the wrong service, in the wrong setting, at the wrong time,” Gehshan said.
“These are people who come in with dental pain, and they’re desperate. The emergency room can’t cure that, so they don’t really get the problem taken care of.”
Can Regional Planning be a Health Issue?
Earlier this week, Assembly member Bill Monning (D-Carmel) made a memorable appearance at a Capitol Building briefing on the health care needs and opportunities for minorities in California.
Monning held up a bright yellow plastic barrel-shaped mug by its thick handle — it was almost a foot tall and looked like it weighed a couple of pounds.
“On the way up here, I went into an AM/PM [market], and saw this thing,” Monning said, hefting the giant mug with the Too Much Good Stuff logo on it. “If you bought one of these, you’d get a free soda. They’d fill this thing up for you.”