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Pennsylvania has a very high opioid (especially heroin/fentanyl) overdose rate. Yesterday Governor Tom Wolf declared a state of emergency around the crisis, similar to what is done with weather emergencies. Wow--I am hopeful this may bring some resources to the problem that have not yet been corralled. Thank you Governor Wolf.

Over the past few months, medical professionals on Chicago’s South Side have been trying a new tactic to bring down the area’s infant mortality rate: find women of childbearing age and ask them about everything. Really, everything. “In the last 12 months, have you had any problems with any bug infestations, rodents or mold?” Dr. Kathy Tossas-Milligan, an epidemiologist, asked Yolanda Flowers during a recent visit to her home, in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. “Have you ever had teeth...

For New York’s Administration of Children Services (ACS), retired law enforcement officers have been working in-house since 2007 to advise their roughly 1,700 caseworkers. Today, the ACS will announce that these former cops are getting a broader child welfare beat that includes assessing the risk brought on by new adults moving into households served by the agency. According to a new draft protocol shared with The Chronicle, ACS will now share guidance from so-called Investigative...

State Senate Republican leaders wasted no time addressing the pressing issue of upcoming campaigns during a caucus meeting Wednesday, saying that a humanizing message and data-driven campaigns are essential to continued success. Republican Caucus Chairman Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, told fellow Republicans that Sen. Mark Pody's narrow defeat of a Democratic challenger in the District 17 Senate special election to replace Mae Beavers was "too close" and shouldn't happen again. He said...

A new study has found that children in the United States are less likely to live into adulthood than children in other wealthy nations . Meanwhile, funding for the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has run out, and has not yet been replenished . And for kids born into poverty, getting out of it isn’t easy . [To listen to this story, go to https://the1a.org/shows/2018-01-10/who-is-looking-out-for-americas-children ]

In 1970, former United States Census Bureau director Richard Scammon and electoral demographer Ben Watternberg coined the phrase "demography is destiny." Writing in their book The Real Majority: An Extraordinary Examination of the American Electorate , Scammon and Watternberg argued that a real governing coalition in American political life "is the one that holds the center ground on an attitudinal belief." The crux of their argument, which came in the aftermath of a turbulent 1968...

When Camden, New Jersey’s Chief of Police J. Scott Thomson joined the Camden police force as an officer 25 years ago, there were 175 open-air drug markets lining just nine square miles of streets. The murder rates in this city of 75,000 just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia regularly climbed to more than six times the national average. “Criminals operated with impunity,” Thomson said. After a particularly deadly year in 1995, Camden’s Cathedral of Immaculate Conception began...

The Trump administration has abruptly halted work on a highly regarded program to help physicians, families, state and local government agencies, and others separate effective “evidence-based” treatments for substance abuse and behavioral health problems from worthless interventions. The program, called the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices, was launched in 1997 and is run by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Its website lists 453...

In 2013, Kate Poole was at a conference for young people who wanted to put their vast wealth to good use. She had opportunities to invest in green technology and local food, but she felt that even well-intentioned investing often extracted interest from communities. “As a wealthy White person, I don’t need to keep looking to grow my return,” Poole said. “That’s not going to redistribute wealth.” Instead, Poole joined seven peers to form Regenerative Finance, an organization made up of young...

Oprah Winfrey’s rousing speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday garnered headlines for catapulting the media mogul into the ranks of possible presidential candidates, but it was perhaps most remarkable for a moment in which she reframed the #MeToo moment and challenged even some people in the room who stood with her in solidarity. In a call to arms against sexual violence and for gender equality, Winfrey invoked the story of Recy Taylor, a black woman from Abbeville, Alabama, who—in 1944, at...

I became disabled overnight in a car accident. The car accident was a dream, but the disability was real. I dreamed I was driving through the ravaged streets of Oakland, Calif., at the end of the world. I turned the corner and careened inescapably into a white chemical blaze. I woke with a start, the white flash still burning behind my eyes, the worst headache of my life piercing my left temporal lobe. I remembered my mother having a brain aneurysm years before and knew the “worst headache...

International Day of World Peace was celebrated recently so now might be a good time to reflect on how our own gratitude can make a difference. Gratitude brings light to the soul because it shines a light on our sense of interconnectedness with one another. It immediately awakens us to what we receive from each other. This extends beyond our immediate connections with people we know personally to include a wide array of people who contribute to our world. Such a sense of interconnectedness...