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REDDING, Calif. - The Northstate is a concentrated area of opioid use, but there have been improvements in Shasta County. "What disturbs me the most, especially in our community is that you see young people who needlessly die tragically," said Shasta County Chief Deputy Coroner Gene Randall. The drug epidemic doesn't just mean illegal drugs. "In 2013, we had about 1,300 to 1,400 opioid prescriptions every 1,000 people here in a year, which means more than one opioid prescription for every...

In his new anthology, Joy: 100 Poems, the writer Christian Wiman takes readers through the ostensible ordinariness of life and reveals the extraordinary. “We ate, and talked, and went to bed, / And slept. It was a miracle,” Donald Hall writes in “Summer Kitchen.” Through a luminous array of poetry and prose, Wiman captures joy in contemporary contexts. These works span from the 20th century to the present day, and as a result, the real, the specific, and the familiar shine through: “She’s...

Therese S. Richmond, PhD, FAAN, CRNP , associate dean for research and innovation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, views nursing as "an exquisite opportunity" to help people when they are at their most vulnerable. There is nothing better than being a nurse, she told MedPage Today, explaining that even during her hardest days she reminds herself to "take a deep breath and be thankful for the honor of being a nurse." Richmond received her Masters in Nursing Science from...

From the website: Many of the people we interact with every day have been affected by overwhelming stress or traumatic experiences. Traumatic experiences change a person and can create turmoil within a person and in their life. This is especially true if events and/or conditions happen in childhood. The consequences of trauma are far reaching and can be directly or indirectly linked to mental illness, addictions, chronic disease, suicide, and overall, a failure to thrive. The purpose of the...

At Intermountain's residential services, we have spent a lot of time this past month focusing on thankfulness, gratitude, and recognizing how richly we have been blessed. This has allowed me, as their chaplain, to encourage empathetic responses to the needs of others while also building a positive self-image as each child recognizes that they have something to give others. Woven into this narrative was a recognition of our interdependence and that it is not a sign of weakness to acknowledge...

When the first patients arrived at Dr. Jeffrey Norris' clinic, they had no idea they were sick. The staff found them sitting in the waiting room, exhausted and queasy—skin a sickly yellow, lids drooping over jaundiced eyes. They came in off the streets for walk-in appointments, battling nausea in the downtown San Diego clinic, at a time when they'd normally be waiting in line for a shelter bed. Many had been treated here before for chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, or...

MONTELLO – Jodi Williams has just returned from the Marquette County jail, where she met an unemployed 27-year-old man who had been busted after jumping bail on charges of battery, property damage and disorderly conduct. He and his girlfriend used heroin until two years ago when their child was born. Instead of cleaning up, he switched to alcohol, which angered his girlfriend, who left with their child. Now, he’s dangerously depressed, locked up and dealing with his first sustained sobriety...

With frank honesty, J.D. Vance, author of the best-selling book "Hillbilly Elegy," spoke Wednesday in the student union at Bowling Green State University about his life growing up in Appalachia and the systemic problems stemming from poverty, educational inequalities and drug abuse. Persistence, resilience and grit are the Common Experience themes at BGSU this year and Vance's memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" is the year's Common Read book, reflecting those concepts. The student union was filled...

For more than a decade I have interviewed more than 1,000 kids in 35 states. What of these kids who were sentenced to long sentences and JLWOP, life sentences without parole? These kids become adults who become geriatric. These are the people I have interviewed for the past year. These are their stories. There are more than 2,000 people — juveniles serving life without parole all over the country. These are some of their voices. These are their faces. This is a series by Richard Ross that...

Bowen screamed, “You’re dead.” The boys were in the backyard. I had consented to let them play with their Nerf guns. Bowen was chasing Zachary. The bullets whizzed out in automatic fire. Bowen’s finger was mashed down on the trigger. Zachary was running frantically side to side trying to dodge the foam bullets. They bounced off his back and neck. One deflected off the Murcott tree. Bowen kept firing, and it wasn’t long until his 18-round magazine of foam bullets was empty. Realizing this,...

It has been nearly a decade since Congress passed the Mental Health Parity And Addiction Equity Act , with its promise to make mental health and substance abuse treatment just as easy to get as care for any other condition. Yet today, amid an opioid epidemic and a spike in the suicide rate, patients are still struggling to get access to treatment. That is the conclusion of a national study published Thursday by Milliman, a risk management and health care consulting company. The report was...

There is no shortage of media commentary discrediting “identity politics,” particularly the focus on Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, and immigrant communities calling for justice and equity. Economics is our real problem, a counter argument goes, not race, sex, gender, citizenship. But as author Nancy Isenberg points out in White Trash, “identity has always been a part of politics.” Laws have been written to oppress and exploit particular identities—Native Americans, Black Americans, Asians,...