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This city is full of parks that invite exercise and bike lanes that make commuting a workout. It's home to social services that tend the poor, and taxpayers who willingly fund them. Smoking is banned at restaurants and bars — as well as in workplaces, at bus stops, throughout public housing, at charity bingo games and even inside stores that sell tobacco. These factors may help explain why the poor live longer in the San Francisco area than they do in much of the rest of the country.

Here's information from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) about pre-application technical assistance for SAMHSA FOA No. SM-16-012. Below is information about a series of webinars and conference calls for prospective applicants interested in applying for the Resiliency in Communities after Stress and Trauma grant program (ReCAST). Conference calls and webinars will be held on the dates and times listed below. Interested parties may participate by using the...

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Ellen Lockyer will interview Trevor Storrs, Executive Director of Alaska Children's Trust, on "Alaska Edition." The program wii be on broadcast on television (PBS, Channel 7 in Anchorage) and on the radio (91.1 FM) at 7:30pm tomorrow.

The feeling conveyed in your voice makes more impact and is remembered longer than the words actually spoken. That’s why you can’t always recall the exact words spoken, but clearly remember how you felt. The tone (its pitch, volume and clarity) all combine to give a listener clues about the way the message needs to be interpreted, conveying your mood and meaning of your statement. Yelling or raising your voice can be a method used to control the situation and dominate another person. You get...

Research shows that depression and anxiety cost the world economy $1 trillion every year. Steve Inskeep talks to Dr. Shekhar Saxena of the World Health Organization about efforts to improve treatment. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: The World Health Organization is expanding its ambition. The U.N. organization is best known for responding to outbreaks of Ebola or the Zika virus. Now it wants to focus on problems that grab fewer headlines but that are much more widespread - depression, anxiety and other...

A Chicago Police accountability task force is releasing a report Wednesday recommending sweeping changes to what it says is a "broken" system. A draft of the report has already been delivered to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who created the task force and fired police Superintendent Garry McCarthy following the release of a video showing a white police officer shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times. The Chicago Tribune describes the tone of the draft as "scathing" and says it recommends that...

Questions about smoking, seat belts or regular exercise are routine at a doctor's office, thanks to the overwhelming data showing that the lives we lead influence our overall health. But one insidious yet common risk factor is rarely addressed: living with trauma. From childhood abuse to poverty and racism, this threat takes many forms. As studies increasingly show, all have a staggering impact on a person's health. When Edward Machtinger, MD, director of UCSF's Women's HIV Program, analyzed...

On my recent reporting trip to Brazil, I went on a hike and got bitten 40 times by an unknown insect. The welts were larger than mosquito bites and were completely painless until they began itching relentlessly a day later. Worse than the physical irritation, though, was the fact that, as a health writer, I know about all the different diseases South American bugs can carry. At the time, Zika was just starting emerge, but I was most worried about a different threat: Leishmaniasis. There are...

Improving mental health care can have a huge economic payoff, according to a study released Tuesday. The World Health Organization findings suggest every U.S. dollar invested in mental health treatment can quadruple returns in work productivity. However, most countries are investing far below what is needed for those suffering from common mental disorders, the study notes. Researchers, who studied 36 countries of all income levels, forecast that an increased mental health care investment...

America’s criminal justice system is a patchwork of local, state, and federal policies that together resemble a maze with too many entrances and too few exits. When low-risk people enter this maze after arrest, pretrial policies can ruin their lives. One young man recently died in a New Hampshire jail after he was unable to post $100 bail. Jeffrey Pendleton, 26, was booked on March 8 on a marijuana possession charge, a misdemeanor for which a judge ordered the typical low-figure money bail.

When North Carolina lawmakers passed what is widely viewed as the most sweeping anti-LGBT law in the country, supporters said it was needed to fend off a potential wave of local laws like the transgender-friendly bathroom ordinance adopted by the city of Charlotte. Opponents have called the new law a “hostile takeover of human rights.” But all the attention on who can use toilets and locker rooms has overshadowed what employment rights advocates say is an even more expansive change made by...

When reflecting on the factors that derailed them academically, Quad’ir Ford and Nalik Lark-Hightower didn’t mention living in poverty or exposure to trauma as factors. But experts have said that these two distinct yet intertwined conditions in children’s lives can go far in explaining the root cause of the dropout crisis. “Trauma is not a singular event; neither is poverty,” said Chekemma Fulmore-Townsend, executive director of the Philadelphia Youth Network and co-chair of Project U-Turn.