On a recent day in early March, Laura Lopez met a former patient of hers in the waiting room of Highland Hospital’s pediatric clinic in Oakland, CA. The patient had forgotten her Medi-Cal card and called Lopez asking for help. But in the brief conversation, Lopez, a family specialist with the DULCE program, learned about some dire changes in the patient’s life. Laura Lopez “Without me even asking, she shared with me that she had separated from her partner, that she needs to apply for food...

The Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII) is the coalition of the Bay Area’s governmental public health departments. This unique collaboration of public health officials, senior managers, and staff have come together to transform public health practice in order to eliminate health inequities. BARHII is a forum in which health departments teach and learn from each other, as well as use the principles of evidence-based public health and the collective influence of local...

By Yasmin Anwar, Berkeley News, April 17, 2020 The intense social isolation, stress and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 is shaping up to be its own mental health pandemic. Already, spikes in post-traumatic stress disorder are being documented among vulnerable populations, health workers and other front-line personnel. In the latest in a series of Berkeley Conversations: COVID-19 live webcasts, UC Berkeley psychologists Dacher Keltner , Sonia Bishop and Frank Worrell offered advice on how to...

COMMUNITY CARE SERIES An online series of workshops, interviews, exercises that are led by our community leaders to help us understand what is going on with the pandemic and what we can do (including health and wellness lessons), specifically as Asian and Pacific Islander communities. [Click here to access series of videos] Recent episodes: 10-min grounding meditation to support you though COVID-19 Dr. Jennifer Mullan from @DecolonizingTherapy Eastern Medicine's Response to COVID-19 with...

ZAIDEE STAVELY , April 23, 2020 The stay-at-home order has upended some of California’s most crucial educational and health services for infants and toddlers — home visits and early intervention services — at a time when families may need them the most. Home visiting programs send nurses, social workers and other trained professionals to the homes of low-income parents to give health and early education advice. They also help children meet milestones, like crawling, picking up objects,...

MARCH 31, 2020 | URSULA WRIGHT The world is experiencing a series of quakes and tremors caused by a global pandemic. The quakes are the unprecedented shocks and strains we are witnessing in our health, economic, and education systems. Tremors, on the other hand, are far less obvious because their disruptions occur at a much deeper level and during timeframes when the average individual may feel that they have successfully distanced themselves from the more pronounced quake(s). Both...

By Cory Turner Apr 21 The high school senior sitting across from Franciene Sabens was in tears over the abrupt amputation of her social life and turmoil at home. Because of the coronavirus, there will be no prom, no traditional send-off or ceremony for the graduates of Carbondale Community High School in Carbondale, Ill. And Sabens, one of the school's counselors, could not give the girl the one thing Sabens' gut told her the teen needed most. "I want to hug them all, but I really wanted to...

The COVID-19 pandemic will put many healthcare workers around the world in an unprecedented situation. How can healthcare workers cope during this time? Here are a few suggestions. Thanks to Scientific Advisory Committee members Carmen McLean and Katy Kamkar for creating this resource. Healthcare staff will likely be exposed to many potentially traumatic events and events leading to significant distress and moral suffering. As frontline workers, they are highly exposed to the virus itself.

We know this is a difficult time for everyone, especially those of you who are serving patients. Please join us for an 8-week webinar series featuring mental health and emotional wellness experts showing how health care providers can reduce personal stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. These webinars are held via Zoom on Thursdays from noon–1:00 p.m. Advance registration is required. Participants are encouraged to submit questions in advance to help our speakers address the full range of...

By Linda Jacobson; April 15, 2020 Dive Brief: Being an educator doesn’t mean an individual is naturally less biased toward students of color, but interventions can reduce prejudices, according to a study released Wednesday. In a test of implicit bias — in which respondents match white faces with “good” words and black faces with “bad” words — 77% of teachers demonstrated implicit bias, compared to 77.1% of non-teachers. And to measure explicit bias, the researchers, led by Jordan Starck, a...

By Shawn Ginwright, April 14, 2020 The reports of racial disparities among COVID-19 victims should not surprise us. African Americans and Latinos have typically experienced disproportionate exposure to a range of health issues. For example, African Americans are twice as likely to die of heart disease as their white counterparts. Consider that Latinos are 50% more likely than whites to die of diabetes or liver disease. These issues are not determined by biology, but by a history of policies...

YMCA Marin County Youth Court in San Rafael, California In her opening statement, 17-year-old youth advocate Eva advises jurors how to proceed and summarizes her “client’s” good qualities. “As you will see, Julian is genuine, well-spoken and friendly. I recommend asking him about his friends and family, his future plans and his activities outside of school.” (First names only of all minors are used to protect their privacy.) Welcome to the YMCA Marin County (CA) Youth Court, one of 1,400...