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NEW ORLEANS —“Diversity” was top of mind when Angel Carter was applying to schools. Raised in an African-American enclave in Atlanta, she said, “I would have loved to go to an HBCU,” the acronym for historically black colleges and universities. But college should stretch you, she felt, so Carter chose Tulane, where the student body is 75 percent white. “I hadn’t had many interactions with white people,” said Carter, now a senior majoring in anthropology and cell biology. “I wanted to work on...

Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the appointment of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, a national leader in pediatric medicine, to serve as California’s first-ever surgeon general. There is overwhelming consensus in the scientific community around early warning signs and childhood determinants of serious health outcomes. As surgeon general, Dr. Burke Harris will urge policymakers at every level of government and leaders across the state to consider the social determinants of health, especially...

When Sarah Spiegel was in her first year at New York Medical College in 2016, she sat in a lecture hall watching a BuzzFeed video about what it's like to be an intersex or a transgender person. "It was a good video, but it felt inadequate for the education of a class of medical students, soon to be doctors," says Spiegel , now in her third year of medical school. The video, paired with a 30-minute lecture on sexual orientation, was the only LGBT-focused information Spiegel and her fellow...

photo: Rolf Schweitzer/CCO Dr. Arnd Herz, a self-described champion for ACEs science, would like nothing more than to witness a greater appreciation of how widespread adverse childhood experiences are. Herz, a pediatrician and director of Medi-Cal Strategy for the Greater Southern Alameda Area for Kaiser Permanente Northern California, would also like to encourage more people in health care to engage in a trauma-informed care approach, a change in practice that he says not only benefits...

As the costs of college have climbed, some students have gone hungry. When they’ve voiced frustration , they’ve often been ridiculed : “Ramen is cheap,” or “Just eat cereal.” But the blight of food insecurity among college students is real, and a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, highlights the breadth of those affected. There are potentially millions of students at risk of being food insecure, which means they do not have...

Read entire article by Michelle Simon from Sacramento Bee . Klyda Flanders held a stuffed toy monkey to her chest with one hand as she lay on a cot in an evacuation shelter in Gridley, near the town of Paradise. Her other hand was held by a Red Cross volunteer, Michelle Maki, who knelt by Flanders’ bed. Maki nodded as Flanders talked about fleeing her home in Paradise and the uncertainty of not knowing what lies ahead now that her old life is in ash. “You cannot imagine what it’s like, and...

Dr. Raul Gutierrez, a pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he and his fellow clinicians see constant fear and its health consequences every single day among the largely immigrant and Latino population they serve. It’s all the result of anti-immigrant policies and the news cycle that feeds the fear. Dr. Raul Gutierrez “It is almost inescapable with the repercussions of immigration policy on the radio, television, social media and from friends and family,” Gutierrez told the 69...

Parents struggling with food insecurity can experience heightened levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. These pressures may negatively affect their parenting, which may in turn affect the behavior of their children. In this study, we investigated the parenting aggravation levels of parents who experienced food insecurity in the aftermath of the Great Recession. We also explored the extent to which such aggravation may be responsible for the link between food insecurity and children’s...

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An African-American man in a suit was handed car keys by someone who thought he was a parking attendant. A black lawyer was patted down by guards at a courthouse, even though his white colleagues entered without a search. An African-American politician was told she did not look like a legislator. Such encounters are the plight of many people of color in the United States, highlighted in October when flight attendants questioned the credentials of a black doctor while she was trying to treat...

Dr. Vincent Felitti, author of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE ) study, inspired the Young Parents Team by at the recent Global Health Summit on Violence and Abuse at Florida State University. Our team serves court-involved pregnant teens with histories of trauma, and often trafficking, to help cope and heal. We are grateful for Dr. Felitti’s research that guides our work to change the life trajectory for so many with ACEs. Thanks to FSU School of Social Work Dean James Clark and...

The Food Stamp Program (FSP, known since 2008 as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is one of the largest safety-net programs in the United States. It is especially important for families with children. However, the FSP eligibility of documented immigrants has shifted on multiple occasions in recent decades. When I studied the health outcomes of children in documented immigrant families affected by such shifts between 1996 and 2003, I found that just one extra year of...