Human Services News

Mailing a simple information pamphlet to interested drinkers in the general population reduced binge drinking by 10 per cent, and is a promising public health approach to reduce the health and social problems associated with heavy drinking, shows a new study led by the University of Alberta.

Brief interventions to help people change their alcohol use have long been recognized as a potentially useful strategy, but past research in this area has focused on college students, problem drinkers screened in clinics and hospitals or people seeking specialized counselling and alcohol rehabilitation treatment.

"While these are important target groups, university students only represent a small fraction of drinkers in the general population who engage in heavy alcohol consumption and get into problems," said Dr. Cameron Wild, lead author of the paper and a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

"As for screening for alcohol problems in health care, busy health care professionals often don't enquire about alcohol problems.

The study, which was jointly conducted with the University of Toronto, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada, provided self-help materials to 877 male and female drinkers (average age 43) who were recruited from the general population.

Alcohol pamphlets mailed to them asked respondents to compare their own drinking to the average male or female in the general Canadian population.

The study results showed that drinkers who initially met a clinical screen for alcohol problems and who later received the brief intervention reported a 10 per cent reduction in binge drinking rates, compared to those who did not receive the pamphlets until the end of the study.

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Indiana Takes Important Step to Improve Hoosier Health

From PR Newswire: Health / Biotech:

Indiana legislators have taken an important step toward improving the health of Hoosiers by passing HB 1678 and the state budget late yesterday evening.

HB 1678 will increase the state cigarette tax by 44 cents per pack, which is a proven strategy to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit, and will improve access to vital healthcare services for many uninsured Hoosiers.

Between HB 1678 and the state budget, annual funding for Indiana's nationally recognized tobacco prevention program was also increased by $5.4 million dollars.

We applaud Governor Mitch Daniels for his bold vision and active leadership in proposing the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP), including a cigarette tax increase and full funding for the tobacco prevention programs run by the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Agency (ITPC).

While a step forward, the total tobacco prevention funding approved by the Indiana Legislature, $16.2 million per year, is still less than half the minimum amount of $34.8 million a year recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

We urge Indiana leaders next year to build on this progress by further increasing the cigarette tax and fully restoring funding for tobacco prevention.

It is disappointing that the tobacco industry once again wielded far too much influence and succeeded in limiting the size of the cigarette tax increase and dramatically cutting the amount of new revenue dedicated to tobacco prevention.

We also encourage legislators to continue this year's progress toward making all Indiana workplaces, including restaurants and bars, smoke-free.

A push for smoke-free legislation emerged from legislators at the very end of this legislative session.

Posted by Michael at 8:18 PM | TrackBack

Extended Family Ties Influenced Evacuation Decisions During Hurricane Katrina

FINDINGS: Previous research has shown that minorities have particularly cohesive extended family ties.

For this study, UCLA researchers interviewed 58 randomly selected evacuees --- mostly low-income African Americans --- who relocated from New Orleans to Houston in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The researchers found that the evacuees' strong family ties had a profound influence on factors affecting evacuation, including transportation decisions, access to shelter and how they perceived evacuation messages.

These ties both facilitated and hindered their evacuation.

IMPACT: Disaster plans should take into account the influence that extended family ties and social networks have in decision-making among vulnerable and minority communities.

Posted by Michael at 8:00 PM | TrackBack

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Honors Youth Advocates of the Year

From PR Newswire: Government and Policy:

Jolie Yang of Centerville, OH and Kyle Peavley of Trenton, OH, have been named Youth Advocates of the Year by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids for their leadership in the fight against tobacco.

Jolie and Kyle are being honored at a gala in the nation's capital on May 3 along with a national winner, three other regional winners and a group winner.

A junior at Centerville High School, Jolie has been a member of Ohio's Asian American Youth Against Tobacco (AAYT) for four years.

Jolie was active in the successful effort to pass the Smoke-Free Ohio ballot initiative in 2006 that made workplaces in Ohio smoke-free, including restaurants and bars.

Jolie has traveled to Taiwan twice on her own to educate elementary and high school students about the dangers of smoking.

Jolie researched social attitudes toward smokers and the tobacco industry in Taiwan by collecting responses to a survey that she wrote.

"Every day, 1,000 kids in the United States become regular smokers and one-third of them will die prematurely from tobacco-caused disease.

Every year, tobacco use kills 18,600 residents and costs the state over $4.3 billion in health care bills.

Nationally, tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people and costs the nation more than $96 billion in health care costs each year.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is a leader in the fight to reduce tobacco use and its devastating consequences in the United States and around the world.

Posted by Michael at 7:58 PM | TrackBack

Older, Lower Income Patients Least Likely to See a Specialist for Lupus

Despite advances in treatment, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) remains a serious disease.

Other research has shown that care provided by specialists to patients with rheumatic diseases is associated with improved outcomes yet does not cost more.

A new study published in the May 2007 issue of Arthritis Care & Research (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/arthritiscare) found older patients and those with lower incomes were less likely to see a specialist for SLE.

Almost half of the participants reported a disease flare in the previous 3 months, and 22 percent reported no visits to a rheumatologist, although most of these had been seen by another type of physician.

The results showed that patients 50 or older and those with lower incomes reported far fewer visits to a rheumatologist, and that male patients were less likely to see this type of specialist than female patients.

The authors suggest that elderly individuals or those with lower incomes face barriers to accessing care that may include a lack of rheumatology services close by, a lack of awareness of this type of specialty, less frequent referrals to rheumatologists, or inadequate follow-up.

"Subjects who were older than 50 years or in the lowest income category were twice as likely to report no rheumatology visits in the past year," the authors note.

These findings are striking because the current study's patients were chosen from a pool of participants reenrolling from a previous UCSF SLE study who presumably had greater access to care than SLE patients in the general population.

The authors point out that although elderly patients and those with lower incomes traditionally have access to health care through Medicare and Medicaid, the presence of health insurance alone did not ensure equal utilization of care.

Posted by Michael at 7:49 PM | TrackBack

Teens with Migraine at Greater Rsk of Suicide

"Teens with chronic daily headache should be screened for psychiatric disorders so they can get the treatment and help they need," said study author Shuu-Jiun Wang, MD, of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming University School of Medicine in Taipei, Taiwan.

For the study, the researchers surveyed 7,900 students age 12 to 14 at five middle schools in Taiwan.

Chronic daily headache was defined as headaches 15 or more days per month for two or more hours per days, lasting for more than three months.

Nearly 50 percent of those with chronic daily headaches had one or more psychiatric disorder, with 21 percent having major depression and 19 percent having panic disorder.

"These numbers are much higher than those reported among the general population of teens of the same ages in Taiwan," Wang said.

They were 3.5 times more likely to have a psychiatric disorder than those without migraine.

And teens whose migraines came with an aura, or a warning sensation that comes before the headache, were even more likely to have psychiatric disorders.

Researchers don't exactly know how underlying mechanisms may link migraine and psychiatric disorders, although they do know that migraine, depression and the tendency toward suicide are all related to problems with the levels of serotonin in the brain.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit www.aan.com.

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Ways of Helping Children of Drug and Alcohol Abusers

Posted by Michael at 7:39 PM | TrackBack

A review published in the journal Advances in Psychiatric Treatment suggests how children whose parents have drug or alcohol problems can be protected from the consequences usually associated with parental substance misuse.

Drawing on research from around the world, the review highlights ways of reducing children's exposure to risk and increasing the protective factors that promote the child's resilience.

"The children of people with drug or alcohol problems usually suffer very badly," said Professor Richard Velleman from the Mental Health R&D Unit (MHRDU), a collaboration between the University of Bath (UK) and the Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.

"Conservative estimates suggest as many as 26 million people in the UK are affected by problematic alcohol and drug misuse in their immediate family.

"As a result, these family members are more likely to experience high levels of violence, witness or experience abuse, and suffer other disruptions to family life.

"This can lead to depression and anxiety, or involve early drug or alcohol misuse and antisocial behaviour.

The findings highlight the risk factors -- such as domestic violence, both parents being substance misusers, exposure to criminal activity and witnessing someone injecting drugs - that place family members at greater risk of negative outcomes.

It also shows the factors and processes -- such as improving parenting techniques, helping the child learn to disengage from negative situations and support from school, family and other networks - that make children more resilient to the negative impacts of parental drug or alcohol misuse.

1 in 3 HIV positive gay men report unprotected sex

More than one in three HIV positive gay men say they have unprotected sex, reveals a community survey, published ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections. And almost one in five HIV negative men said that they do the same, the figures show. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 7:38 PM | TrackBack

More Research Needed to Involve Families in Psychosocial Interventions

Family-oriented psychosocial interventions seem to be beneficial in improving the mental and physical well-being of both patients with chronic illness and their family members, but the results aren't as robust as researchers had hoped.

Prior studies have found that supportive and non-supportive actions by family members are linked with a patient's emotional well-being, health behaviors, immune function, blood pressure and illness events.

When psychosocial and behavioral interventions such as patient education, support groups and cognitive behavioral therapies are integrated into care for chronic illness, the patient's health is greatly improved.

Researchers have attempted to incorporate a family member into the psychosocial component of the patient's care in an attempt to bolster the effects the interventions have on the patient while also benefiting the caregiver.

For a number of reasons, researchers haven't been able to demonstrate consistent results across studies," said Lynn M. Martire, Ph.D., of the department of psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and University Center for Social and Urban Research at the University of Pittsburgh.

In a review of the scientific literature, the University of Pittsburgh researchers found that in 70 studies that compared a family-oriented psychosocial intervention to usual medical care alone, the family-oriented interventions had a small but promising effect on the emotional well-being of the patient and family member.

A second literature review of 12 studies that compared patient-oriented psychosocial interventions to family-oriented interventions showed varying results, according to a number of factors, including disease, gender and type of intervention.

Posted by Michael at 7:33 PM | TrackBack

UC Davis Experts: Guns, Violence and Mental Health

The University of California, Davis, has campus experts available to
discuss research and provide commentary related to guns, school violence, mental health and troubled youth.

GUN ACCESS -- Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the UC Davis Medical Center, is a national expert on gun violence and public attitudes about guns.

ASIAN AMERICANS AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES -- Shame and stigma about seeking help for mental problems are chief reasons Asian Americans, overall, tend not to use mental-health services, according to Stanley Sue, professor of psychology, psychiatry and Asian American studies.

Sue argues that the nation needs more bilingual/bicultural therapists and better community education to make psychological help more acceptable to Asian Americans, especially to first-generation families.

DISASTERS AND MENTAL HEALTH -- Dr. Peter Yellowlees, a professor of psychiatry, has undertaken a large number of forensic psychiatric examinations and been involved in creating curricula for disaster preparedness and responses, and in teaching about post-traumatic stress disorders.

Yellowlees has developed a "Disaster Mental Health Series" of continuing medical education courses that address anxiety disorders after a disaster, coping among survivors, and delivering bad news to families and survivors.

Contact: David Ong, UC Davis Health System Medical Science Public Affairs, 916-734-9049, david.ong@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu.

CHILDREN'S FEARS -- In the wake of violence like the Virginia Tech shootings, it is important to reassure elementary school students about their safety without misleading them, says Anna Kato of the UC Davis School of Education.

A lecturer and supervisor of student teachers, Kato served on the commission on school violence of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

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Book by St. Lawrence Profs Examines What Makes a 'Good Society'

What constitutes "the good society?" Two St. Lawrence University government professors - one retired - have examined the question in a new textbook on comparative politics that its publisher calls "a bold departure." Read more from this post.

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Putting Volunteer Work on the Economic Map of the World: Johns Hopkins, International Labour Organization, United Nations Join Forces

The International Labour Organization and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies today announced an agreement to develop an approach for putting volunteer work on the economic map of the world for the first time. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 7:19 PM | TrackBack

U.S. Flood Standards Inadequately Protect Against Flood Risk; New Study Says Millions Exposed to Flooding Are Not Insured

A newly released report from the Water Policy Collaborative at the University of Maryland says that the use of the 100-year flood standard leaves millions of people who face a significant risk of flooding uninsured and under-protected. The report, prepared for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), recommends that levees protecting urban areas should be built with a higher level of protection than the 100-year standard that is now being used to rebuild the levees in New Orleans. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 7:18 PM | TrackBack

U.S. Education Secretary to Deliver Keynote Address at San Jose State University's 2007 Founders' Day Celebration, Friday, May 4; Lt. Gov. John Garamendi to Attend Related San Jose City Hall Celebration

Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access - UCLA:

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings -- architect of the No Child Left Behind Act, proponent of a much debated set of proposals aimed at improving American higher education -- will deliver the keynote address at San Jose State University's 2007 Founders' Day celebration, a very special event as this year marks SJSU's 150th anniversary. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 7:17 PM | TrackBack

Preparing California's Youth for College, Career, and Civic Responsibility

Multiple Pathways is an approach to high school education that has captured the imaginations of major philanthropy, school reformers, and a growing number of policymakers.

Today's high schools do not offer all students the programs and classes necessary to prepare them for college, career, and responsible participation in public life.

The purpose of Multiple Pathways reform is to correct this failure.

Multiple Pathways would end the tired debate about whether high school students need more rigorous academics or a more relevant career-focused curriculum.

Instead, Multiple Pathways offers students and their families choices among a variety of high school programs that provide both the academic and the career foundations students need for advanced learning, training, and responsible public participation.

These choices are based on students' interests and on the unique strengths and opportunities in their communities.

Every pathway would prepare all students for both college and careers, and it would place civic responsibility at the core of its programs.

"Multiple Perspectives on Multiple Pathways" consist of a collection of fifteen essays written by distinguished California scholars.

The papers in this collection provide multiple perspectives in their reviews, synthesis and interpretations of existing research on Multiple Pathways.

They report research that examines the intersection between California's changing economy, its population diversity, its widening social and economic inequality, and its patterns of school failure across racial and ethnic communities.

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April 26, 2007

Final Report on Former Prisoners in Ohio Details First Year Out, Offers Policy Implications

Urban Institute:

The final report in an Urban Institute research series on men leaving Ohio prisons details the first year of their release, offering an overview of their postprison lives and a slate of policy options that could smooth reentry.

"One Year Out: Experiences of Prisoners Returning to Cleveland" by Christy A. Visher and Shannon M.E. Courtney, affords a first-hand look at the challenges of prisoner reentry through interviews with nearly 300 former prisoners who returned to the Cleveland area.

Among the policy recommendations for ex-prisoners: -- Services that enable former prisoners to secure positive and stable housing immediately after release.

"The study's findings point to important policy opportunities for change---both in prison and in the community---that would reduce recidivism, reduce illegal drug use, and increase public safety in Cleveland's neighborhoods," said Visher."Many of these policy changes are not expensive."

"One year after release, the men in the study had little stability in their lives and desperately needed community services to help them succeed," Visher said."Most were living in temporary housing, were not working full-time, and had health problems that required medical attention."

"One Year Out: Experiences of Prisoners Returning to Cleveland," available in pdf format online at http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=311445, is the latest publication from "Returning Home: Understanding the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry."

Posted by Michael at 11:30 PM | TrackBack

A Local Ladder for Low-Income Workers: Recent Trends in the Earned Income Tax Credit

Brookings Institution:

The first half of this decade brought with it a range of economic challenges, including increased unemployment, stagnant family incomes, and rising poverty.

As a tax credit and wage supplement for low-income workers, the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) played a critical role over this time period in providing resources to low-income families to make work pay and to help them make ends meet.

Research has shown the EITC to be an effective poverty alleviation tool that can help low-income families to offset short-term difficulties due to job or income loss or more generally as they work to meet financial obligations.

It also acts as a substantial economic stimulus for the communities in which these low-income working families live, particularly in those that
have high concentrations of EITC recipients.

This study updates previous analyses by examining the magnitude and spatial distribution of the EITC in tax year 2004 (the most recent tax year for which data are available), and trends from 2000 forward.

Posted by Michael at 11:16 PM | TrackBack

Playgrounds and Athletic Facilities - Untapped Resource in Fight Against Childhood Obesity

RAND:

A RAND Corporation study issued today says school playgrounds and athletic facilities can be important tools in the fight against childhood obesity, but many are locked and inaccessible to children on weekends -- especially in poor and minority neighborhoods.

The study is a new analysis of data from a national research study called the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls.

The data deals with the physical activity of 1,556 girls in the sixth grade in six metropolitan areas: Washington, D.C./Baltimore, Md.; Columbia, S.C.; Minneapolis, Minn.; New Orleans, La.; Tucson, Ariz.; and San Diego, Calif.

Researchers visited all the schools and parks within a half-mile radius of the homes of the girls on Saturdays in the spring of 2003 for the original study.

The 407 schools represented 44 percent of potential neighborhood sites for physical activity.

"Girls who lived near locked schools tended to be heavier, and neighborhoods with locked schools were disproportionately poor and had larger minority populations," said Molly M. Scott, lead author of the study and research analyst with RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

Although the RAND Health study didn't find a relationship between school accessibility and increased weekend physical activity rates, the number of locked schools was associated with significantly higher body mass index for the girls.

Hispanic and African-American girls had 7.2 percent and 7.8 percent higher BMIs respectively than whites, and non-white girls recorded less physical activity than their white counterparts.

"Studies consistently find that people of different races have different BMIs, but the policy implications of that are often unclear," Scott said.

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Affordable Housing Goes Green at Last

The Next American City:

While green building techniques are becoming mainstream for government and commercial developers, as well as a growing number of well-to-do homeowners, residents of affordable housing have not yet shared in the benefits.

Because it often costs developers more to build affordable housing than they can recoup in rental or sales income, the developers work with razor-thin margins.

They tend to be wary of anything that increases the upfront costs of design and construction, even if, as is the case with many green building techniques, the long-term savings would eventually outweigh the price of premium building materials.

Because affordable housing developers also rely heavily on public and private subsidies, they juggle many restrictions - from per-unit cost caps to design limitations - which make it more difficult to incorporate innovative green techniques.

When a project involves multiple funding sources and players, each with its own set of design and cost requirements, green innovations may get nixed early on.

But now, two large community development organizations - the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise), formerly the Enterprise Foundation - are on board with the greening of affordable housing, and the early projects are exciting.

Posted by Michael at 8:44 PM | TrackBack

Measuring Income and Poverty in the United States

National Center for Children in Poverty:

This fact sheet discusses how the U.S. government measures poverty, why the current measure is inadequate, and what alternative ways exist to measure economic hardship.

Most measures of poverty, in the U.S. and elsewhere, focus narrowly on income rather than including other aspects of economic status, such as assets or debt.

Absolute measures of poverty---like the official U.S. measure---set an income threshold below which an individual or family is considered to be poor, regardless of general living standards.

Relative measures typically set the poverty level at a percent of median income and therefore vary with the economic fortunes of the population as a whole.

The U.S. measures poverty by a standard developed more than 40 years ago, when data indicated that families spent about one-third of their income on food.

Food now comprises far less than a third of an average family's expenses, while the costs of housing, child care, health care, and transportation have grown disproportionately.

Thus, the poverty level does not reflect the true cost of supporting a family.

In addition, the current poverty measure is a national standard that does not adjust for the substantial variation in the cost of living from state to state and between urban and rural areas.

More accurate estimates of typical family expenses, and adjustments for local costs, would produce a substantially higher poverty threshold.

Posted by Michael at 8:40 PM | TrackBack

Family Child Care in the United States

National Center for Children in Poverty:

At some point during their first five years, nearly one-quarter of all children spend about 30 hours per week in family child care (FCC).

While there is no universally recognized definition, FCC is typically characterized as nonparental, paid care for nonrelative children that generally takes place in the provider's home and is regulated by the state.

This Child Care & Early Education Research Connections Review of Research package, which includes a Literature Review, a Research Brief, and a Table of Methods and Findings, synthesizes the current research on family child care providers, parental use of family child care, and quality of this type of care.

Families using home-based care (both regulated and unregulated) are more likely to prefer this care for infants and toddlers, but prefer preschools and centers for older children.

Single, female-headed households tend to prefer family child care for their children.

Family child care providers often care for mixed-age groups, siblings, and their own children along with other children.

Family child care providers vary widely in race, age, educational attainment, and socioeconomic status.

The majority of these providers are female and parents themselves, and about one-third care for their own children in addition to unrelated children.

Family child care providers tend to cite enjoyment of working with children and earning extra income while staying at home with their own children as their motivation for providing care.

Most observational studies to date suggest that much of family child care is of "adequate" quality, although researchers are still grappling with the best way to measure quality in home-based settings.

Posted by Michael at 8:32 PM | TrackBack

Mortgage Market Complexity Foils Consumers and Undermines Fair Lending

Joint Center for Housing Studies - Harvard University

The recent rise in foreclosures suggests that some borrowers are taking on debt that they have little or no capacity to repay, selecting products that are not suitable for their needs, or signing up for mortgages that they don't understand.

Two reports by Harvard University researchers contend that these are just some of the inevitable consequences of an increasingly complex mortgage market and a regulatory system that has failed to adapt to the dramatic changes that have transformed the mortgage lending landscape in recent years.

Funded by a Ford Foundation grant to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, this new research examines the behavior of mortgage market participants and the emergence of new mortgage delivery channels linked to the rapid growth of higher-risk subprime mortgages.

"The situation facing consumers is made even more difficult" continues Retsinas, "by the widespread use of targeted incentives that encourage some mortgage brokers and loan officers to aggressively market confusing, and often more costly, subprime products to less than knowledgeable and often desperate borrowers."

These concerns are magnified by the fact that the rise of subprime mortgage lending is linked to the rise of new and typically lightly regulated non-bank subprime mortgage specialists and their network of mortgage brokers, as well as new mortgage conduits that sell securities backed by "higher-risk" mortgages to the secondary market.

Reforms for oversight of the primary mortgage market include: proposals to expand the reach of the "Interagency Guidance on Nontraditional Mortgage Product Risks" to include loans made by independent mortgage companies, legislation to extend existing Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) oversight to cover all lending organizations, and legislation that directs federal regulatory agencies to assume responsibility for the licensing of all mortgage brokers and loan officers that directly interact with consumers in the mortgage lending process.

Posted by Michael at 8:27 PM | TrackBack

Housing Assistance Extended for Gulf Coast Hurricane Victims for Another 18 Months

HUD News Release:

The current FEMA extension ends on August 31, 2007.

HUD and FEMA are also working on a plan whereby HUD would take over management of the rental housing program on behalf of FEMA beginning on September 1, 2007.

Beginning in March 2008, individuals in both the rental housing and travel trailer and mobile home programs will pay a portion of the cost, which will begin at $50 per month and incrementally increase each month thereafter until the program concludes on March 1, 2009.

In addition, beginning immediately, FEMA will allow residents of its mobile homes and travel trailers to purchase their dwellings at a fair and equitable price.

Seniors and the disabled whose primary source of income is Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or other fixed income that make them eligible to receive assistance under existing HUD programs will be protected.

HUD will actively work to transition these individuals into its properties or programs for seniors and the disabled.

"The overwhelming scale of this human tragedy has meant that families have been displaced for an unprecedented period of time.

"This extension allows FEMA and our partners to be responsive in developing innovative, flexible and compassionate solutions to help disaster victims get back on their feet," said Administrator Paulison.

Under the proposed parameters of the FEMA-HUD Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP), local public housing agencies (PHAs) would administer the program under Stafford Act authority.

The Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding coordinates the Federal rebuilding efforts by working with state and local officials to focus on a set of prioritized, integrated and long-term initiatives to rebuild the region.

Posted by Michael at 8:22 PM | TrackBack

Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools: Leading the Way toward Healthier Youth

Institute of Medicine = National Academy of Sciences:

Children in the United States are becoming more overweight and obese, putting them at risk for serious health concerns such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and elevated cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

In addition to the risk of obesity-related health concerns, poor food choices could lead to other health concerns, like osteoporosis from inadequate calcium intake.

In response to growing concerns over obesity, national attention has focused on the need to establish school nutrition standards and limit access to competitive foods.

As a result, over the past few years, school nutrition policy initiatives have been put into place at federal, state, and local levels.

However, responses of school districts to meeting wellness policy requirements have not been consistent.

To augment local wellness policies, Congress directed the CDC to undertake a study with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to review and make recommendations about appropriate nutritional stands for the availability, sale, content and consumption of foods at school, with attention to competitive foods.

if competitive foods are available, they should consist of nutritious fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nonfat or low-fat milk and dairy products, as consistent with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).

Posted by Michael at 8:14 PM | TrackBack

FRAC Statement on the IOM Report on Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools

Food Research and Action Center:

The Institute of Medicine's (IOM) release today of nutrition standards for "competitive foods" in schools will help ensure that the options offered to America's schoolchildren will promote healthy food choices and positive life-long eating habits.

"FRAC sees the Institute of Medicine's nutrition standards as a vital contribution to the growing local and national efforts to make our schools into models of good nutrition for all children.

These standards, if implemented, have the capacity to improve children's nutrition and help prevent obesity.

In addition, they are very likely to lead to increased participation in healthy school meal programs," said Lynn Parker, FRAC's director of child nutrition programs and a member of the IOM committee that developed the standards.

The IOM committee charged with overseeing the development of these new standards affirmed the importance of the federal child nutrition programs in schools -- particularly, the school breakfast and lunch programs -- as the appropriate and primary source of foods offered to children.

IOM's report, Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools, recommends guidelines for foods and beverages made available to students in schools through sources other than the federal school lunch and breakfast programs.

Also known as competitive foods, such foods include items sold in vending machines, school stores, and "a la carte" lines in the cafeteria.

The standards, which were developed by an IOM committee at the request of Congress, promote the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nonfat or low-fat dairy products.

They also limit the amount of fat, saturated fat, salt, added sugars, and total calories in products.

The full IOM report is available online.

Posted by Michael at 8:06 PM | TrackBack

Medicare Trustees’ Report Will Trigger a Correction That Could Do Serious Harm to Medicare Beneficiaries

From: Families USA:

The following (in part) is the statement of Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, about this year’s Medicare Trustees report:

This year marks the second consecutive year that the Trustees Report has predicted that more than 45 percent of Medicare's total funding will come from general revenues by the year 2013.

Under the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, this means that the President will now be required to propose policies in next year's budget to reduce general revenues as a share of Medicare's overall costs.

This 45 percent threshold is completely arbitrary, but correcting this so-called 'problem' risks doing serious harm to Medicare beneficiaries.

In addition, the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, which began last year, is funded primarily from general revenues.

In addition, the trigger has no relationship to the so-called solvency of the Part A Trust Fund.

Projections of when the Trust Fund will be exhausted have varied dramatically over the past 15 years---from as early as 2001 to as far in the future as 2030.

They are highly dependent on projections of economic growth, Medicare policies, and overall health care costs.

This trigger should not be the catalyst for policy decisions that would have a potentially devastating effect on the health care of millions of seniors and people with disabilities.

In the end, the debate about Medicare's fiscal status should focus on implementing sensible cost-saving measures throughout the program that do not harm beneficiaries and ensure continued access to affordable, high-quality health care.

Posted by Michael at 7:50 PM | TrackBack

Recommendations for Improving Education Outcomes for Children and Youth in Foster Care

Center for Law and Social Policy

With no federal law to ensure school stability and access to supportive services for children in foster care there is often as much movement among schools as there is in living arrangements.

The reauthorization of Title X, Part C of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (McKinney-Vento) provides an opportunity to do both and to better address the needs of children and youth in foster care.

Children and youth who are eligible for McKinney-Vento have access to supports for school success that many children involved in child welfare lack: school stability or immediate enrollment if stability is not possible, school staff charged with ensuring their prompt enrollment, and more.

While these protections currently apply to a subset of children involved in foster care, including those "awaiting foster care placement," states have defined this phrase differently.

The recommendation to explicitly include all children in out of home care in the eligibility definition will ensure that these protections are available to all foster children, wherever they live.

Posted by Michael at 7:41 PM | TrackBack

Catholic Charities USA Goes to Congress to Urge Action to Address Poverty

Catholic Charities USA

Catholic Charities USA took its Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America directly to Congress, with a briefing on the struggles of 35 million Americans who experience hunger, testimony before a House Ways and Means subcommittee on poverty, and visits to Hill offices by local Catholic Charities agency leaders.

The four main areas of the Campaign are improving food and nutrition programs, increasing access to health care, enabling more people to get affordable housing, and promoting greater economic security for the poor and vulnerable through programs that support work and strengthen families.

Hunger Briefing Features Baltimore Senior and Denver Grandmother of Three At the congressional briefing on the persistence of hunger, Catholic Charities USA called on Congress to give a higher priority to helping those living with hunger to strengthen current federal nutrition programs to help reduce hunger and poverty in America.

In 2005, Catholic Charities agencies nationwide served more than 5 million people through their food banks, food pantries, soup kitchens, and other food service programs.

Those served in Catholic Charities soup kitchens has increased 27 percent since 2001, while clients served by food banks increased by almost 15 percent.

And the need for nutrition assistance across the country continues to rise, especially among low-income working families.

For example, as many as 40 percent of the working poor must turn to emergency food to fight off hunger, and 29 percent of food stamp recipients are in families where at least one person works.

Father Snyder said that while Catholic Charities agencies continue to provide needed food for families, the organization is working to convince federal lawmakers to revise and improve nutrition programs.

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April 25, 2007

Doubt Cast on Routine Screening For Overweight and Obese Schoolchildren

Childhood obesity: should primary school children be routinely screened?

Primary schoolchildren should not be routinely screened for obesity and overweight in the absence of effective treatment, finds research in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

At present, 4 to 5 and 10 to 11 year olds are weighed at school and the anonymised information fed into the National Childhood Obesity Database as part of a monitoring programme.

New government guidance was issued earlier this month to ensure that 80% of these age groups are weighed this school year.

But in its 2004 report on obesity, the parliamentary Health Select Committee recommended that all schoolchildren effectively be screened.

They should be routinely weighed, the results fed back to parents, and overweight and obese children offered specialist treatment, it said.

But there is little evidence to show that preventive approaches or current treatments actually drive down children's obesity in the long term, say the authors.

When they systematically assessed the published and unpublished evidence on the effectiveness of either weight monitoring or screening for picking up and treating obesity, they found none.

Weight monitoring is useful for gathering information on obesity trends and informing how money should be spent, say the authors.

And it could also be useful for assessing the impact of school initiatives to improve children's diets and lifestyles.

"However, the value of moving from population [weight] monitoring to screening to identify and treat individual children remains at best questionable," they say.

"The effectiveness of treatment is currently doubtful and the potential harms of either monitoring or screening are poorly researched," they conclude.

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TV Food Ads Increase Obese Children's Appetite

Obese and overweight children increase their food intake by more than 100% after watching food advertisements on television; a study by the University of Liverpool psychologists has shown.

A group of 60 children of varying weights, aged between nine and eleven years was shown a series of both food television adverts and toy adverts, followed by a cartoon.

Food intake following the food adverts was significantly higher compared with the toy adverts in all weight groups, with the obese children increasing their consumption by 134%; overweight children by 101% and normal weight children by 84%.

It was also found that weight dictated food preference during the experiment.

Food of differing fat contents was made available to the children to eat at their own will, ranging from high fat sweet snacks to low fat savoury products.

The obese group consistently chose the highest fat product - chocolate - whereas the overweight children chose jelly sweets which have a lower fat content, as well as chocolate.

A ban on junk food advertising around children's television programmes was introduced in the UK in January 2007 yet surveys have shown that many children still watch during 'family viewing' hours in the evening when the ban does not apply.

Future studies are planned to investigate whether enhanced responsiveness to food adverts or the greater amount of television children are watching is a predictor of childhood obesity.

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Study Shows Smoking Common During Pregnancy

While pregnancy may be considered an effective motivator for smoking cessation, results of a new study by researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health indicate that pregnant U.S. women commonly smoke, placing themselves and their unborn children at risk for health and developmental complications.

The research also finds a significant association between cigarette use, nicotine dependence, and the presence of mental disorders among pregnant women.

The data show that almost 22 percent of these women smoked cigarettes and more than 10 percent were nicotine dependent.

The results also indicate that approximately 30 percent of pregnant women who used cigarettes had a mental disorder, with personality disorders, major depressive disorder, and specific phobia among the most common psychological ailments.

"Our research shows that prenatal smoking appears to be more common in pregnant women who are already vulnerable---those who are unmarried, have less than high school education, and have lower personal incomes," says Renee Goodwin, assistant professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School, and lead scientist.

The study included 1,516 pregnant women at least 18 years old who took part in the 2001--2002 National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions, a nationally representative survey of more than 43,000 U.S. adults administered by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

The study was supported in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The only accredited school of public health in New York City, and among the first in the nation, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health provides instruction and research opportunities to more than 950 graduate students in pursuit of masters and doctoral degrees.

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Quality Time After School: What Instructors Can Do to Enhance Learning

Public/Private Ventures:

Improving the quality of out-of-school time activities and creating effective learning environments is of keen interest to practitioners, funders and policymakers. Funded by The William Penn Foundation, Quality Time After School identifies characteristics of after-school activities that are linked to youth engagement and learning across a rich diversity of out-of-school-time activity areas.

Drawing from surveys and interviews with more than 400 participants and instructors from five Philadelphia-based Beacon Centers, the report�s findings highlight the importance of two features of high-quality activities: good group management and positive adult support of learning. Building on analyses of over 50 detailed activity observations, as well as key lessons from past research, the report also suggests a road map for program operators and policymakers to create engaging learning environments in after-school programs.

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April 24, 2007

Chronic Family Turmoil and Other Problems Cause Physical Changes

Adolescents who are chronically exposed to family turmoil, violence, noise, poor housing or other chronic risk factors show more stress-induced physiological strain on their organs and tissues than other young people.

However, when they have responsive, supportive mothers, they do not experience these negative physiological changes, reports a new study from Cornell.

But the research group also found that the cardiovascular systems of youths who are exposed to chronic and multiple risk factors are compromised, regardless of their mothers' responsiveness.

Evans said that the findings suggest that the physiological toll of coping with multiple risk factors is significantly greater than with that of coping with a single event, even if that event was rather severe.

"Moreover the burden appears to register in physiological systems that help us regulate our responses to stress," said Evans, the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology and professor of human development and of design and environmental analysis in Cornell's College of Human Ecology.

To study stress-induced physiological changes in young teens, the researchers -- including three students who were undergraduates at the time and a graduate student -- used an index called allostatic load.

The new data, Evans said, may therefore explain, at least in part, "why income and racial inequalities are so pervasive and persistent in our society.

Low-income kids and especially low-income kids who are nonwhite bear a disproportionate burden of cumulative risk exposure."

The researchers also found that when stressed by a mental arithmetic problem, the cardiovascular systems of adolescents who had been exposed to chronic risk factors responded less actively to the stressor and were slower to physiologically recover.

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A Woman's Age at First Menstruation Influences Risk of Obesity for Her Children

A new study published in PLoS Medicine suggests that the age when a woman's periods start may affect her children's growth rate during childhood, final height and risk of obesity in later life.

Researchers from the Medical Research Council and University of Cambridge, led by Dr Ken Ong, studied the association between mother's age at first menstruation, mother's adult body size and obesity risk, and children's growth and obesity risk in 6,009 children from the UK Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) in Bristol.

In mothers, earlier age of periods was associated with shorter adult height, increased weight, and body mass index compared with women whose periods started later.

The children of women whose periods started earlier had a faster growth tempo, characterised by rapid weight gain and growth, particularly during infancy, which led to taller childhood stature.

However this pattern of childhood growth is likely to result in earlier maturation and therefore shorter adult stature.

This growth pattern is known to confer an increased risk of childhood and adult obesity.

The researchers conclude that "earlier age at menarche may indicate a transgenerational influence toward a faster tempo of childhood growth, which is transmitted from the mother to her offspring" and that "understanding the genetic, epigenetic, or behavioural factors that underlie this process will identify processes that regulate both the timing of puberty and the risk of childhood-onset obesity."

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Panic and Outpatient Status Explain High Emergency Care Levels Among Poor Urban Asthmatic Kids

Inner city children from poor families are much more likely to seek emergency care for asthma than their more affluent peers, finds research published ahead of print in Thorax.

But the reasons are not the expected culprits of damp housing, overcrowding, or living with a smoker, finds the study.

Rather, parents feeling panicky, previous outpatient visits, and a belief that emergency care would mean faster treatment, explain the figures, say the authors.

The findings are based on a comparison of asthmatic children registered at 164 family doctor practices in the three London boroughs of Lewisham, Southwark, and Lambeth.

A detailed analysis was made of the medical records of 1018 asthmatic children who had attended an emergency care department and 394 who had not, over a period of 12 months.

The children's parents provided background information on social and economic factors as well as explanations for their decisions to seek additional help for their children's worsening asthma symptoms.

And they were 13 times more likely to come to the emergency care department if they had already been to an outpatient clinic at the hospital during the previous year.

A belief that the child would be seen more quickly in emergency care than in general practice also more than doubled the likelihood of a visit.

But faith in the family doctor's ability to effectively treat asthma attacks significantly lessened the likelihood.

There was no association found between seeking emergency care and overcrowded living conditions, damp housing, living with a smoker, or owning a pet.

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Research Shows Developmental Problems for Siblings of Autistic Children

Younger siblings of children with autism are at risk to suffer from delayed verbal, cognitive and motor development in their early childhood years.

This finding is the result of a research project carried out by a staff headed by Prof. Nurit Yirmiya and doctoral candidate Yifat Gamliel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Marian Sigman of the University of California, Los Angeles.

After the age of four and a half, most of those children were able to close the gap between their development and that of other children of the same age who had siblings with normal development, except for some small delays in verbal abilities.

They reported finding that 30 percent of those children with older siblings with autism were found to have delayed development in the three areas studied, as opposed to only 5 percent in a comparison group (children whose siblings did not suffer from autism).

The reasons for this phenomenon, says Prof. Yirmiya, can be traced to the genetic tendency of children in the former group to carry an endophenotype of autism (an hereditary characteristic that is normally associated with some condition but is not a direct symptom of that condition).

Prof. Yirmiya said that such problems cannot be traced to an imitation of the behavior of the older sibling with autism.

Prof. Yirmiya said that follow-up work should be undertaken into the elemental school years in order to determine whether there are any problematic symptoms, such as learning difficulties, since these sometimes come to the surface at a later age.

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SCHIP Has Been Successful Overall, Should Be Expanded

As the debate over reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) heats up in Washington, a new survey of leaders in health policy and health care finds that large majorities feel the program has been successful in increasing access to health care for low income children (71%) and in reducing the rate of uninsured, low-income children (65%).

Across the board, leaders feel that coverage should be expanded.

In fact, 91% of respondents think SCHIP should be made available to legal immigrant children whose families meet income requirements.

While health care opinion leaders favor expansion of the program, they also support new provisions to the program's structure that would help the U.S. provide high-quality health care for all children.

Four of five survey respondents (81%) were in favor of establishing federal performance standards and outcome measures for all children in SCHIP, and 69 percent favored measuring and reporting on the frequency and quality of developmental screening.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents favored requiring states to reward managed care plans and providers that meet benchmark levels of performance on developmental screening, preventive care, and follow-up treatment.

"Leading health care and health policy experts have clearly stated that SCHIP is a success and should be expanded," said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis.

Only one-third (34%) say SCHIP has been successful in stimulating state innovation in designing delivery models for children.

The online survey was conducted within the United States by Harris Interactive between March 12, 2007 and April 6, 2007.

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April 17, 2007

Helping Hispanics Find Jobs Requires Customized Approach

Two out of three community-based Goodwill agencies are helping Hispanics find jobs, but a majority say a large percentage of the population is not getting what they need.

A three-year Goodwill research project, funded by a grant from the Goizueta Foundation, is expanding the understanding of Hispanic populations and the career development services they need to find jobs and move up the career ladder.

Goodwill agencies across the country - including in cities far from border states where Hispanic populations are typically high - are adapting to the needs of an increasingly large group of Latinos who need help finding a job.

While Goodwill is on the forefront of helping this population, challenges such as finding qualified bi-lingual and bi-cultural staff, developing credibility in the community and identifying funding sources exist.

Nearly half of the most successful programs are locating career development sites in or near neighborhoods with high percentages of Hispanic residents.

Similarly, almost half are engaged in targeted employer outreach for Hispanics.

Posted by Michael at 2:22 AM

April 16, 2007

Gay Men have Higher Prevalence of Eating Disorders

Gay and bisexual men may be at far higher risk for eating disorders than heterosexual men, according to a study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

In the first population-based study of its kind, the researchers found that gay and bisexual men have higher rates of eating disorders.

According to the study results, more than 15 percent of gay or bisexual men had at some time suffered anorexia, bulimia or binge-eating disorder, or at least certain symptoms of those disorders -- a problem known as a subclinical eating disorder, compared with less than five percent of heterosexual men.

Just below 10 percent of lesbian and bisexual women and eight percent of heterosexual women had ever reported having a subclinical eating disorder.

To assess this theory, the investigators studied whether gay and bisexual men with greater connection and affiliation with the gay community are more likely to have eating disorders than those who are not affiliated with the gay community.

Despite slightly elevated eating disorders among men who were active in gay recreational groups, men who said they felt closely connected to the gay community and who participated in a range of gay and bisexual organizations did not have higher rates of eating disorders than men who were not as closely affiliated with the community.