Rapper Phife Dawg, of the iconic group Tribe Called Quest, is continuing to raise awareness around diabetes in his death, as he did in life, throughout his music career. The rapper’s family confirmed Wednesday that Phife died at age 45 at his home near Antioch due to complications resulting from diabetes, sparking a wave of disease-related tributes on social media. [For more of this story, written by April Dembosky, go to ...
Older Americans who engage in strenuous exercise are more mentally nimble, have better memory function and process information more speedily than do their more sedentary peers, new research suggests. And as they continued to age, participants who were very physically active at the start of a five-year study lost less ground cognitively than did couch potatoes, according to the study. The latest research, published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, is the most recent study to underscore the...
Research over the past several decades has established that youth exposure to violence is a widespread and significant problem. This is particularly true for youth involved in the juvenile justice system, as research has shown that up to 90 percent of these youth have histories of violence exposure, with many reporting multiple serious incidents. Violence exposure as either victims or witnesses often lead to developing symptoms of trauma as a result. Given that the vast majority of juvenile...
Angelo Giardino remembers the little boy who could. He was called to give expert testimony in a devastating case of child abuse. “It was an awful case, horrible torture…and I was walking out of the courtroom when a woman came up. She said, ‘I just want you to know that the little guy you’re talking about—well, I adopted him and he’s doing beautifully.’ What I learned from that was: If you can bring a loving environment that’s nurturing to a child, they can overcome almost anything. As I read...
In February I had the honor of being part of The National Child Health Policy Conference organized by AcademyHealth . The lunch time plenary was titled: The Many Faces of Immigration's Impact on Child and Family Health. Listening to the excellent panelists , Mara Youdelman , Heather Koball , Matthew Lopas , and Alicia Wilson , I became aware of the many ways that the immigration experience can mirror other adverse childhood experiences and have similar effects on children and families. More...
Marilyn Reyes-Scales, 53, remembers family time in her parents’ living room as a small child, when her aunt and uncles sat with her parents, discussing the views of political candidates and debating each one’s merits. Her parents had moved from Puerto Rico to New York for the opportunity to have a better life, and they took voting seriously. She laughs, remembering how hard it was to sit still in one place while her parents lined up at the polls, and how heated those family conversations...
This story is first in our four-part series Treating the Tiniest Opioid Patients, a collaboration produced by NPR's National & Science Desks, local member stations and Kaiser Health News . Swaddled in soft hospital blankets, Lexi is 2 weeks old and weighs 6 pounds. She's been at Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, R.I., since she was born, and is experiencing symptoms of opioid withdrawal. Her mother took methadone to wean herself from heroin when she got pregnant, just as doctors...
Do you remember your child's first teacher? Your first teacher? The most influential teacher in your life? I'm sure most of us can. Mayor Kenney's proposal to tax sugary beverages and use much of the proceeds for prekindergarten has been making headlines lately. But this is a topic with implications well beyond education and politics. Early childhood education is a key contributor to lifelong health and a potent means to fight the health disparities that plague our city. In the first few...
Houston is embarking upon a $220 million parks project called Bayou Greenways 2020 , a 150-mile network of continuous hiking trails, biking paths, and green space that will run throughout the city. When completed in 2020, it will make good on plans made by the urban planner Arthur Comey in 1912 to connect the city’s parks with the many strips of bayous scratching open the Houston landscape. Residents approved by ballot referendum a $166 million bond in 2012 to pay for the Bayou Greenways...
Many more black students are graduating from college than a decade ago. According to a new report from The Education Trust , a nonprofit that focuses on improving outcomes for low-income students of color, completion rates for African Americans increased at nearly 70 percent of the four-year public schools that raised their overall graduations rates between 2003 and 2013. But at the same time, a third of the colleges the group studied that had rising overall graduation rates actually had...
The North Carolina General Assembly called lawmakers back to Raleigh on Wednesday for a special session. The reason wasn’t a pressing budget crisis, a natural disaster, or court-mandated redistricting. (That happened last month .) Instead, legislators returned to the state house to overrule a local ordinance in Charlotte banning discrimination against LGBT people. A bill written for that purpose passed Wednesday evening and was signed by Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican. In the House,...
Michelle Johnson and her three children have called a modest three bedroom apartment in North Philadelphia home for almost 20 years. Stepping into their apartment, it's easy to tell that it's a place where children have grown up. Small scuff marks in the hallway and old video game controllers stashed on the bottom shelf of a bookcase attest to the past presence of kids. In the family room, there is a collection of framed portraits and school photographs. Pointing to a picture in the center,...
So, your boss is a workaholic and expects you to emulate her? Whether that means working ridiculous hours, inhaling lunch at your desk (or skipping it altogether), and even sacrificing your weekends, reporting to a person like this can be taxing on both your career and home life. The negative impact of problem managers is pervasive. Studies consistently link a lack of support for work-life balance by managers to fewer profits and more on-the-job mistakes. What’s more, a bad boss may...
Babies born in the shadow of Yankee Stadium are likely to be lifelong fans of the Bronx Bombers. They are also likely to live seven years less than a baby born a handful of subway stops south near Lincoln Center. The same is true in Las Vegas, where a baby born near The Strip is likely to live nine or 10 years less than someone born west of town. When it comes to health across cities, zip codes are unequal and so are health outcomes. For example, ethnic minorities continue to experience...
National statistics reveal that 20 percent of adolescents and teens struggle with a mental health issue. That's a big reason why the Ector County Independent School District is looking to implement new mental health clinics in their high schools. "Some of our students had some mental health issues that were difficult for them. We felt that they would probably succeed more in their academics if someone was taking care of those issues," said Laura Mathew, ECISD Director of Nursing. A...