November 2019

By Marc Philpart and Jacquie Marroquin, California Health Report, November 13, 2019 Like millions of Californians, the crisis of intimate partner violence has had a profound impact on our lives. The violence our family members experienced has created a ripple effect, setting us each on a unique journey for healing—as individuals, as families and as a community. While our journeys have been distinct, they have led to a similar understanding: Ending domestic violence is possible, but only if...

By Tanya M. Phares, Kevin Sherin, Suzanne Leonard Harrison, et al., American Journal of Preventive Medicine, December 2019 The purpose of this paper is to produce a position statement on intimate partner violence (IPV), a major sociomedical problem with recently updated evidence, systematic reviews, and U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines. This position statement is a nonsystematic, rapid literature review on IPV incidence and prevalence, health consequences, diagnosis and...

By Vandana Devgan, Centering Healthcare Institute, November 15, 2019 Centering Healthcare Institute (CHI) is honored to share that its pediatric group care model CenteringParenting®, has been recognized by The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) as an innovative pediatric intervention in its latest study. "Fostering Social and Emotional Health: Common Threads to Transform Everyday Practice and System" , released as part of the Pediatrics Supporting Parents (PSP) initiative, shares...

By A.K. Whitney, Center for Health Journalism, November 11, 2019 I don’t remember the date, or even the time of year, though the medical records tell me it was 1977. I was 6. But I will always remember that day: the gloomy, wood-paneled exam room at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, the hard, high table I sat on, the doctor looming above me as he muttered about swan necks and hammers, though there were no birds or tools in sight. He didn’t bother making eye contact with me. I’m not sure he...

By Linda Carroll, Reuters, October 22, 2019 Women are often mistreated during labor and delivery at hospitals in low-income countries, a new study suggests. During in-person observations of births at urban hospitals in Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria, researchers found that more than 40 percent of women experienced physical or verbal abuse, stigmatization or discrimination related to race or ethnicity, according to a report in The Lancet. Surveys of women who had recently given birth in those...

21st Annual Families and Fathers National Conference February 24-27, 2020 Hilton Los Angeles Airport 5711 West Century Boulevard Los Angeles, California 90045 I am honored to announce The Family First Scholarship supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as a Title Sponsor and State of California First 5 as a Co-Sponsor for the 21 st Annual Families and Fathers Conference, Next Level 2020! the terms "putting family first" and "it takes a village to raise a child" parallels with why we have...

By Nicole R. Bush and Kirstin Aschbacher, JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 Evidence of an association between early-life adversity and heightened risk of chronic disease in adulthood has been found, but the optimal biomarkers for identifying vulnerable or resilient individuals remain unclear. Global trends, including widening socioeconomic disparities, the refugee crises, and climate change, increasingly sculpt trauma exposure and call for scalable early-risk identification and treatment...

By Nicole Racine, Teresa Killam, and Sheri Madigan, JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 Experiences of childhood adversity are common, with more than 50% of adults reporting having experienced at least 1 adversity as children and more than 6% exposed to 4 or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). There is currently a controversial debate in the medical field as to whether the ACEs questionnaire, which asks about abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction before age 18 years, should be...

By Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, October 31, 2019 People who have stress disorders like PTSD may be more vulnerable to potentially life-threatening infections, especially if they are diagnosed at younger ages or dealing with other psychiatric issues, a recent study suggests. Researchers examined data on 144,919 people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), adjustment disorders common after a major life change like a death or move, and other stress-related conditions. They also...

By Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, November 1, 2019 Required Components Aligning Systems for Health will explore the degree to which health equity is impacted or results from current models of collaboration incorporating health care, public health, and social services. Gaps in health are large, persistent and increasing, and RWJF is committed to a system that meets people’s goals and needs and addresses these gaps that many populations face. Studies should include a focus on health equity by...

By Grant H. Brenner, Psychology Today, October 29, 2019 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition affecting a subset of people exposed to traumatic experiences. Not all people who endure traumatic experiences will develop PTSD as most people are resilient due to biological, psychological, and social factors. Most responses to trauma are normal, including short-term stress responses, sleep disturbances, fears of trauma happening again, and related reactions, but they resolve after...

By Cory Turner, National Public Radio, October 29, 2019 Childhood anxiety is one of the most important mental health challenges of our time. One in five children will experience some kind of clinical-level anxiety by the time they reach adolescence, according to Danny Pine, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health and one of the world's top anxiety researchers. Pine says that for most kids, these feelings of worry won't last, but for some, they will —...