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Stay Well
breaking health news & updates
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California Is Expanding Insurance Access For Teenagers Seeking Therapy On Their Own | |
When she was in ninth grade, Fiona Lu fell into a depression. She had trouble adjusting to her new high school in Orange County, California, and felt so isolated and exhausted that she cried every morning.
Lu wanted to get help, but her Medi-Cal plan wouldn’t cover therapy unless she had permission from a parent or guardian.
Her mother — a single parent and an immigrant from China — worked long hours to provide for Fiona, her brother, and her grandmother. Finding time to explain to her mom what therapy was, and why she needed it, felt like too much of an obstacle.
“I wouldn’t want her to have to sign all these forms and go to therapy with me,” said Lu, now 18 and a freshman at UCLA. “There’s a lot of rhetoric in immigrant cultures that having mental health concerns and getting treatment for that is a Western phenomenon.”
California Healthline Read more
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"This law is about ensuring when a young person needs counseling or needs a temporary roof over their head to ensure their own safety and well-being, that we want to make sure they have a way to access it.”
Rachel Velcoff Hults, an Attorney and the Director of Health of the National Center for Youth Law
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A Win-Win? Free Service Links Up Older Homeowners With Lower-Income Renters
When Gary Calhoun got a call from his caseworker late in 2023, telling him she’d found a program that could set him up with a room to rent, he was skeptical, to say the least.
By then, Calhoun had reached a stage in his homelessness where he wasn’t sure he’d ever live inside again — or live much longer at all.
“I’d basically given up,” he told The Oaklandside. “People who I’ve trusted, they broke my heart.”
Calhoun became homeless after multiple family members died in quick succession and a leg injury made it difficult for him to work. For months he slept outside in Richmond, later upgrading to a friend’s van. He hadn’t showered in weeks when he heard about the opportunity from his Journey Health caseworker. He thought she was joking.
But a week later he got another
phone call, this time from a program called Home Match. They connected Calhoun with Deborah Zike, an Oakland homeowner who had an extra room in her large Eastlake house, just a couple blocks away from Lake Merritt. Oaklandside Read more
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Changes to Stay Well Publishing Schedule
Beginning next week, on April 3, the Stay Well news bulletin will be published only once a week, on Wednesdays.
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Bay Area County Health Officials Report Whooping Cough Spike
An outbreak of whooping cough has hit southern Marin, including Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley. As of Monday, the Marin public health division reported 93 cases overall since mid-December, including 65 at the high school, said Lindsey Termini, a public health nurse for the county. No one has been hospitalized, she said. Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable bacterial respiratory infection that spreads from person to person through droplets in the air, Termini said. The infected droplets contain the Bordetella pertussis bacteria, which can cause symptoms of pertussis in five to 21 days. “It is spread by one person coughing into the air, and then someone else breathing in those droplets,” she said.
East Bay Times Read more
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Hayward Receives Grant For Safe Routes To Schools Infrastructure And Bicycle Incentives
The California Air Resources Board has announced that Hayward will receive $6.2 million in grant funds to provide Safe Routes to Schools infrastructure upgrades, a Citywide bike voucher program, bike parking installations, and active transportation education and promotion including bike classes, engagement events, and crossing guard training. Hayward’s proposal is one of 12 projects across California awarded funds that that will increase access to zero-emissions transportation and diversify mobility options for schools and communities, including disadvantaged and low-income neighborhoods. The Safe Routes and Active Transportation for Schools and Underserved Communities Project will provide and promote safe, affordable active transportation while reducing transportation-related emissions for residents, especially in disadvantaged communities. City of Hayward Read more
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San Francisco Proposes Strongest-In-The-Nation Ban On "Forever Chemicals" In Firefighter Clothing
Firefighters are more likely to develop cancer and die from it than the general population, and it’s not just smoke from burning buildings that’s suspected of making them sick. Firefighting clothing is made with synthetic “forever chemicals” linked to cancers, organ damage and other illnesses, and though manufacturers have reduced the amount of these chemicals in the materials, they still remain in an inner layer close to the skin. San Francisco is poised to take the strongest step in the country to remove this layer laden with PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals with a proposed ordinance barring the chemicals from the city’s firefighting gear by June 30, 2026. Supervisor Aaron Peskin said the city would be the first to pass such a law.
SF Chronicle Read more
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"Health Care For Health Care Workers": Hundreds Stage 2-Day Strike At Daly City Hospital
Hundreds of workers at AHMC Seton Medical Center in Daly City walked off the job on Monday as part of a two-day strike to demand the hospital reverse changes it recently made to their health care plans. “We’re striking for better medical benefits, something that actually covers our families, that pays the bills,” said Christina Caridis, an X-ray technician, who was among the throng of hospital staff on the picket line hoisting signs that said “Health Care for Health Care Workers.” “We all have outstanding bills; we’ve gone to collections, and these are bills that they (the hospital) were supposed to pay,” she said. The union representing the workers said the hospital’s administration dramatically changed health care options at the beginning of the year after workers’ previous contract expired, forcing them to pay up to $6,000 a year to maintain their coverage or accept a new plan with limited access to local doctors and hospitals.
KQED Read more
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What’s Next For The Coronavirus?
Rat droppings from New York City. Poop from dog parks in Wisconsin. Human waste from a Missouri hospital. These are some of the materials that are readying us for the next chapter of the coronavirus saga. More than four years into the pandemic, the virus has loosened its hold on most people’s bodies and minds. But a new variant better able to dodge our immune defenses may yet appear, derailing a hard-won return to normalcy. Scientists around the country are watching for the first signs. NY Times Read more
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How Do We Halt The Next Pandemic? Be Kind To Critters Like Bats, Says A New Paper
Almost every pandemic we've seen over the last century has come from a virus that's spilled over into humans from an animal. "Generally, pandemics are seen as a biomedical problem," says Raina Plowright, an infectious disease ecologist at Cornell University. "Certainly, once the pandemic is underway, it is a biomedical problem because you need to have vaccines, you need therapeutics, you need testing," she says. "But the genesis of the pandemic is actually an ecological problem," says Plowright. That is, it's due to the complex interactions between wildlife, habitat, climate and people. But there's been relatively little discussion about a spillover's ecological origins and how to stop it from happening in the first place. NPR Read more
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Moderna Says New COVID Vaccine Showed Stronger Immune Response Than Current Shot In Study
Moderna on Tuesday said a new version of its COVID vaccine triggered a stronger immune response against the virus than its current shot in a late-stage trial. The results come as Moderna competes with rival Pfizer for more share of the COVID vaccine market and tries to diversify its revenue streams after the world saw a plunge in demand for Covid products last year. Moderna’s current COVID vaccine, known as Spikevax, is its only commercially available product. The biotech company’s new shot could offer a longer shelf life and easier storage than its COVID vaccine. Moderna’s new shot is designed to last longer when refrigerated. That could make the jab easier to distribute around the world, especially in developing countries that may not have freezer capabilities. CNBC Read more
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State/National/International News | | |
Nearly Half Of The Tap Water In The U.S. Is Contaminated With "Forever Chemicals," Government Study Finds
Almost half of the tap water in the United States is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to a study from the US Geological Survey. The number of people drinking contaminated water may be even higher than what the study found, however, because the researchers weren’t able to test for all of these per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals that are considered dangerous to human health. There are more than 12,000 types of PFAS, according to the National Institutes of Health, but this study looked at only 32 of the compounds. PFAS are a family of ubiquitous synthetic chemicals that linger in the environment and the human body. PFAS exposure is linked to problems such as cancer, obesity, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, decreased fertility, liver damage and hormone suppression, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. CNN Read more
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Bill Would Expand Nursing Bachelor’s Degrees To California Community Colleges
Community college leaders will once again attempt to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing, renewing a fight with the state’s universities over whether expanding to the two-year sector eases California’s nurses shortage or increases competition. The bill, authored by state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, would allow 15 yet-to-be-selected community college districts that already provide associate degrees in nursing to offer bachelor’s degrees in the field. While California State University has yet to take a position on Roth’s bill, it’s clear the system has a stake in whether community colleges are allowed to serve students who may otherwise attend CSU or private school programs. The majority of bachelor’s and advanced nursing degree programs are taught by independent and private colleges, which hold about 51% of the market. Statewide, there are 48 bachelor’s degree nursing programs. At least 17 Cal State campuses and six University of California campuses offer a bachelor’s or master’s nursing program within their systems. EdSource Read more
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A Mom’s $97,000 Question: How Was Her Baby’s Air-Ambulance Ride Not Medically Necessary?
Sara England was putting together Ghostbusters costumes for Halloween when she noticed her baby wasn’t doing well. Her 3-month-old son, Amari Vaca, had undergone open-heart surgery two months before, so she called his cardiologist, who recommended getting him checked out. England assigned Amari’s grandparents to trick-or-treat duty with his three older siblings and headed to the local emergency room. Once England and the baby arrived at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California, she said, doctors could see Amari was struggling to breathe and told her that he needed specialized care immediately, from whichever of two major hospitals in the region had an opening first. California Healthline Read more
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California’s Expanded Health Coverage For Immigrants Collides With Medicaid Reviews
Medi-Cal health coverage kicked in for Antonio Abundis just when the custodian needed it most. Shortly after Abundis transitioned from limited to full-scope coverage in 2022 under California’s expansion of Medi-Cal to older residents without legal immigration status, he was diagnosed with leukemia, a cancer affecting the blood cells. The soft-spoken father of three took the news in stride as his doctor said his blood test suggested his cancer wasn’t advanced. His next steps were to get more tests and formulate a treatment plan with a cancer team at Epic Care in Emeryville. But all of that was derailed when he showed up last July for bloodwork at La Clínica de La Raza in Oakland and was told he was no longer on Medi-Cal. California Healthline
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Doctors Say Diagnosis Of Princess Catherine’s Cancer Is A Familiar Scenario
Although it is not known what type of cancer Princess Catherine has, oncologists say
that what she described in her public statement that was released on Friday — discovering a
cancer during another procedure, in this case a “major abdominal surgery” — is all too common. “Unfortunately, so much of the cancer we diagnose is unexpected,” said Dr. Elena Ratner, a gynecologic oncologist at Yale Cancer Center who has diagnosed many patients with ovarian cancer, uterine cancer and cancers of the lining of the uterus. Without speculating on Catherine’s procedure, Dr. Ratner described situations in which women will go in for surgery for endometriosis, a condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus is found elsewhere in the abdomen. Often, Dr. Ratner says, the assumption is that the endometriosis has appeared on an ovary and caused a benign ovarian cyst. But one to two weeks later, when the supposedly benign tissue has been studied, pathologists report that they found cancer.
NY Times Read more
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Overdosing On Chemo: A Common Gene Test Could Save Hundreds Of Lives Each Year
One January morning in 2021, Carol Rosen took a standard treatment for metastatic breast cancer. Three gruesome weeks later, she died in excruciating pain from the very drug meant to prolong her life. Rosen, a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher, passed her final days in anguish, enduring severe diarrhea and nausea and terrible sores in her mouth that kept her from eating, drinking, and, eventually, speaking. Skin peeled off her body. Her kidneys and liver failed. “Your body burns from the inside out,” said Rosen’s daughter, Lindsay Murray, of Andover, Massachusetts.
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The Burden Of Getting Medical Care Can Exhaust Older Patients
Susanne Gilliam, 67, was walking down her driveway to get the mail in January when she slipped and fell on a patch of black ice. Pain shot through her left knee and ankle. After summoning her husband on her phone, with difficulty she made it back to the house. And then began the run-around that so many people face when they interact with America’s uncoordinated health care system. Gilliam’s orthopedic surgeon, who managed previous difficulties with her left knee, saw her that afternoon but told her “I don’t do ankles.” Coordinating the care she needs to recover, including physical therapy, became a part-time job for Gilliam. California Healthline Read more
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Oakland Asks Caltrans For Help Closing Homeless Encampments
Oakland has tapped the state for help closing homeless encampments throughout the city over the next two years. The City Council last week voted to allow the city administration to enter into agreements with the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, for “encampment resolution.” The exact nature and scope of Caltrans’ work or assistance at these sites is so far unclear, with details from the city about this partnership scarce. The first location the city has identified for closure with assistance from Caltrans is an encampment on Leet Drive, where about two dozen RVs and cars are parked in a line off of Hegenberger Road. Oaklandside
Read more
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Why California Doesn't Know How Many People Are Dying While Homeless
Nearly a decade ago, David Modersbach had what he thought was a straightforward question: How many unhoused people had died that year? The grants manager and his team at Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless knew people were dying on the streets, but they wanted more than anecdotal evidence; they wanted data that could show them the big picture and help them hone their strategies. They queried the coroner’s bureau and were stunned by the response: only a single death had been reported. “We realized there’s a lot of work to do,” Modersbach said. What followed was a bootstrap campaign to fill the data gap. It took years, and the work was sometimes lonely, often tedious and consistently heartbreaking. When the team finally released its first report in 2022, detailing deaths from 2018–20, they counted 195 people in Alameda County who died while homeless in 2018, plus another 189 people with recent histories of homelessness whose housing status couldn’t be verified at their time of death. KQED Read more
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MACRO, Oakland’s Non-Emergency Crisis Response Team, Now Has A Phone Number
Do you see someone on the street who looks like they need support? Is someone you know experiencing a mental health crisis? Starting this month, you can call someone directly for help. The Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) program recently announced that it has a phone line residents can call in the event of non-violent, non-emergency situations: 510-446-2276. MACRO still has an email address that community members can also use – MACRO@oaklandca.gov – but the program’s leaders say the addition of a phone line is a “milestone.” MACRO was launched in April 2022 to divert calls from the police and fire departments that can be better handled by civilians. This makes MACRO a critical tool in Oakland, where the city’s 911 system has struggled to respond quickly to emergency calls partly because it receives lots of non-emergency requests for service. Oaklandside Read more
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End The Phone-Based Childhood Now
Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose131 percent. The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, and beyond. By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data. The decline in mental health is just one of many signs that something went awry. Loneliness and friendlessness among American teens began to surge around 2012. The Atlantic Read more
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Fentanyl Crisis/Drug Trends | | |
Drug-Testing Kits To Be Offered To Patrons In California Bars This Summer
California bars and nightclubs will be required starting July 1 to offer or sell drug-testing kits to patrons who suspect someone has tampered with their drink. Assembly Bill 1013 will require bars and nightclubs that have a Type 48 license to sell or provide at no cost drug-testing kits and have visible signage advertising the kits, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control announced this week. The department’s required signage for bars and nightclubs is available on the state agency’s website. The sign will say, “Don’t get roofied! Drink spiking drug test kits available here. Ask a staff member for details.” The test device can be a test strip, a straw or stickers that are used to detect the presence of drugs used to incapacitate victims.
LA Times Read more
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Inside The Bay Area Fentanyl Drug Epidemic With Healthcare Heroes
In the heart of the Bay Area’s fentanyl drug crisis, student contributor Mandi Granato from The Pioneer Newspaper, sheds light on the harrowing experiences of local healthcare heroes amidst the illegal fentanyl overdose epidemic. Join us as Mandi sits down with a local EMT and ER nurse, delving deep into their frontline encounters with patients profoundly impacted by this devastating crisis. CSUEB Pioneer Read more
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A Paramedic Was Skeptical About This Rx For Stopping Repeat Opioid Overdoses. Then He Saw It Help
Fire Capt. Jesse Blaire steered his SUV through the mobile home park until he spotted the little beige house with white trim and radioed to let dispatchers know he’d arrived. There, Shawnice Slaughter waited on the steps, wiping sleep from her eyes. “Good morning, Shawnice,” Blaire said. “How are you feeling today?” “I’ve been good, I’ve been good,” Slaughter said. “Much better.” Three days earlier, Blaire — a paramedic who leads the fire department’s emergency medical team — met Slaughter at a nearby hospital. She had overdosed on opioids. It took four vials of an overdose reversal medication and dozens of chest compressions to get her breathing again. At the hospital, Blaire told Slaughter about a free program that could help. It wouldn’t just connect her with a recovery center but would also get her doctors’ appointments, plus rides there. More important, she would get medicine to alleviate withdrawal symptoms so she wouldn’t search for drugs to ease the sickness. Blaire would bring that medication, daily, to her home. KFF Health News Read more
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Does Being Lonely Make You Age Faster?
When it comes to taking care of our health as we age, the focus tends to be on lowering cholesterol, managing blood pressure and other healthy habits. But socializing? “Sometimes we ignore this part,” says Amir Lerman, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist. Mounting research suggests that could be dangerous. Loneliness has been linked to many negative health consequences, including a higher risk of developing dementia, depression, even heart disease. It can have the same impact on your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, a report from the U.S. surgeon general says. And new research suggests that loneliness may cause the body to age faster. AARP Read more
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About Eden Health District | | |
The Eden Health District Board of Directors are Chair Pam Russo, Vice Chair Ed Hernandez, Secretary/Treasurer Roxann Lewis, Mariellen Faria and Surlene Grant. The Chief Executive Officer is Mark Friedman.
The Eden Health District is committed to ensuring that policy makers and community members receive accurate and timely information to help make the best policy and personal choices to meet and overcome the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other health issues.
We welcome your feedback on our bulletin. Please contact editor Lisa Mahoney.
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