Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 2043 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • 'I am not alone:' How a California county is helping Hispanic family caregivers find peace

    La Buena Vida connects caregivers from Latino households with respite care, training, and support groups. Using federal funding, the program serves as the Ventura County Area Agency on Aging’s resource center for Spanish-speaking family caregivers. The program also provides safety equipment, like ramps and railings. In addition to much needed emotional and physical breaks from their responsibilities, the group connects caregivers to Spanish-speaking professionals who offer counseling and support. The program staff regularly checks in with its 66 clients to see how they are doing and assess their needs.

    Read More

  • Colorado screening newborn babies for spinal muscular atrophy

    A joint project between Wyoming and Colorado screens newborns for spinal muscular atrophy, allowing them to receive gene therapies to prevent the deadly disease’s progression. Once researchers identified a protein missing from the cells of people with the disease, they developed treatments that are most effective the earlier they are started. The tests have significantly increased the number of cases identified across the two states, all of which are sent to Children’s Hospital Colorado for immediate treatment. Most babies are diagnosed within four days of birth and can start treatment soon after that.

    Read More

  • ‘Know Your Script' initiative shows success in fight against opioid epidemic

    Intermountain Healthcare implemented an opioid reduction plan as part of Utah’s statewide ‘Know Your Script’ initiative. The plan, which includes an opioid-free surgery program that utilizes nerve blockers and non-opioid pain medications, has led to 11 million fewer opioid prescriptions. While not all surgeries can be performed this way, it has given recovering addicts a treatment alternative. The healthcare system also educates medical staff on ways to reduce opioid prescriptions and empowers patients to tell their providers that they do not want opioids.

    Read More

  • Special clinics aim to get COVID vaccine to developmentally disabled

    Grassroots volunteer groups are helping people across the country make COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Get Out the Shot: Los Angeles has 100 vetted volunteers who have booked 300 appointments through the group’s system and thousands more on their own. Residents leave a message or fill out a Google form with their information and a volunteer picks up their case, books an appointment, and calls them to confirm. These volunteer organizations fill important assistance gaps in local government services that are stretched thin. Some groups focus on getting appointments for people from underserved communities.

    Read More

  • ‘This Isn't a Dying Coal Town,' It's a West Virginia Community Rethinking Health Care and Succeeding

    Williamson Health and Wellness Center is a federally qualified health center in rural West Virginia, that provides medical, dental, and mental health care as well as chronic-disease management and wellness coaching on a sliding scale. The health center addresses social determinants of health with programs like fresh produce delivery, a community garden, and workforce development. The community health worker program has seen success by hiring local people to visit patients at home and work with them to monitor their blood sugar, take their medications properly, and learn healthy lifestyle choices.

    Read More

  • How the White Mountain Apache Tribe Beat COVID

    The White Mountain Apache Tribe curbed COVID-19 death rates with contact-tracing, surveillance of high-risk people, and vaccinations. After a devastating COVID-19 outbreak, health officials began daily home visits to monitor vital signs of those who tested positive and those at greatest risk, allowing positive cases to be identified early. In combination with prior health outreach programs, this helped the team to form strong bonds with tribal members, which has been key to the program’s success. This familiarity has also helped them address vaccine hesitancy as they vaccinate people in their homes.

    Read More

  • How ‘hockey hub' clinics are changing the vaccine game in Ontario

    The “hockey hub” mass-vaccination model uses large spaces, like sports arenas, to vaccinate up to 70 people per hour, compared to 6-10 with traditional systems. Rows of 30 cubicles, each with a single chair, allow a health professional and an assistant to visit each patient with their vaccine-laden cart and quickly get consent and administer the vaccine. Once they finish the row, the first person to get their shot has waited the required post-vaccine observation time. The model requires less staff and time spent disinfecting surfaces in between patients, which substantially lowers the cost per vaccine.

    Read More

  • Nutrition Interventions Securing Livelihoods in Hard-to-Reach Areas of Borno

    Doctors Without Borders treats malnutrition in areas of Nigeria facing food shortages due to violence and insurgency. When safe, it runs a mobile clinic to provide basic health care, including nutritional support, particularly to children. When communities are not safe enough to enter, the organization trains community members in basic patient care and provides them the tools to run basic tests and treat malnutrition. Community health workers are also trained to treat patients, dispense medications, and educate caregivers about child nutrition.

    Read More

  • A New Project Is Bringing the Gay ‘Green Book' Online

    In 1965 a traveling salesman published a series of travel guides with gay or gay-friendly businesses across the U.S. that became survival guides for the LGBTQ community. “Mapping the Gay Guides” has digitized those collections, allowing users to explore the original descriptions and added historical content written by graduate students. Reasons for why locations appear and disappear from year-to-year are provided, which sometimes intersect with LGBTQ hate crimes. A $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities will allow them to continue to preserve and make the forgotten history accessible.

    Read More

  • Helpline Fills Gaps in Local Housing Assistance

    Bridging Resources is a helpline launched by a group of nonprofits that connects residents to existing services. Bilingual operators field calls and connect callers to agencies that can provide food, rental assistance, childcare, and legal advice among other services. The operators actually call the agencies with residents on the line to ensure the connection is made. Seventy-eight callers received assistance in the helpline’s first ten weeks, split almost evenly between English and Spanish speakers, which reinforced the importance of providing bilingual assistance.

    Read More