The Town Trying to Cure Loneliness

The highest hospital costs come from preventable emergency room visits. A doctor in Camden developed a home visit program which gives better and cheaper care.

To educate and prepare new mothers, Centering Pregnancy and Centering Parenting sites in the United States offer community-based patient-centered care in low-income areas. Centering offers interactive learning, check-ups, and social support, so that women can take charge of their health.

Post-traumatic stress has dire consequences for U.S. veterans, including an increase in suicide, and not all therapeutic treatments for the disorder have succeeded. To treat and potentially cure the effects of PTSD, the Center for Mind-Body Awareness offers veterans Buddhist-inspired meditation, and mindfulness, as well as skills to develop creative expression.

America’s system of health care is based on an old industrial-era model, without taking into account a decentralized, mobile, independent workforce that remains largely unprotected without health and unemployment insurance. The Freelancers Insurance Company, based in New York State, offers competitive premiums by having their executives receive salaries at low wages. The model keeps costs under control, which in turn makes health care more accessible to independent workers.

Studying the outcomes of public health delivery can lack a scientific methodology. MIT economists have applied the methodology of randomized controlled trial (RCT) to study the effect of the Medicaid expansion plan in Oregon. These researchers look into how the new healthcare coverage affects clinical outcomes, emergency-room use, and employment.

Two columns on how Iran is treating its massive epidemic of injecting drug use by tackling it as a health problem, effectively lowering H.I.V. rates among drug users using an approach to drugs known as harm reduction.

Despite significant increases in funding and advances in biomedical research, the rates of new treatments and drugs for illnesses that reach the market every year have plummeted. A group called the Myelin Repair Foundation, along with several other foundations, uses an intensely goal-directed and collaborative method to tackle the bottleneck.

Global social and economic problems are difficult to change. However, fan-activism fuels the interests of fans of popular young adult fiction. Books such as Harry Potter and the Hunger Games have inspired activist groups that raise awareness of global hunger, reading, and relief supplies to impoverished nations, among others. Being a fan has served as a bridge to become politically active and solve the world’s problems.

In India, videos made about the many social problems are secretly broadcasted in different villages to make people aware of the real problem and also aware of what they can do to fix it. Video Volunteers, an organization that coordinates these video productions, catalyzes community change through transparency and accountability.

Physical illnesses trigger and exacerbate poverty because costs are too high to treat them. The Associação Saúde Criança in Rio de Janeiro counsels helps by assisting families with services such as food, medicine, vocational training, housing, and legal aid, which helps mothers achieve their personal goals.