a product of my environment
There are times we want to walk away, throw in the towel, and raise the white handkerchief in our effort to simply “give up”
BUT
Giving up is not an option.
We desire for a particular outcome and things to happen within a timeframe.
BUT
Time has its own outcome
Be in it to win it so trust the process
National Education Policy Center 4/22/22
Done right, school choice can help desegregate schools, breaking the link between often-segregated housing and school enrollment. But this will not happen if the value of choice is placed above the goal of desegregation; the two goals need to work together. Increased options must be combined with constraints that further student integration.
However, this approach, known as “controlled choice,” is the exception, not the rule, in the United States. Most choice programs in our country do not take desegregation into account. In a recent brief published by the National Coalition on School Diversity, NEPC Fellow Casey Cobb of the University of Connecticut uses research to answer the question of whether school choice programs resegregate American schools. The answer, he finds, is a resounding “yes.” But this can change.
Here are four ways Professor Cobb finds that choice programs currently contribute to racial segregation.
In unregulated choice systems, these and other factors play out in ways that undermine societal goals. But controlled choice plans offer a way to grant individual choice preferences while also honoring policy preferences. As explained by Penn State professor and NEPC Fellow Erica Frankenberg, districts with these plans can use “the racial composition of a small area where a student lives as part of its diversity measure.” Preferences then prioritize choices that would likely enhance a school’s diversity. While enrollment decisions for specific children would not be based on a child’s own race or ethnicity, the school’s enrollment would be diversified by neighborhoods, which are often themselves segregated.
sistateacher’s thoughts
SEGREGATION…the one word that contributes to and perpetuates disparity. There is the auspice of choice for those who live in segregated communities. These communities tend to be marginalized, disenfranchised, underrepresented, and under-resourced. It is mostly racial segregation and less class. Poor white people rarely live in concentrated poverty and benefit from the resources in their community of those who are not poor.
It has been a long practice to attend schools based on catchment area. Segregation benefits some while disadvantages others. Integration seems the best option to address the collateral damage of segregation but people continue to choose to live separately racially.
Children who live in racially segregated communities inhabited by Blacks and Latinos have limited resources and investments to support their academic development. In fact, there is an auspice of choice and when they attend integrated schools it becomes a culture shock. They are negotiating and navigating cultural mores which can create more of a barrier to their academic excellence. A skill learned as a result of navigating and negotiating is “code switching.” This is an unnecessary skill for children whose skin color and/or ethnicity is considered “privileged” When the matter is closely examined and assessed, the choices must be different from previous generations and progressively sustainable for future generations.
The facts can’t be disputed and the title says it all, “…school choice worsen segregation.” So parent preference, parent privilege, charter school choice, and lack of accountability are some of the ingredients that contribute to and perpetuate segregation. The other ingredients are housing policies such as redlining, elected officials that legislate law and promulgate regulations, and the people who make choices based on skin color. Skin color has become a caste. Although the United States is considered the land of the free, some things are not free and education is one of them.
For far too long, segregation has been a problem. A Supreme Court Decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS in 1954 has not seemed to change it. Now, 68 years later, SEGREGATION continues.
Here are daily activities during the month of May to address your mental wellness
Share this calendar with others to focus on their mental wellness as well
#selfcare is a #prevention strategy!!
Keep that in mind
Be #safe #blessed
well-being is necessary to maintain
Take care of yourself as a prevention strategy. I t makes a difference. Dare to be different.
Blogger’s thoughts
There are multiple articles in this post about maternal health. The reasons are to keep this major healthcare issue on a continuum, identify the efforts of progress if any, review from a contextual perspective, and things are simpler when it’s together instead of compartmentalized. Please share this with others and encourage them to address all matters of health.
Reposts from NJSpotlight
‘Pretty astounding’ reduction in C-sections in 2021 As NJ health providers work to address maternal mortality, they’re already seeing results
Lilo H. Stainton, Health Care Writer April 18, 2022
It’s a simple, but important question now asked every time a woman of child-bearing age arrives at a New Jersey emergency room: Have you been pregnant within the last year?
As of January 2020, state law requires hospitals in New Jersey to ask all emergency department patients about their recent reproductive history to help diagnose their condition and better identify post-partum preeclampsia, a rare but serious form of hypertension that requires immediate medical care.
This change is just one of many steps hospitals across New Jersey have taken to improve maternal health care and reduce what is one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. These efforts are part of a broad spectrum of reforms now underway, and planned, to improve birth outcomes. And they are starting to show results.
The 2020 law was informed by a program launched years earlier at RWJBarnabas Health, one of the state’s largest hospital systems, to try and improve care for new moms who came into the network’s emergency rooms with hypertension, or high blood pressure.
A team of doctors, nurses and other maternal health leaders worked with emergency room staff and IT experts to create an alert system designed to quickly flag these patients and ensure they get proper care.
Narrowing racial gap
“We really use this team to identify issues within our system, issues within each of our unique communities, and determine what changes need to be made,” said Suzanne Spernal, an advanced practice nurse and vice-president of women’s services at RWJBarnabas.
The maternal leadership collaborative, organized in 2015, is one of the tools RWJBarnabas is using to improve maternal health and narrow the gap in racial disparities. Black mothers die at nearly seven times the rate of white mothers in New Jersey, more than double what it is nationwide, according to the most recent state data available.
The collaborative also serves to advance the goals outlined by Nurture NJ, a campaign launched in 2020 by first lady Tammy Murphy to cut the state’s maternal mortality rate in half and eliminate the racial gaps within five years.
Nurture NJ’s work is proceeding well, Murphy told NJ Spotlight News last week, with dozens of legislative proposals signed into law by her husband, Gov. Phil Murphy, and a wide array of state agencies collaborating to reduce inequities, improve access to care and elevate the voices of mothers, particularly Black moms.
“We are just doing everything within our power to see that we are moving the needle,” she said.
The first lady’s office has also partnered with community organizations to host festivals, pop-up giveaways of food, diapers and other goods, and health clinics with COVID-19 testing and vaccinations. The work has been supported by hospitals, physicians’ groups and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state’s largest health insurance company, among others.
Delivery can spell danger
The majority of maternal deaths occur during delivery or in the first few weeks after birth, often related to severe bleeding. Three in five are preventable, experts note.
Improving these outcomes has long been a focus of the New Jersey Hospital Association, which represents the roughly 50 hospital-based birthing centers that help deliver some 100,000 babies each year.
Through its perinatal quality collaborative, the hospital association has provided its members with maternal mortality data and benchmarking options, best-practice toolkits and checklists to help medical teams navigate emergencies, plus webinars and other educational opportunities. Last week the association posted an online video course focused on reducing implicit bias in maternal and child health, timed to coincide with Black Maternal Health Week.
“Understanding more about implicit bias is such a hot topic right now,” said Dr. Meika Tylese Neblett, chief medical officer at Community Medical Center, an RWJBarnabas hospital in Toms River, who is featured in one of the segments.
“It’s understanding how your unconscious self … that is creating this implicit bias has a direct effect on how you are caring for your patients,” she said.
Preliminary C-section data
New Jersey Hospital Association president and CEO Cathy Bennett said the perinatal collaborative aims to “achieve measurable, sustainable quality improvement, and we have data that shows the impact of this work,” starting with a significant reduction in births by cesarean section, or C-section.
In 2016, New Jersey had among the nation’s highest rates for C-sections, she said, with nearly 40% of births involving the major surgical procedure that is necessary in some situations but involves significant risk. Preliminary data for 2021 shows the rate for regular C-sections dropped to 27.8%, Bennett said, calling it “a pretty astounding reduction.” (Experts have set 23.6% as the nationwide goal.)
But Bennett said this is only a start, with the COVID-19 pandemic posing new challenges. “We know that more work remains to achieve further improvement, including reducing disparities in outcomes for women and infants of color and to address COVID vaccine hesitancy among expectant mothers and women of child-bearing age,” she said.
The hospital association is tracking the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal health outcomes and monitoring data to determine if an initial uptick in poor outcomes recorded at the start has continued in the years since, Bennett explained.
Pandemic complications
“Birthing hospitals had to address never-before-seen issues to keep mom, baby and staff safe,” she said. “If you think about it, even the very process of laboring was potentially a situation where the virus could easily spread to others.”
At RWJBarnabas, leaders are also evaluating their COVID-19 response and its impact on maternal health, Spernal said. At the pandemic’s start the system’s hospitals sought to release healthy new moms within 24 to 48 hours to lessen their infection risk, she said, but despite the “best of intentions” there were limited support systems set up to help them once they got home.
“For the right patient, that rapid discharge is completely safe. But in other cases, it might not be prudent to send these new moms home so quickly,” Spernal said, adding, “We probably could have done a better job” connecting them with telehealth follow-ups or other services after their release.
RWJBarnabas has also taken steps to better incorporate doulas into its birthing protocol, Spernal said, but these trained advocates for the mother can be hard to find in some communities. State officials have been working to increase the size and diversity of this workforce through various programs and partnerships.
The hospital system also hosted online support groups, thanks to telehealth technology, which Spernal said has enabled more than 3,000 participants to join sessions on breastfeeding, mood disorders and pregnancy itself.
‘No matter how far we think we’ve come, we haven’t come far enough.’
“Over the past year we’ve seen an increase in the number of Black women participating” in several of these groups, Spernal added. “You don’t necessarily get that in the brick-and-mortar setting.”
But despite these gains, maternal health experts agree more work is needed, particularly to reduce the racial disparities. This is especially true with unconscious bias, Neblett said. “No matter how far we think we’ve come, we haven’t come far enough,” she said.
“Some nurses still have the thought that a Black women’s body is different than a white woman’s body. So they still have the thought that the difference in care and the difference in outcomes is due to a biological or genetic difference,” Neblett explained, noting this is not the case.
Neblett said recruiting and training more Black and Hispanic health care providers will also help strengthen the connection with patients of color, allowing for better care.
“It’s a big push in all fields, not just maternal medical care, to ensure that Black women, when they are coming to this space, feel comfortable,” she said. “And it’s not just the doctors. It’s the nurses, it’s the technicians, it’s the frontline staff and the registration, every part of it, so they feel empowered and understood when they are coming here.”
Black maternal health week: Vast disparities among Black and white mothers Interview with Dr. Damali Campbell-Oparaji, OBGYN at University Hospital in Newark
Briana Vannozzi, Anchor April 13, 2022
New Jersey is ranked 47th in the nation for maternal deaths. It also has some of the worst racial disparities for both maternal and infant mortality. A Black mother in New Jersey is seven times more likely than a white mother to die from maternity-related complications. A Black baby is more than three times as likely to die before their first birthday than a white baby. Dr. Damali Campbell-Oparaji is an OBGYN with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and University Hospital in Newark. She’s been among the most vocal in the state for the need to fix what many call a shameful problem.
First Lady Tammy Murphy sees progress on maternal mortality. ‘There’s a lot of indicators that things are going in the right direction’
Briana Vannozzi, Anchor April 14, 2022
As the pandemic dragged on in the winter of 2021 first lady Tammy Murphy keyed in on what she called a “crisis” growing worse — the state’s maternal mortality rate, with Black women seven times more likely to die of maternity-related complications than white women. Launching her Nurture NJ program, she set an ambitious goal to halve the rate in five years.
We caught up with the first lady in Black Maternal Health Week. Noting that Gov. Phil Murphy “has signed over 42 pieces of legislation in this area to make sure that we are doing everything to establish best practices,” she acknowledged the difficulty of addressing the complicated issues involved during the pandemic. “I know we are moving the needle; it’s not the easiest thing to quantify because maternal mortality and infant mortality are lagging indicators… But there’s a lot of indicators that things are going in the right direction,” she said.
Bias at root of maternal health crisis, Tammy Murphy says Issues are complex, she says, as NJ works to bridge gap in minority communities
Lilo H. Stainton, Health Care Writer December 6, 2021
Real bias training for doctors, nurses and other medical professionals involved in reproductive health. Helping women to optimize their health before they become pregnant. Better engagement with the faith community on maternal and infant health initiatives.
These were among the recommendations participants shared during first lady Tammy Murphy’s 4th Annual Nurture NJ Black Maternal and Infant Health Leadership Summit, which convened online last week. New Jersey has struggled with one of the nation’s highest maternal mortality rates and massive racial disparities and Murphy said Black mothers are seven times more likely to die from childbirth-related causes than white mothers in this state.
“I’m incredibly proud of the steps we have taken so far,” Murphy said in welcoming the participants, “but we must understand sweeping change requires persistence and unfailing dedication. At the same time, we know that the urgency of this crisis remains and that its root cause is institutional racism, plain and simple.”
Initially she had believed barriers to health care caused these massive disparities, Murphy explained in an interview following the event, but eventually came to realize the problem is much more complex, involving everything from nutrition to transportation to individual finances. But the root cause is clearly bias, she said, pointing to the birthing struggles shared by entertainment icon Beyoncé and tennis star Serena Williams as examples.
“The fact that those two women were disregarded and had traumatic pregnancies, that speaks volumes,” Murphy said. She explained that despite the fact that they are wealthy, prominent and educated women, clinicians did not take their complaints seriously because of their race — both women are Black — and serious complications resulted. “If those types of people are having problems, can you imagine if you are feeling insecure, you don’t know the language or the terminology and you’re a person of color?” Murphy said. “God help you.”
Plan to improve
To address these issues, Murphy launched the Nurture NJ campaign in 2019. By the following January the group had attracted philanthropic support, drafted a national expert to lead the charge and outlined a bold public health goal: to cut New Jersey’s maternal death rate in half and eliminate racial gaps by 2025. A formal plan followed in early 2021 that identified nine areas of opportunity to improve birth outcomes in New Jersey.
The plan is not a set of instructions, Murphy told summit participants, but a “living, breathing document” that must allow for flexibility and innovation — and the event itself was “ground zero” for that work.
“We are not simply seeking to improve our maternal health statistics or data,” she said. “We are here to make sure every New Jersey mom and baby gets off to a healthy start and is put on a trajectory toward a full and healthy life.”
Working closely with state lawmakers, Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration has already acted on specific recommendations from the plan and has codified in law three dozen reproductive health-related proposals. The current state budget includes new money to extend Medicaid coverage for pregnant individuals for a full year after they deliver and expand access to doula care. It also funds the launch of a universal home-visit program for new moms, something that has been shown to reduce post-partum depression, maternal mortality and emergency care costs in Oregon, which began a similar program in 2019.
“It’s a game changer,” Murphy said of the home-visit initiative, scheduled to start this spring. “It’s going to expand our ability to help people in such a meaningful way,” she said, explaining how such visits can effectively connect new parents with critical housing, nutrition and other social services. “I’m proud of everything we’ve done but that piece is a massive, massive move on the chess board.”
Significant racial disparities
March of Dimes President Stacey Stewart said her organization’s latest report card show some minor improvements in New Jersey’s maternal health metrics in the past year — the state went from a C to a C+ and its pre-term birth rate declined slightly — but racial disparities remain significant. The rate of pre-term, or early, deliveries is at least 50% higher for Black women than mothers of other races, it notes, and pre-term birth rates increased in several counties, including Essex, Ocean and Middlesex.
Last week’s summit provided a chance for diverse stakeholders — government officials, academics, doulas, midwives and other reproductive care providers, advocates and moms, among others — to review the plan and provide feedback. The event included keynote remarks from Tammy Murphy, Stewart and U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) but Murphy made clear that everyone’s input added value to the process. “The moms have to be at the table before the table is built,” Murphy said.
Nearly 300 people signed up for the virtual event — Murphy’s staff said they had to limit participation — and more than half stayed engaged for much of the three-hour event, a lot of which was dedicated to breakout groups that discussed how to build racial equity and infrastructure, support community-led initiatives and better share information. Other groups focused on addressing social determinants of health — things like housing, trauma and poverty — and making health care services more respectful and human-centered.
Murphy joined a session on engaging multiple sectors where people discussed the creation of a maternal health center in Trenton, something the strategic plan identifies as a critical step to foster collaboration among the multiple stakeholders involved. It would be a place to coordinate research, evaluate state programs and reforms, map areas without maternal health services and more. Murphy also wants the center to fill needs in the Trenton community, perhaps with a clinical component that allowed people to give birth on site.
Trenton, a ‘birthing desert’
“It’s looking at everything at once,” Murphy said after the event. “Trenton is a birthing desert, it’s a food desert. We want to solve some of these things.”
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority, which is overseeing the Trenton project’s development, has already collected ideas for the center from dozens of academic and policy groups, health care providers, maternal health organizations, and people involved in reproductive health. Murphy said the next step is to hire someone to assess this information to clarify the mission and create a structure, both physical and organizational.
The current state budget includes nearly $3 million to get the process started, Murphy said, while construction will also involve funding from private sources. The Nurture NJ initiative and groups in other states are also interested, she added.
“My dream is that we take this entire initiative outside of government and we create an entity that will protect (this maternal health work) going forward,” Murphy said. “We can be the Cleveland Clinic, the MD Anderson of this space.”
sistateacher’s thoughts
Maternal health is a very important matter for babies, families, neighborhoods, and communities.
Black maternal health is essential for the Black family to not only survive but THRIVE!
There are intersections of inequities that contribute to the morbid matter of Black maternal health. It is race, class, gender, generational trauma, cultural mistrust of the medical establishment, and an intimate community. NJ is a wealthy state but a very segregated one within the Union. It is the segregation that fuels the disparities, especially in the area of health and Black maternal health.
Although these efforts are taking place now to address this matter, it will take time and much effortful investment for progressive change. The ROI may take a generation or 2 to determine the outcome of these deliberate efforts for progressive change. However, I believe it can be done. Just as there are intersections of inequities, there must be intersections of equities.
An equitable intersection is to listen to the families and take heed to their needs. In the 12/6/21 article where it discusses the Trenton project, there are plenty of people identified to address the issue except the families who have experienced poor maternal health. Their voices need to be heard about the experiences of gynecological health, obstetrical health, and the birthing process. Yes, before pregnancy and after the birth of the baby.
MY STORY
I birthed 2 healthy children in young adulthood via vaginal delivery with few issues during my pregnancy or delivery. I had an ear infection, 102 degree fever during labor, and he was born 3 weeks before the due date but healthy with my first son. Honestly, the only part I remember is waking up in labor and him scrunching when there was a contraction. I was out of it most of the time until I had to PUSH him out. With my second son, I was 2 centimeters dilated at 32 weeks gestation and placed on bed rest until he decided to enter the world. Well, my son decided on a Tuesday evening while I watched Jeopardy and I wondered “am I having contractions?” Contrary to the first birth, I remember everything. I arrived at the hospital 6 centimeters dilated and my water broke 20 minutes before I pushed him out. The midwife told me the water would trickle during my prenatal visits but it gushed out. 2 healthy baby boys weighing more than 6.5 pounds each. However, my third and last baby was another story. Quite a few years before his birth, I had Charity Care as payment for my medical care. During my annual pelvic exam, I was asked by the gynecologist “has anyone ever told you you had fibroids?” No, I said. That was the end of the conversation, no further diagnostic testing or professional advisement to follow-up, NOTHING ELSE WAS SAID. About 4 years later, I had a myomectomy because the fibroids were on my bladder, causing urine to back up into my kidneys, resulting in nephritis. The following year I was pregnant and knew my baby would be delivered the unnatural way, cesarean section. Two days after we were released from the hospital, I was rehospitalized with post-partum pre-eclampsia. Thank God this time I had health insurance, a doctor, and my godmother present with me to take care of my son during my hospitalization. I’m happy I had natural birth experiences and was not terrorized by them. It was the unnatural experience, a cesarean section that scared me, major surgery. Due to having a hysterectomy in 2015 as a result of the fibroids, no more births for me but I am concerned about mothers with whom my sons may have children.
With the available data bout maternal health and Black maternal health, will the effortful investment be sustainable for generations to come? Inquiring minds want to know but only time will tell. Make sure to tell your friends and loved ones to seek out prenatal care as early as possible for the best possible outcome. It is a matter of life or death for both child and mother.
As Part of President Biden’s Mental Health Strategy, HHS Awards Nearly $105 Million to States and Territories to Strengthen Crisis Call Center Services in Advance of July Transition to 988 Tuesday, April 19, 2022
https://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/press-announcements/20220419/hhs-awards-105-million-states-territories-strengthen-crisis-call-center-services Funded by the American Rescue Plan, these investments will bolster our crisis care infrastructure
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), is awarding nearly $105 million in grant funding, provided by the American Rescue Plan, to 54 states and territories in advance of the transition of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline from the current 10-digit number to the 988 three-digit dialing code in July. Strengthening our crisis care infrastructure is a core priority of President Biden’s Mental Health Strategy, which he announced at the State of the Union as part of his national Unity Agenda. Improving 988 readiness and responsiveness is a critical step to realizing this objective.
States and territories are expected to use the funds to improve response rates, increase capacity to meet future demand, and ensure calls initiated in their states or territories are first routed to local, regional, or state crisis call centers. Award recipients may also use the funds to build the workforce necessary for enhancing local text and chat response. These grants along with other recent funding from the administration, represent a 40-fold increase in federal support of the Lifeline over the past four years. With states at varying degrees of operational readiness, the success of 988 now rests heavily on the willingness of state, territorial and local leaders to make additional investments in shoring up the crisis care continuum.
“Providing states and territories with the support to prevent suicide by assisting people in crisis is critical to our nation’s health,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “It is imperative that states and territories partner closely with HHS to ensure the highest level of 988 contact response.”
“Preparing for the transition to 988 is a top priority for SAMHSA,” said Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D., the HHS Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and the leader of SAMHSA. “Not only will we continue working with our federal and national stakeholders to achieve a smooth transition, but these grants demonstrate that states and territories are also critical partners in this effort.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States had one death by suicide every 11 minutes in 2020. Suicide was the second leading cause of death for ages 10-14 and 25-34.
SAMHSA’s 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health data show 4.9 percent of adults 18 or older had serious thoughts of suicide, 1.3 percent made a suicide plan, and 0.5 percent attempted suicide in the past year. Among adolescents 12 to 17, 12 percent had serious thoughts of suicide, 5.3 percent made a suicide plan, and 2.5 percent attempted suicide in the past year. The findings vary by race and ethnicity, with people of mixed ethnicity reporting higher rates of serious thoughts of suicide.
In 2020, Congress designated the new 988 dialing code to be operated through the existing National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. As the country transitions to this easy-to-remember, three-digit number, SAMHSA is focused on efforts to strengthen and expand the existing Lifeline network—providing the public with easier access to lifesaving services. The Lifeline currently helps thousands of people overcome crisis situations every day. The 988 dialing code will be available nationally for call, text, or chat beginning on July 16, 2022.
In addition to the support provided through this funding, SAMHSA is also convening national partners to help advance 988 planning efforts at the state and local levels. These national-level meetings have brought together states, territories, and tribes; crisis contact centers; public safety answering points; and behavioral health providers to exchange resources and best practices for facilitating the 988 transition. As part of these efforts, SAMHSA has also collaborated with national partners to create playbooks and other guidance documents to assess and improve the operational readiness of these critical groups to support implementation of 988.
To drive unified national communication about 988, SAMHSA is adding more communication materials and products to its 988 Partner Toolkit, including logo and brand guidelines, radio PSA scripts, and a sample e-newsletter. As the transition to 988 in July approaches, SAMHSA will add more 988 tools and resources, like short, shareable videos and sample social media posts to support partner communication planning efforts. These are available on the SAMHSA 988 web page.
Until the formal launch of 988 in July 2022, anyone in mental health crisis or emotional distress should call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). People not in crisis who are seeking treatment options for mental health conditions should visit findtreatment.samhsa.gov or call 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
This announcement is part of an HHS-wide initiative to tackle the nation’s mental health crisis and is being lifted up as part of HHS’s National Tour to Strengthen Mental Health. Following President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on March 1, 2022, Secretary Xavier Becerra kicked off the National Tour to Strengthen Mental Health to hear directly from Americans across the country about the behavioral health challenges they are facing and engage with local leaders on innovative ways to strengthen the mental health and crisis care system in our communities. More information on the National Tour to Strengthen Mental Health is available at HHS.gov/HHSTour.
There are those who despise social media and misuse it.
But I, I like social media. It’s my connection with others who are distant to share positive thoughts and good vibes.
Prayer is essential
Prayer changes things
That’s the position one must always have, PRAY
Reprint from NJ Spotlight April 14, 2022 By: Lilo H. Stainton, Health Care Writer
‘No biological basis whatsoever.’ Health impacts to last beyond COVID, panel warns
Misinformation, historic barriers to care and systemic racism created a dangerous combination that exacerbated health disparities among New Jersey residents of color and white residents during the pandemic, according to a panel of doctors.
Those disparities are not limited to the impact and treatment of COVID-19 — which had an outsized toll on Black and Latino communities here and nationwide. But there are also significant racial gaps in rates and outcomes involving diabetes, heart disease and cancers, the physicians explained during an online discussion Wednesday.
“It is critically important to understand that these disparities have no biological basis whatsoever,” said Dr. Denise Rodgers, vice chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Services. “It isn’t that there is something underlying in people of color that makes them more vulnerable.”
Black and Latino people are more likely to work in jobs that put them at risk for COVID-19 infection, or other health issues, more likely to live in communities where disease can spread and less likely to have access to quality medical care, Rodgers said. That’s why addressing underlying social determinants of health, like housing and economics, is critical in creating health equity, she said, many of which are impacted “by the long legacy of racism and discrimination.”
Diagnosing social determinants
The online panel, which focused on social determinants and was timed to coincide with Minority and Multicultural Health Month, sought to highlight the impact of the pandemic on the state’s communities of color and to provide resources for residents, said moderator Amanda Medina-Forrester, executive director of the state health department’s Office of Minority and Multicultural Health. The panel was part of the YMCA State Alliance’s ongoing discussion series, “Building a Culture of Health in New Jersey,” which is supported by the health department and other funders. Some 200 viewers participated, according to the state.
CORONAVIRUS IN NJ, HEALTH CARE
Coronavirus Exacts Greater Toll on Communities of Color
Dr. Shawna Hudson, a community health and family medicine professor at Rutgers University, warned that Black people have higher death rates from breast and other cancers. Much of that is impacted by access to care, she said, urging people to “get back to our original ways of doing screenings” for cancer and other disease. (Screen NJ, a statewide collaboration, is a good resource to locate testing, she said.)
“Cancer screenings are important for all populations but particularly important for minority populations because what we are finding is that people do well when we are able to find cancer at early stages,” Hudson said. “What we find is with our Black and Latino populations is that often we are being diagnosed at much later stages.”
Race and Health Care in New Jersey: Addressing Inequities in the COVID-19 Era
Among children, Black and Latino youngsters have long been less likely to be screened or receive services for developmental challenges, when compared to white kids, according to Dr. Manny Jimenez, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. It’s not clear how the pandemic impacted this disparity, he said, but it clearly led to a dip in regular childhood immunizations, which may not have bounced back yet.
“I think there was this idea that the pandemic sort of spared children. And it simply was not true,” Jimenez said. Severe illness was less likely, he said, “however there were children who became very ill as a result of COVID,” as well as those who suffered learning loss and other setbacks.
Another reason to fear the dentist
Access is also an issue for Black and brown families seeking dental care, dentist Nicole McGrath-Barnes explained. McGrath-Barnes, president of the KinderSmile Foundation which provides care for low-income families, said the pandemic had a “grave impact” on oral care, with people avoiding dentists out of fear of infection.
“Oral disease is the number one preventative disease,” McGrath-Barnes said, reminding people to visit the dentist every six months. Children should have their first visit by age 1, she said, but she encourages parents to bring youngsters as soon as their first teeth emerge to encourage optimal oral care.
COVID-19 has taken an extreme toll on communities of color in New Jersey and nationwide, with residents more likely to be infected and suffer negative consequences. Black New Jerseyans were twice as likely to be hospitalized or die of COVID-19, when compared to whites, and the virus was the number one killer of Black residents in 2020, state data showed, causing or contributing to at least one in five deaths.
The panel discussion also coincided with Black Maternal Health Week, leading to questions about the pandemic’s unique impact on pregnant woman, which Rodgers said was significant. Only 43% of pregnant women had been immunized against COVID-19 since the pandemic’s start, according to federal data released earlier this year, but that ranged from six in 10 for Asian women to just over one in four Black moms-to-be.
“One of the scariest things for me,” Rodgers said, “was the phenomenon of misinformation about the safety of these (COVID-19) vaccines in pregnant women, which resulted in a substantial number of women having complications relating to COVID.”
“You had this craziness on the internet” about the danger of the shots, she said, “when just the opposite was true. So there is absolutely no question that we’ve seen an adverse impact, particularly on pregnant women of color, related to getting COVID, and then having bad outcomes, because people were afraid of getting the vaccine.”
sistateacher’s thoughts
Social determinants of health are a major area of concern for marginalized, under-resourced, and underrepresented communities. There is a lack of equitable resource distribution to these communities in terms of people, location, time, buildings, transportation, etc.
With regards to people, it relates to the professional being a representative of the community in which they serve, a sufficient number of people to meet the community demand, proper training for those who provide services, and longevity of employment with service to the community.
The location of health services is distant from community members’ residences. Also, transportation poses a barrier to accessing health services due to no vehicle, limited mass transportation, and/or no money to pay bus fares or someone to transport. Additionally, appointment times are scheduled at inconvenient times when people are working.
Ultimately, there are intersections of inequities that impact the health of marginalized, under-resourced, and underrepresented communities. It is time to eliminate the inequities for future generations. Since INEQUITY is literally a matter of life and death.
IASSW’s Message For Peaceful Engagement With Social Justice, Opposing And Condemning Racism, Discrimination And Violence IASSW opposes and condemns racism, discrimination, intolerance and violence in all its pernicious and evil forms, and condemns those governments, quasi-governments and individuals who perpetrate racism, discrimination and support intolerance and violence. We condemn racist acts and people or industries that […]
IASSW’s Message For Peaceful Engagement With Social Justice, Opposing And Condemning Racism, Discrimination And Violence
Thanks to everyone who filled out the survey I posted last weekend about the therapeutic benefits of blogging. It was great to get so many responses (37, to be exact), and really interesting to see what everyone had to say. The results below are shown in percentages rather than absolute numbers. I’ve rounded the figures […]
The Therapeutic Benefits of Blogging: Survey Results
Trust is a lot of things and a little complex to define. Not a simple matter at all.
Trust is a quality we yearn to possess with ourselves. Different life events impact the development of self-trust.
There are levels to trust and there’s no one size fits all.
Trust is descriptive in nature about people. This one word is loaded with expectations.
When someone says “I trust“, there is a domino effect of other characteristics such as honesty, consistency, secret keeper, support, vulnerability, transparency, dignity, and worth.
Most of all, trust is earned.
Once lost, the challenge to achieve the same level of trust is hard and sometimes gone forever. So, trust yourself so others may also trust you.
Hannah Gears and Meryl Schulman, Center for Health Care Strategies
Published April 5, 2022
In recent years, many states have focused on addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — stressful and potentially traumatic events, such as violence, abuse, or neglect, that occur prior to age 18. Some states have adopted cross-sector statewide plans to address ACEs. In other states, governors’ executive orders have put a priority on mitigating the effects of ACEs.
California and New Jersey are leading examples of states pursuing groundbreaking efforts and making substantial investments to address ACEs. California is the first state to prioritize mitigating the effects of ACEs and toxic stress across its programs, and New Jersey is the first state to stand up an Office of Resilience to coordinate statewide ACEs-related efforts. This blog post highlights these two states’ approaches for preventing and mitigating the effects of early adversity on children and families as well as supporting resilience-building in their communities.
Encouraging Providers to Screen for ACEs and Adopt Trauma-Informed Care in California
In 2019, California appointed its first Surgeon General, Nadine Burke Harris, MD, MPH, FAAP — a longtime champion for promoting strategies that address ACEs and toxic stress. With this announcement, it came as no surprise that the Office of the California Surgeon General emphasized early childhood, health equity, and ACEs and toxic stress as key priority areas for the state. These priority areas align with the Surgeon General’s overarching and ambitious goal of reducing ACEs and toxic stress in half in one generation.
To support this effort, the Office of the California Surgeon General and the Department of Health Care Services launched ACEs Aware, a first-in-the-nation effort focused on encouraging Medi-Cal (Medicaid) providers to screen for ACEs in children and adults, provide appropriate follow-up services and supports, and embrace trauma-informed care. Through ACEs Aware, a variety of supports have been made available to providers and their care teams to encourage ACE screening and response, including training materials, implementation tools, information on supplemental payment for implementing select screening tools, and guidance on how to build trauma-informed networks of care to support patients and families. The state also supported stakeholders to develop resources and create learning networks to facilitate peer-to-peer exchange and spread best practices. For information related to implementation of ACE screening under ACEs Aware, check out a recent Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) report that details perspectives from Medi-Cal providers.
Of note, ACEs Aware recently transitioned to a new organizational home within the University of California. The University of California ACEs Aware Family Resilience Network (UCAAN) is co-led by the Department of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles and the Center to Advance Trauma-Informed Health Care at the University of California, San Francisco. UCAAN will build on the investments made through ACEs Aware and related efforts and will focus on supporting health professionals in understanding and addressing toxic stress and promoting resilience in clinical and community settings.
Building a Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered New Jersey
New Jersey is paving a different path to address, prevent, and mitigate the effects of ACEs with a focus on prioritizing community voice in the state’s healing-centered efforts. The statewide coordination of ACEs-related efforts aims to cultivate a sustainable cadre of community leaders who are empowered to create a better future for people across the state.
In 2019, the New Jersey ACEs Collaborative engaged CHCS to facilitate a human-centered, information-gathering process to understand the priorities of state residents related to ACEs. CHCS hosted focus groups, interviews, and learning sessions that culminated in the creation of the New Jersey ACEs Statewide Action Plan. The Action Plan, launched in February 2021 by New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy, outlines five core strategies: (1) achieve trauma-informed and healing-centered state designation; (2) conduct an ACEs public awareness and mobilization campaign; (3) maintain community-driven policy and funding priorities; (4) provide cross-sector ACEs training; and (5) promote trauma-informed, healing-centered services and supports.
In June 2020, with support from the New Jersey ACEs Collaborative, New Jersey established the nation’s first Office of Resilience, housed within the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. After a national search, the Collaborative selected Dave Ellis as the Office’s first Executive on Loan and Executive Director, financially supported through public-private partnership among members of the ACEs Collaborative. The Office of Resilience is committed to centering community voice and improving quality of life, particularly for individuals who are most impacted by ACEs. The Office builds awareness about the effects of ACEs, ACE prevention efforts, and trauma-informed, healing-centered initiatives across the state. It conducts outreach to public and private entities, maintains a virtual learning community to connect people interested in ACEs-related efforts, and developed a statewide awareness campaign. Additionally, the Office established Healing New Jersey Together, a technical assistance entity dedicated to engaging communities to co-create opportunities for healing, supportive, and thriving futures. The Office also coordinates a train-the-trainer program that educates community members on the brain-body connection of trauma and strategies to improve well-being for children and their families. To reduce siloed efforts, the Office stood up an ACEs Interagency Team comprised of 11 state agencies that are committed to supporting the state’s children and families experiencing adversity.
More recently with support from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CHCS — working in partnership with state agencies, local regional health hubs, and non-profit organizations — is leading a two-year statewide collaborative effort to enhance New Jersey ACEs surveillance infrastructure by leveraging existing data systems. This work involves partnering with a variety of New Jersey stakeholders to implement effective strategies to prevent ACEs and to inform program and policy changes that are responsive to local needs.
Moving Forward
While California and New Jersey have unique approaches to addressing, preventing, and mitigating the effects of ACEs, both share the same end goal: to help children and families heal from trauma, to support communities in unique ways, and to prevent future ACEs. It is heartening to see such deep investment reaching from the east to west coasts of the country, particularly at a time when so many children and families have lost loved ones due to COVID-19, children and adolescents are experiencing higher rates of depression and anxiety, and social support systems have been disrupted. States interested in determining a path forward have great examples to learn from. CHCS looks forward to following and supporting new developments in these and other states and sharing information to help advance additional state-based efforts to address ACEs.
Koby Levin Apr 4, 2022
This is a proper allocation of resources instead of SEL. Clinicians can teach SEL and provide support in the academic setting to faculty, students, and families
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/us/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-biden.html
Today we celebrate the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson. The first Black woman and first public defender will ascend to the SCOTUS
Tomorrow we will fight to make real the ideals of the U.S. Constitution
EQUITY
education, healthcare, employment, housing, criminal justice, legal
Please, someone convince me that the headline for this entry is wrong. I’d like nothing more than to conclude that Joe Biden is preparing to fight like hell for working people as we approach the critical midterm elections and the 2023 federal fiscal year. But the budgetary facts say otherwise. True enough, presidential budgets are […]
Sadly, Biden’s budget is pro-war and anti-working people
sistateacher 