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The knowledge, talent, and ideas that power urban economies do not emerge out of thin air: They are shaped and organized by great research universities. Universities have long played a role in educating people and contributing to a more civilized, tolerant, and democratic society. And in more recent decades, research universities like Stanford and MIT have been credited with helping spur the development of tech clusters in the Bay Area and around Boston. But today, universities play an even...

The news media is awash with hysteria about the opioid crisis (or opioid epidemic). But what exactly are we talking about? If you Google “opioid crisis”, nine times out of 10 the first paragraph of whatever you’re reading will report on death rates. That’s right, the overdose crisis. For example, the lead article on the “opioid crisis” on the US National Institutes of Health website begins with this sentence: “Every day, more than 90 Americans die after overdosing on opioids.” Is the opioid...

U.S. states are rapidly removing Confederate statues, symbols of racial oppression. But there is another holdover from slavery that is prevalent in our society today — the routine use of shackling persons using handcuffs, leg irons and other hardware to confine individuals in the justice system. This past summer, I had the opportunity to view a felony appellate courtroom in Casablanca, Morocco. These were appeals by people imprisoned for felony offenses who were asking the court to reduce...

Since August 2016, more than 300 three-year-olds who visited Kaiser Permanente’s pediatric clinics in Hayward and San Leandro have been screened for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as living with a family member who is an alcoholic or losing a parent to separation or divorce. But when the idea to screen toddlers and their families for ACEs was first broached at the Kaiser Permanente Hayward Medical Center, the staff were, in a word, “angsty,” says Dr. Paul Espinas, who led the...

Nearly 40% of American adults and 20% of children carry enough extra weight to warrant a diagnosis of obesity. That’s the highest obesity rate among the world’s affluent nations, and it’s already shortening Americans’ lifespans by driving up rates of diabetes , heart disease, stroke, cancers, arthritis and dementia. If that constitutes an urgent threat to the nation’s health, you’d scarcely know it from reading the results of a newly published survey called ACTION . The new poll paints a...

The jury is decidedly out on the academic track record of Head Start, the education-oriented pre-school program for low-income families invented in the 1960s and federally proliferated in the early 1980s. Critics will point to large impact studies that show early academic gains fade by third grade. Proponents will say that those gains would stick if the students ended up in better public schools. But Youth Services Insider had never seen Head Start mentioned as a possible preventer of foster...

I just wanted to pass along the link to this article, as I'm pretty sure there are more than a few here who suffer from fibromyalgia... http://healthiculture.com/fibromyalgia/newsletter/3stress/3stress-1.php

Focusing on your health is important as you heal after trauma. I had learned a lot about trauma. I understood the impact but having been fortunate with a healthy body, the long term impact had not showed up in my biology except for very painful migraine headaches and depression. But the toxic level of stress I had lived with my whole life had not registered yet. Back then, my self-care mostly consisted of numbing the pain. It just hurt too much to think about it. I was in too much pain and...

Those who struggle in social situations may be at greater risk for mental and physical health problems, according to a new study from the University of Arizona. That's because people with poor social skills tend to experience more stress and loneliness, both of which can negatively impact health, said study author Chris Segrin, head of the UA Department of Communication. The study, published in the journal Health Communication, is among the first to link social skills to physical, not just...

When people don't get enough sleep, certain brain cells literally slow down. A study that recorded directly from neurons in the brains of 12 people found that sleep deprivation causes the bursts of electrical activity that brain cells use to communicate to become slower and weaker, a team reports online Monday in Nature Medicine. The finding could help explain why a lack of sleep impairs a range of mental functions, says Dr. Itzhak Fried , an author of the study and a professor of...

Bob Thompson, the city coordinator of Appleton, Minnesota, had a bright idea in the spring of 1990. Thompson, a thin man now in his seventies who has the polite reserve of a long-time Minnesotan, was looking for a way to replace the agriculture industry that had served as the rural town’s economic backbone for generations. After some research, it came to him: a prison. I met with Thompson in Appleton. He told me about his failed attempts to lure a casino and furniture manufacturer to...

Living through multiple adverse experiences—such as the death of a parent, growing up in poverty, physical or sexual abuse, or having a parent with a psychiatric illness—before the age of eight may be linked to depression and physical health problems in kids as young as nine to 15, new research suggests. Further, the researchers have identified a potential pathway in the brain to explain how such stressful experiences influence poor health in kids. The researchers found that a key brain...