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Pediatricians can support children whose parents are going through a divorce or separation by identifying the need for intervention and maintaining positive, neutral relationships with both parents, according to a new clinical report released by the American Academy of Pediatrics. More than 1 million American children annually are affected by their parents’ break-up and may suffer emotional trauma that requires extra support, according to the report, “Helping Children and Families Deal With...

Samantha Jackson balanced her 9-month-old baby, Elias, carefully on her lap inside 6th Judicial District Judge Sally Tarnowski's courtroom one January day. Gathered around four heavy tables pushed together in the middle of the room, Jackson and Elias — there for a hearing — were joined by Tarnowski, attorneys and social workers. There was good news to be finalized: Jackson was regaining full custody of her two children, and her child protection case was being closed. "It's a really good day...

In her pediatrics practice in Winston Salem, North Carolina, Julie Linton has seen several young patients who she believes are psychologically suffering from President Donald Trump’s tough stance on immigrants. One 9-year-old boy came in with headaches, which Linton said started when “he was being told in school that his parents would be sent back to their country of origin.” Another patient, a 15-year-old girl, began experiencing panic attacks in crowds because she feared she would be...

The United States’ juvenile incarceration woes are well-documented: More than 1.3 million adolescents and children are arrested every year, and roughly 80 percent of juveniles who spend time incarcerated wind up back behind bars as adults. There are major public-health implications from this high juvenile incarceration rate, and academics and policymakers alike are both scrambling to understand how, exactly, juvenile incarceration affects young people’s health. Though previous studies have...

Editor's note: Community Builder is a periodic Q & A series providing perspectives from local people who have been involved in significant change in Southern Oregon. Today's conversation is with Kathy Bryon, executive director of the Gordon Elwood Foundation. Q: It seems like you are involved in many projects and conversations in the region. Kathy: I'm an organizer by heart and background. My early "training" began as the oldest daughter of a single mother of three children. When I...

U.S. pediatricians are taking President Donald Trump to task after he issued executive orders Wednesday that -- the doctors said -- will make the country a much less welcoming place for immigrant children. Not only will refugee children be harmed by the new policies, but children of immigrants already living in the United States will become frightened for their family's safety, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). "Children do not immigrate, they flee," AAP President Dr.

President-elect Donald Trump and Congressional leaders have been very clear that repealing the Affordable Care Act is a top priority as soon as Congress returns to town in January. While Republican leaders have long talked about “repeal and replace” the replace part of the equation is a lot harder to figure out. As a result, it is possible that Congress will move quickly and repeal the ACA and leave us guessing as to what the “replace” would look like. So let’s tease out what the...

When ACEs are created and carried out by the state, they should count for more points - genocide, enslavement, jim crow, gentrification, religious persecution, racial terror.... Our existence is resilience. Our existence is resistance.

Suddenly Johnson, who will turn 99 in August, finds herself inundated with interview requests, award banquet invitations and people who just want to stop by and shake her hand. “I’m glad that I’m young enough still to be living and that they are, so they can look and see, ‘That’s who that is,’ ” she said. “And they are as excited as I am.” For many people, especially African Americans, her tale of overcoming racism and sexism is inspirational. Full story.

As an emergency room doctor, Hawaii Sen. Josh Green sees homeless patients suffering from diabetes, mental health problems and an array of medical issues that are more difficult to manage when they are homeless or do not have permanent housing. That's why Green says he wants homelessness classified under Hawaii state law as a medical condition. If homelessness is a disease, he reasons, then doctors should be able to write prescriptions for the cure: Housing. "It is paradigm shift for sure,...

A coalition of five Jacksonville hospital systems has created an eight-hour course designed to train people to perform what they are calling “adult mental health first aid.” The goal is to give members of the public skills to help someone who is developing or experiencing a mental health crisis. An example of a crisis that a trained lay person could recognize and help somone with a mental health crisis is that the person in crisis is suicidal. The goal is to train 10,000 volunteers. The...

Given its distance from the brain, neuroscience hasn’t had much to do with the heart quietly thumping in your chest. But to get a fuller picture of the mind, you need to start looking below the neck. These matters of the heart are University of Sussex researcher Sarah Garfinkel’s speciality. Her recent work has built a strong case that both emotion and cognition are “embodied”: Over the past several years, she’s found evidence that the beats of your heart — and your awareness of that rhythm...