Blog

There’s been a lot of talk about diversity in science lately: Minority scientists have written op-eds about their struggles; science’s top journals cover the issue extensively; and one 47-year-old untenured female scientist recently sued the National Institutes of Health for gender discrimination. But what if we’re getting it all wrong? Yes, there are very real benefits to expanding the number of racial, sexual, socioeconomic, and other minorities in charge of labs; the problem is in our...

From an acorn of an idea to bring all of our health care providers together to come up with one area we could all work on collaboratively, to the finished product where we have over 60 organizations involved in helping our residents make healthy choices in diet, exercise and lifestyle. The Year of Wellness has accomplished much over the past 12 months. We have a monthly newsletter promoting free and low-cost events, which represent interests of all ages and ethnicities, and include all areas...

People along the southern stretch of the Mississippi River are more likely to die from heart problems than anywhere else in the United States. Suicide and homicide will claim the most lives in the southwestern part of the country. Deaths from chronic respiratory diseases are greatest in eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia. And mental and substance abuse disorders cause the most deaths in Alaska, eastern Arizona, New Mexico, eastern Kentucky and southwestern West Virginia. What causes...

During the past decade and a half, the number of young people confined or placed out of the home in the juvenile justice system has been cut in half. While there is still much more progress to be made — the country is still incarcerating far too many young people, particularly young people of color — what is happening in the juvenile justice system stands in stark contrast to the challenges seen in reducing adult imprisonment. In an effort to kick-start change in adult criminal justice...

Many policymakers and advocates know they want to close youth prisons, where they say young offenders are often isolated, unsafe and go without the services they need to thrive when they return to their communities. But what would the alternative look like? A new report released by The National Collaboration for Youth lays out the case for investment in a community-based continuum of care that is rooted in the needs of individual jurisdictions. While many communities have nonresidential...

The word “parent” wasn’t used as a verb until a few decades ago . In fact, some experts argue it was only in the 1990s that the idea of “parenting” really became a full-fledged “thing.” By that time, at least for members of the middle class, being a parent didn’t just mean serving as an authority figure and a source of sustenance and support for a child—it meant molding that child’s life, flooding her with opportunity so she could have a competitive edge in the long-term, and enriching her...

For the first time since the 1990s, Americans are dying at a faster rate, and they’re dying younger. A pair of new studies suggest Americans are sicker than people in other rich countries, and in some states, progress on stemming the tide of basic diseases like diabetes has stalled or even reversed. The studies suggest so-called “ despair deaths” —alcoholism, drugs, and suicide—are a big part of the problem, but so is obesity, poverty, and social isolation. American life expectancy fell by...

ISABELLA S. BICK’S parents, both Jewish physicians, never talked about the past after the family moved from Fascist Italy to the United States in 1939. She was 8 at the time and quickly learned it was best to keep her feelings of loss and loneliness to herself. Her silence ended — and those emotions broke free — when Ms. Bick, now 84 and a psychotherapist living in Sharon, Conn., began writing bits and pieces of her life story a few years ago. In one vignette, she describes the trauma of...

In the 18 years since Google was born in a garage, Mountain View has ridden a wave of unprecedented job growth. But alongside the boom has come a slew of other issues familiar across the Bay Area: soaring rents, snarled traffic and people living in vehicles because they can’t afford apartments . Google is starting to address the crisis head-on. Its parent company, Alphabet, which employs more than 20,000 people in a city of 80,000, has proposed building 330 units of housing not far from its...

From a reader, Sara Gunther: “I am extremely concerned about all the hate crimes I am reading about. What can I do if I witness a bias attack?” Short answer: We reached out to experts to devise a strategy. Here’s what they recommend: 1) Be a good witness, record and identify the incident. 2) Be prepared to speak out, but don’t escalate the conflict. 3) Be an ally. 4) Find a safe space. 5) Learn more. 1. Be a good witness Report it. “First of all,” said J. Thomas Manger, police chief of...

The numbers are sobering: People born in the 1940s had a 92 percent chance of earning more than their parents did at age 30. For people born in the 1980s, by contrast, the chances were just 50-50. The finding comes from a new paper out of The Equality of Opportunity Project , a joint research effort of Harvard and Stanford led by the economist Raj Chetty. The paper puts numbers on what many have seen firsthand for years: The American dream—the ability to climb the economic ladder and achieve...

As it stands today, criminal justice in the U.S. exists inside an architecture of isolation: those within the system are shuffled between courthouses and prisons, which are separated from society by thick walls and high fences. “Our dominant justice system is framed around three questions: What law was broken, who did it, and what do they deserve—with the deserving part being about punishment,” says Barbara Toews, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Washington...