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I spent about 3 years living in a small town in Alaska, the birthplace of my father. Cordova, Alaska is within the traditional territory of the Aleut and Eyak people. The local tribe, Native Village of Eyak, owns the paper. Since 1999, suicide in the U.S. has increased by about 26%. It continues to increase in Alaska. One fact we don't know is whether our current programs are working. I don't believe they are. Just the fact that we report the incidence of suicide on an annual number per...

I spend a good amount of my time begging people to let me share details about the work they have done and are doing. I don't mind because there's so much that needs to be shared. Like the work of Pam Wessel-Estes, one of our own Parenting with ACEs group members. Please check out this You Tube video she produced with her son, entitled, Personal and Parental Reflections on Adverse Childhood Experiences. It's fantastic. It has all the personal warmth of a personal video but all the sound and...

A new doctoral dissertation finds that talking about suicide is associated with such strong stigma that young people whose parents have taken their own life often must turn to the internet to express their grief and receive support. The thesis represents the view of Anneli Silvén Hagström from Linköping University in Sweden. Given that Sweden has a socialist health care system, Hagström laments that the healthcare system is not providing support for young people in the difficult life...

Americans are seeing more homeless camps, especially on the West Coast. A number of cities there have declared emergencies over the problem, and as they struggle to find solutions, an angry debate has broken out about how much tolerance should be shown to illegal camps that crop up in public spaces. Earlier this month, that debate got a lot more urgent in Seattle, when a young homeless man who was camping along Interstate 5 was killed by a car that careened off the roadway. A couple of hours...

In light of the nationwide opioid epidemic that has led to a major rise in overdoses, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a competition to create a mobile naloxone app. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that has the power to save lives by reversing an overdose. Although access to the lifesaving drug varies by state, it is becoming more and more common among first responders and other professionals on the front lines of the opioid epidemic. The FDA is encouraging computer...

The hallways of high school often feel like battlegrounds—with potential social stressors lurking around every corner. When teens get ditched by their best friends or teased for their looks, the sharp pain of exclusion feels like it will last forever. But what if we could help teens take a different perspective? In a recent study , psychologists at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Rochester set out to see if a small shift in mindset could reduce teenagers’ social...

The new Baby Cafe at the Boston Medical Center isn't a spot to drink coffee or work on a laptop. Instead, it's a place where new moms and dads can get some often much-needed help. "The Baby Cafe is an opportunity for an expecting parent or a parent of a newborn to drop in and receive information and support around breastfeeding," said Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett, MD, a pediatrician at BMC. Parents can also attend a Baby Cafe to learn about infant attachment and bonding, social-emotional...

During one of my manic episodes, I was convinced there was a conspiracy against me. Everyone was manipulating my surroundings to create a narrative I couldn’t figure out. I wanted to know who was in charge. I also wanted to know who was safe. I texted my pastor at the time to see if he could meet with me. I drove to the bar next to our church on a hot June afternoon and met him at one of the tables outside. I tried to tell him my concerns, but he dismissed me and said, “Let’s just pray.” He...

Iowa, by some measures, seems like a great place to have a baby. It ranks eighth for overall care in United Health Foundation’s new study of women and children’s health care, which looks at things like birth weight and a mother and child’s neighborhood to assign scores. Except there’s something else you probably want to know before having a baby in Iowa: The state ranks 22nd for infant care, which is dramatically lower than its rank of seventh for women’s health care. (To calculate a state’s...

At Cherokee Point Elementary School, first-grade teacher Hagit Patolai roams her classroom to asses student progress on a “fact versus opinion” writing assignment. She crouches down to read over the shoulder of a boy, asking him to point to the words (beautiful and cool) that indicate his illustrated story about a rainbow is based on his opinions. Why are people’s opinions important, she asks. It’s a question that gets at more than the lesson at hand. Patolai keeps detailed records on the...

As violent crime in Chicago continues to soar, University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital announced it’s creating a new program to treat families and children affected by violence. The program will provide screening and mental health care for hundreds of residents affected by violence in many of Chicago’s South and West Side neighborhoods. It's being called the University of Chicago Medicine Recovery and Empowerment After Community Trauma (UCM REACT). “Chicago’s struggles with...

At a campaign rally in 1976, Ronald Reagan introduced the welfare queen into the public conversation about poverty: “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” The perception of who benefits from a policy is of material consequence to how it is designed. For the past 40 years, U.S. welfare...