PI's Weekly Media digest: White House issues new Housing Development Toolkit, the need for child care and paid family leave, youth concussion reports spike, immigrants and racial justice advocates protest use of for-profit detention facilities
Welcome to our media digest for the week of September 30, 2016! Below you’ll find summaries of news coverage on the issues of preventing violence, trauma, nutrition, health equity, mental health, and more. The views expressed in these articles do not reflect those of Prevention Institute.
Health Equity
A national coalition of immigrant and racial justice organizations, along with people who have been detained, will deliver testimonies and petitions signed by more than 200,000 people demanding the Department of Homeland Security stop contracting with private prison companies. The push from advocates comes after the Department of Justice’s announcement that it will stop contracting with private prison companies.
An increasing number of Democrats say funding to address water contamination in Flint, Michigan, should be included in a short-term spending bill that would fund the federal government through December 9. Some Democratic lawmakers have said they would oppose the measure if it progresses without funding for Flint, and the White House has hinted that President Obama could veto a federal spending measure that does not include Flint aid.
This comprehensive report by the Center for American Progress on policing and race features PI’s trauma report, noting, “As discussed in a recent Prevention Institute report, there is a growing need to combat community trauma through public health services in order to build resilience in communities faced with constant violence, systemic poverty, high unemployment, and poor health conditions.”
Zianna Oliphant, age nine, delivered a passionate, tearful message to Charlotte's city council about the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. "We shouldn't have to protest because y'all are treating us wrong." Oliphant said. "We do this because we need to and have rights. ... It is a shame that our fathers and mothers are killed and we can't even see them anymore."
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with the U.S. Department of Justice Thursday to demand investigation of the police killings of unarmed Black men, women and children. The CBC called for direct action from the federal and state authorities and their full commitment to the elimination of unlawful police shootings.
According to a new report, working families in the U.S. have lost out on at least $28.9 billion in wages due to a lack of access to paid family and medical leave and quality, affordable child care. That cost includes $8.3 billion in lost wages due to a lack of child care and $20.6 billion in lost wages due to a lack of access to paid family and medical leave. That cost estimate doesn’t even take into account the depressed wages and lost savings and retirement security that come if parents choose to leave the workforce to care for a family member.
Hillary Clinton outlined a series of policies she would put in place to address the rights and provide more opportunity for those with disabilities, including raising the subminimum wage, working to make higher education more accessible to those living with disabilities, and ratifying the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Disability rights advocates, however, said Clinton’s speech didn’t address the intersections of oppression that faces many people with disabilities. Vilissa Thompson, founder of Ramp Your Voice!, a site promoting self-advocacy and empowerment for people with disabilities, said, “In her speech she talked about systemic racism, and that was great, but she’s got to realize that there are disabled people like myself who are of color and disabled, and are battling [the two] simultaneously.”
The New York Times features the authentic voices of residents of rural Lowndes County, Alabama, and their struggles to access proper sewage and electricity in their homes. Lowndes County, one of the poorest countries in the country, is predominantly black and less than half of the population has a municipal sewer line. Coverage notes the historic role of legal discrimination in the deep south and its lingering forms in preventing access to proper sanitation services. (via BMSG)
Community environments
A new report released by In the Public Interest shows how privatization exacerbates inequality through the introduction of user fees to fund public services like water or transit; privatization of social safety net programs; decreased wages and benefits for contracted workers that replace public workers; and increased socioeconomic and racial segregation. “The introduction of private interests into public goods and services can radically impact access for certain groups. In some cases, as the public park example in Section 5 shows, privatization can create parallel systems in which one system propped up by private interests typically serves higher-income people, while another lesser quality system serves lower-income people. In other cases, the creation of a private system, such as charter schools in a school district, siphons funding away from the public system meant to serve everyone. In some situations, poor individuals and families can lose access to the public good completely.”
This week, the White House released a new “Housing Development Toolkit” calling for changing zoning codes that restrict new residential developments and offered recommendations to help communities develop more densely and create more affordable housing. “Even when there is widespread support for loosening zoning rules, it’s difficult to achieve. That’s because zoning decisions tend to favor narrow local interests and uphold the status quo.”
A new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest finds that the beverage industry has spent $67 million since 2009 to defeat soda tax initiatives in 19 cities and states. (That’s on top of the ~$14 million the beverage industry spends annually to lobby the federal government.) CSPI also released a report this week exposing the “rigged supermarket shelves” – the deals between food manufacturers and supermarket chains to promote primarily junk foods in the prime places in the grocery, such as selling sugary cereals branded with characters that appeal to kids at children’s eye level.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released its annual report showing food insecurity rates decreased in 2015 to 12.7 percent from 14.0 percent in 2014, but they were still higher than pre-recession rates. Still, there were 42.2 million food-insecure Americans in 2015, 13.1 million of whom were children – with the highest rates among African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, single-parent households and households located in rural communities. As the two public health experts note in the piece, “The reduction in food insecurity in America in 2015 underscores the importance of a “health in all policies” approach to this public health problem…effectively addressing food insecurity requires a multi-sector strategy that mobilizes government, NGOs and private sector stakeholders.
New legislation moving through the Canadian Senate would ban junk food advertising that involves characters, giveaways, celebrities, advergames, etc., to children under age 13. Similar legislation has been in place in Quebec since 1980.
Violence Prevention and Unintentional Injury
The Washington Post reports on last week’s arrest of the officer who shot and killed 40-year-old Terrence Crutcher in Oklahoma for first-degree manslaughter. The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into Crutcher’s death. Crutcher’s death came just days before the fatal shooting by police of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott. So far, no charges have been brought against the officers involved in Scott’s death. Police officers are very rarely prosecuted for shootings—in 2015, approximately 1,200 people were killed by police in the U.S. and no officer was convicted of murder or manslaughter. This article by ThinkProgress argues that to understand Charlotte’s anger, it’s important to understand something else: its roads. The author writes, “Map today’s steeply segregated Charlotte by racial demographics and you’ll get something that looks like Pacman’s silhouette running downhill. The white populace is heavily concentrated within one triangular slice of the city’s south end….” And on Tuesday, San Diego police shot and killed Alfred Olango, an unarmed black man, after his sister called the police to help him through a mental health crisis. Police officers admitted on Wednesday that the victim was holding a vape in his hands, not a gun.
New research shows that black communities are dramatically less likely to call 911 after instances of police brutality hit the news.
The Guardian reports on new FBI data showing murders in the US rose 10.8% last year, the biggest single-year percentage jump since 1971. The article notes, “The rising violence was driven by an increase in the murders of black men, and by an increase in the number of gun murders. At least 900 more black men were killed in 2015 than in 2014…” There were roughly 1,500 additional firearm murders in 2015 and the percentage of murders committed with guns increased to 71.5%. No other type of weapon saw a comparable increase. In 2015, black men were about nine times more likely to be murdered than white men, and black women were three times more likely to be murdered than white women. Just three cities are largely responsible for the rising national murder rates: Chicago, Baltimore, and Houston.
A survey done by the CDC in 2013 found that 33% of middle school students and 20% of high school students reported being bullied on school property, and 15% of high school students reported being bullied electronically (called cyberbullying). Almost all children will at some time experience bullying behavior as bully, victim, and/or observer of others being bullied. Although adults have often viewed bullying as a normal part of childhood, it is not normal. Many victims are physically and/or emotionally harmed by bullying. Furthermore, the bullies themselves learn negative behaviors that, if not corrected, can lead to further violence.
Reports of youth concussions spiked by 71 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to a study of nearly 937,000 health insurance claims gathered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS). The analysis also found that concussion diagnoses during that period increased 26 percent among adults ages 20 through 64.
A new study found that the U.S. performs poorly in the United Nations rankings on progress toward global health goals because of high levels of violence, alcohol abuse and child obesity. Iceland topped the rankings due to good sanitation and health care provision, as well as progress on tackling "first-world" health problems, such as obesity, chronic diseases, violence, and traffic injuries.
Mental health
An article in ThinkProgress looks at the challenges facing young girls, particularly girls of color. Girls experience trauma at higher rates than boys, and girls of color are at particular risk of “being pushed into the school-to-prison pipeline through harsh student discipline.” Speaking on the topic at a recent White House event, U.S. Department of Education Secretary John King highlighted the need to get girls the help they need to cope with trauma.
This Center for American Progress report argues for more support, and less suspensions, for students of color, noting, “Every day, millions of American students face the traumatic effects of abuse, neglect, poverty, violence, imprisonment, homelessness, and loss. What’s more, the effects of this type of psychological and emotional trauma disproportionately impacts students of color, often affecting not only their psychological health but their ability to learn…Instead of receiving positive support or guidance in schools, these students frequently face suspension, expulsion, or even contact with law enforcement.”
A project for the California Health Journalism Fellowship looks at the health effects of violence in California's Central Valley. Bakersfield resident Joey Williams: "I call it present traumatic stress disorder. When you have post-traumatic stress disorder it means the trauma has ended. With our people it is a perpetual trauma that is inflicted on almost a daily basis.” Other stories in the series include “How are Valley police, sheriffs helping officers cope with trauma?” and “For one Fresno man, lack of mental health care turns tragic.”
An editorial in the Memphis Commercial-Appeal highlights a partnership between legal and medical organizations as an example of the need for cross-sector collaboration to address trauma. “The partnership offers free legal services to families and children who are patients at Le Bonheur. It was launched in September 2015 to address "all these things out there that are out of a doctor's control that are affecting their patient's health."
Health Systems Transformation
This NPR report notes that scientists are now wondering whether we’re approaching the end of the trend of longer, healthier lives. The piece points out that lives have been getting steadily longer, and since the 1960s that trend has been driven mostly by a remarkable reduction in heart disease. But those improvements have slowed dramatically as a result of the steady decline in heart disease is fading.
On Wednesday Congress finally passed a short-term funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. The bill funds the government through December 9th and then lawmakers will be back at it. The legislation includes $1 billion to fight Zika and another $500 million for flood relief in Louisiana and other states. Notably, it doesn’t include funding for Flint, whose tap water is still not safe to drink. Separate legislation to give aid to Flint was approved in the House Wednesday and now will move to the Senate. Another Member of Congress, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), expressed support for the creation of a FEMA-like Public Health Emergency Fund in the Time article "How to Fight Zika and Cure Our Nation's Ailing Public Health System." Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, a whistleblower has raised concerns about the CDC's Zika test - which he says missed 39 percent of potential infections. He was demoted from his role as supervisor of a key viral-disease testing lab. Lanciotti's since been reinstated, after the Office of Special Counsel stepped in and an independent lab affirmed his report. However, other CDC scientists were not able to confirm Lanciotti's findings.
About half of physicians say they plan to retire, reduce their hours, or leave their clinical positions as a result of regulatory burdens and other concerns, according to a report from The Physicians Foundation released this week. The report also suggested that physicians are disengaged from healthcare reform efforts.
California
Mother Jones reports on the campaign for and against California’s Prop 63, known as the Safety for All initiative, on this November’s ballot. Prop 63 would ban the possession of high-capacity magazines, create a system for confiscating guns from felons who are prohibited from owning them, elevate all gun thefts to felonies, require people and businesses to report lost or stolen guns, prohibit people with a history of gun theft from owning guns, and require anyone who wants to buy ammunition to obtain a four-year permit from the California Department of Justice.
A new California law lifts the statute of limitations for rape cases.
Starting in January 2017, Californians will be able to access an entire year’s worth of birth control pills in one visit to a pharmacist, removing one barrier to effective contraceptive access.
Governor Brown vetoed a bill that would have prevented local governments from contracting with for-profit companies to detain immigrants. Seventy percent of the state's immigrant detainees are held in for-profit facilities.
Governor Brown signed SB 482 into law this week. The bill will require doctors to consult a database of patient prescription history before writing new opioid scripts.