PI's Weekly Media Digest: Efforts to strip LGBTQ community of basic rights fuel violence; Philadelphia becomes first major US city to adopt soda tax; and more.
Welcome to our media digest for the week of June 17, 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
Hannah Willard of Equality Florida speaks with Amy Goodman about the ongoing homophobia and bigotry that provide a backdrop for discrimination and violence across the country – embodied by the more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills filed by US lawmakers since last summer’s Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. Vox also writes about the current political climate for the LGBTQ community, noting that “In more than half of US states, LGBTQ employees have no protection against discrimination at work, and neither do students at school. So it's completely legal for a boss to fire an employee just because that person is gay, while queer youth — especially students of color — are pushed out of schools at high rates. It was in this climate of legal discrimination that brutal violence against this politically targeted community took place. And what are politicians doing? They’re not legislating; they’re praying.” And the New York Times reports, that an analysis of FBI data reveals that, although hate crimes against LGBT people are steeply underreported, they are nevertheless more common than hate crimes targeting Jewish people, Muslims, African Americans, Latinos and Asians in the US. A NY Times op-ed says, “Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum. They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish.”
In an essay published in Build Healthy Places Network’s Crosstalk, Whose City Is It? The Promise and Peril of Gentrification, examines how housing and community development experts create that "just right" mix of investment that will improve neighborhoods so everyone benefits. Ideas include requiring a “health impact assessment” (HIA) on all new development; cooperative housing and inclusionary zoning, among others.
New data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition shows there's no state where the minimum wage meets housing expenses. Op-ed author Kevin Matthews argues that "If the government can acknowledge that Americans cannot afford to pay rent anymore, then it's time for some intervention to alleviate this problem."
The Atlantic attempts to answer the question of why health study subjects tend to be overwhelmingly white. Theories include: difficulties in recruiting people of color and a distrust of the medical community among communities of color, not enough efforts made to make studies inclusive, the medical community's history of alienating and even abusing African Americans, and current barriers to participation, such as the cost of parking at hospitals and sacrificing work pay.
Violence Prevention
According to a new report compiled by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), hate violence homicides against LGBTQ and HIV-affected people increased in 2015. People of color, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people made up the majority of victims. The report includes recommendations to combat hate violence: buildup systems of social and community support for LGBTQ and HIV-affected communities, decrease police violence as well as the over-policing of these communities, and for alternative community accountability models that provide survivors with safe access to justice.
In a year where movement leaders have "sensed an increase in violence against gay people," The New York Times explores how various members of the LGBTQ community are grappling with Sunday's shooting (among the 42 other shootings that day). As ThinkProgress reports, the man who committed the mass murder had a history of domestic violence, misogynistic and homophobic outbursts , according to people who were close to him. The emerging details about him fit into a bigger and often overlooked pattern of in which crimes against intimate partners (and sometimes children) often escalate to crimes against greater numbers of people. Along similar lines, this piece in Salon, pulls back the lens on gun violence and explores how a specific model of manhood, one that is "geared towards dominance and control," underlies many types of violence, from domestic abuse to mass shootings. Jodi Jacobson of Rewire comments on the tragedy, explaining why we, as a country, are more like those we condemn for espousing hatred than most Americans would like to admit. The New York Times details how “America’s gun of choice” - an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle – allowed the Orlando shooter to do so much damage. The Guardian's Gary Younge anticipates the many ways in which the tragedy can be framed, often to suit various political agendas. He also cautions against naming any single cause as solely responsible for the attack.
After a nearly 15-hour filibuster by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, the Senate will consider proposals to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing guns and expand background checks to gun shows and internet sales. The AMA declares gun violence a full-fledged public health crisis - and plans to push Congress to overturn laws that prohibit the CDC from studying gun violence, among other measures. More than 30,000 people a year die from firearm violence, yet, unlike every other public health crisis, we don’t turn to research to solve it (short video of researcher Garen Wintemute). The LA Times Michael Hiltzik also makes the case for ending the NRA’s 20-year stranglehold on CDC research of gun violence. The New York Times also updated an article which uses social math to put U.S. gun fatalities into perspective. For example, being killed by a gun in Austria is about as likely as drowning in a swimming pool in the United States, and dying from a gunshot in Japan is about as likely as being killed by a lightning strike in the U.S.
Community environments
Philadelphia became the first major city in the US to adopt a sugary drinks tax, following a 13-4 City Council vote this week. It would be a 1.5c-per-ounce tax on sugary (and diet) drinks, with revenues flowing to public goods and services like pre-Kindergarten, libraries and parks. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney’s successful focus on generating revenues for community investments, rather than health benefits, provides a different way to approach soda taxes in other cities. The ABA vowed to file a legal challenge against the tax.
A new case study from the Vision Zero Network, which aims to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, examines the communication approaches that San Francisco and New York City have used to frame traffic deaths as preventable and foster both individual and institutional change, including input from BMSG.
A groundbreaking study was released this week linking chemicals released from fracking sites to chemical buildup in the bodies of nearby residents. Researchers also focused on how oil and gas operations pollute the air and how that pollution enters the bodies of humans living nearby. “If you have contaminated air, you have no choice but to breathe it,” Wilma Subra, who has worked on environmental health research across the country, told ThinkProgress. “That’s why it is so important to help citizens understand the quality of the air they are breathing.”
California
The 2016 budget proposal repeals the Maximum Family Grant Rule, a CalWORKS provision that bars low-income women and families who have another child from receiving increases in welfare benefits. Critics have argued the rule denies much-needed assistance to approximately 130,000 of the state’s most vulnerable children.
Another budget proposal, to fund a Market Match pilot program, received a strong endorsement from the Sacramento Bee this week. Both the State Senate and Assembly included a $5 million appropriation to fund the program, but it remains to be seen whether Governor Brown will agree. In 2015, Brown vetoed the $2.5 million that the legislature appropriated for the program.
Assemblymembers Cristina Garcia and Susan Eggman want to update the state’s legal code that defines rape. Currently, CA law defines “rape” as a man penetrating another person with his penis without consent, with other unwanted sexual acts, including penetration with other objects, falling under the category of “Sexual assault,” a crime with much lower criminal penalties. Garcia and Eggman introduced a bill to update the definition to match the FBI’s definition: “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”
State lawmakers set aside $5 million for a gun-violence research center intended to produce policy and prevention recommendations. This is just one of a package of gun control bills continuing to advance in the CA legislature this summer.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed legislation that could make California the first state in the country to allow undocumented immigrants to purchase Obamacare coverage. But it's no sure thing: The California proposal is sure to receive strong opposition from anti-immigration forces and could reignite a fierce health reform controversy in the Obama administration's final months.
Health Systems Transformation
Amidst the noise of insurance companies deciding whether or not to sell on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) marketplaces and proposed rates “doom,” the Commonwealth Fund released a new report that paints a brighter picture of the ACA and its marketplaces. The report compares ACA-compliant plans on and off the marketplaces to better understand how effectively the marketplaces promote value for consumers.
In this op-ed for The Tennessean, Metro Public Health Department Director William Paul calls for a shift in our country's approach to health -- one that advances policy, environmental and systems changes. Specifically, he recommends a "health in all policies" approach, which would examine and tweak decisions across government to ensure that they support health.
The number of uninsured U.S. residents would increase by 24 million by 2021 if lawmakers repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to a study released this week by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Urban Institute. Overall, the study found 53.5 million U.S. residents would be uninsured if the ACA is repealed, and the country's uninsured rate would increase to 19.4 percent.
Mental Health
Robin Fleck’s essay in Health Affairs profiles school-based pilot programs in Maine designed to address the needs of Somali children and their parents who have experienced trauma: “Project SHIFA (Supporting the Health of Immigrant Families and Adolescents)… recognizes the ways in which trauma affects the brain, using Trauma Systems Therapy (TST), a model of care for children and adolescents who have experienced trauma. Developed at Boston Children’s Hospital by Dr. Glenn Saxe and Dr. Ellis, the model addresses a child’s emotional needs, social environment, and systems of care, and it helps to break down barriers among service systems.”
In the Atlantic, Norm Ornstein advocates for mental health reform to focus more on people with serious mental illnesses and on increasing treatment capacity. Ornstein, who lost his 34-year-old son to mental illness, also argues for making it more possible for family members to intervene in the case of severe mental illness.
PEW’s Stateline covers the growth of “sober” dorms for students with addictions.
In, LA School Report, Jeremy Loudenback, child trauma editor of the Chronicle of Social Change, writes about a lawsuit filed on behalf of teachers and students in Compton Unified School District who argue that students who have experienced trauma could be considered disabled under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The school and plaintiffs are in negotiation and hope to reach a settlement that includes trauma-sensitives practices in the schools.