Big Tech helps drive the economy. It also influences where and how people live. In fact, the biggest tech companies like Facebook are increasingly diving into housing policy. They're starting housing projects and investing in philanthropic affordable housing projects. This creates quite the contrast, Ankita Rao recently wrote for Vice. "On one hand, tech companies have helped fuel the housing crisis—sprawling across cities that are bursting at the seams with little investment in public infrastructure, and avoiding taxes that might help the poor and homeless at virtually every turn," Rao wrote. "On the other, they're positioning themselves as postmodern Robin Hoods, announcing plans to build apartments for rent and subsidize others" that look like "company towns."
How Big ...
The Regional Models of Cooperation program hosted a peer exchange workshop to share best practices in working across jurisdictions to improve connections between bicycle and pedestrian facilities and transit. Participants of the October 2016 workshop released the Regional Cooperation and Bike/Ped and Transit Connections report summarizing the presentations, key themes, and recommendations. In this report, they identified 10 key strategies that agencies can employ to improve connections between bicycle, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure.
1. Recognize that Improvement is Everyone’s Job
Improving bicycle and pedestrian and transit networks is a shared responsibility, spanning geographies and agency types from the state to regional and local levels. For example, to identify ...
The U.S. Military is facing massive costs, criticism because of toxic substances polluting the drinking water of numerous bases where members of the armed forces and their families reside. So far, 106 bases have tested positive for per-and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) — chemicals found in firefighting foams that have been widely used by the military for years. The House Oversight and Reform environment subcommittee heard testimony last week from experts, witnesses who say contamination cleanup could cost billions of dollars. “[I felt] stabbed in the back,” Army Staff Sgt. Samuel Fortune told The New York Times. “We give our lives and our bodies for our country, and our government does not live up to their end of the deal.” Causes for Concern PFAS are connected to many ...
Childhood obesity is getting worse over time, especially for Latinos. Researchers in Texas (39.4% Latino) recently released a data explorer that illustrates trends in body mass index of school-aged children in their state (52% Latino). It also reveals underlying factors in obesity, such as dietary behaviors and physical activity. The information showed many disparities, especially in the Latino community — numbers that could call for statewide, national conversation and legislation concerning childhood obesity.
Need for Obesity Reduction
U.S. Latino children have the highest rates of childhood obesity (25.8%), as compared to their black (22%) and white (14.1%) peers. In Texas, 27.3% of Latino 8th graders have obesity compared to 16% of their white peers. Obesity is ...
Claire’s, the popular accessories store, has recalled three cosmetic items that the FDA reports contain asbestos, a mineral known to spur lethal cancers. While the company believes the FDA’s findings are inaccurate, they have rescinded eye shadow, compact powder, and contour powder products. Claire’s also gave customers the option of returning these items for a full refund. “Every day millions of Americans assume the cosmetics they use are safe, but unfortunately that is not always the case,” Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr., who requested an investigation of these products, said in a statement. “The reality is that cosmetics are one of the least regulated consumer products on the market.” So how safe are beauty products, really, especially for Latinos? Latinos and ...
Nearly one-third of children ages 10-12 screened positive for suicide risk during an emergency room visit, some even if they came in for a physical health issue, according to a new study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Typically, suicidal thoughts and behaviors are seen in older teens. "It was troubling to see that so many preteens screened positive for suicide risk, and we were alarmed to find that many of them had acted on their suicidal thoughts in the past,” Dr. Lisa Horowitz, a clinical scientist with NIMH, part of the National Institutes of Health, said in a press release. “This study shows that children as young as 10 who show up in the emergency department may be thinking about suicide."
Study Examined Preteens in ER Visits
Researchers studied 79 ...
By Amy Perez
San Antonio Cancer Survivor Just after my 22nd birthday while putting on tanning lotion, I noticed a hard lump in my chest that I hadn’t noticed before. My mom works at MD Anderson in Houston, so I told her about the lump as soon as I noticed it, and she helped me get an appointment to get the lump checked out. My cancer was far enough along to where there was no waiting for results. They told me before I left the hospital that day that I had cancer. I began chemo right away but my body was resistant to it. At the end of 6 months of chemo my tumor was 10x larger than when I had started. My doctors told me that I was inoperable, which is pretty hard news at just 22. As if having cancer and struggling with treatment wasn’t hard enough, I also had an ...
Governors have the opportunity to use state resources and create partnerships to improve the social and economic inequities that cause poor health outcomes, especially among communities of color. But not all governors have the tools to boost public health. That’s why the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) and the de Beaumont Foundation released four big tools to help governors understand what influences public health and how to embed upstream health- and prevention-related plans into the structure of government. “We’re the state that’s going to tear down the systemic barriers to work and education faced by people of color, people with disabilities, veterans and women,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in his inaugural address, according to an NASHP blog ...
Latinas who live on the U.S. Southwest border have more surgical infant delivery rates than their peers in the rest of the country. Not only do those who reside on the border experience cesarean section, or C-section, more often, but Latinas have overall higher rates than white women, according to a New Mexico State University study. This was not the case six years ago. Jill McDonald, who serves as the director of the Southwest Institute for Health Disparities Research in the College of Health and Social Services at NMSU, told the Santa Fe New Mexican before 2013, Latinas had lower numbers than white women. “Now, Hispanic women are more likely to have a cesarean birth than non-Hispanic white women,” McDonald said. Maternal Disparities Latinas already suffer from ...
