CityLab examines the latest research on role of neighborhoods in how people age. Factors like walkability and accessibility, exposure to environmental hazards, and community safety influence whether people are able to “age in place.” Some older adults are living in neighborhoods that may be making them sick. These communities aren’t safe, they’re not walkable, and they lack good public transportation and other resources. The fact that people may be living in these neighborhoods for decades is troubling, as the impact of poor conditions accumulates over time and leads to chronic health problems. While “aging in place” usually has positive connotations—the ability to retain one’s social network in familiar surroundings, a less expensive option than a nursing home—in these cases it’s more problematic… Neighborhoods with poor conditions can also create something called “weathering,” which stems from the chronic stress of living for years in an environment that is, for instance, run down and unsafe. Living in such a neighborhood eats away at a person’s health over time.
This week, the Department of Homeland Security issued new guidance to immigration officials, effectively “prioritizing” most of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US for detention and deportation. The directives increase the range of people at high risk for detention and deportation (for instance, by instructing ICE agents to focus on “immigrants who’ve been convicted, charged, or “have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.” Those “offenses” include immigration crimes (illegal entry and reentry are both criminal offenses) and things that are part and parcel of living in the US as an unauthorized immigrant, like driving without a license.”) and expands “the tools U.S. immigration agencies can use. It authorized federal agencies to expand the 287(g) program, which deputizes state and local law-enforcement departments to enforce some aspects of U.S. immigration laws. According to the memo, 32 agencies in 16 states are currently participating in it.” One of Trump’s executive orders raises the possibility of deporting people while their cases are still pending in immigration court. The fate of 750,000 participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program remains unclear, with the memos stating that DACA would be addressed in “future guidance.” Deportations continue to escalate, with ICE agents acting aggressively and often against the letter or law of past policy, including arresting a group of homeless immigrants as they departed a hypothermia shelter housed in a church (churches are covered by ICE’s “sensitive location” policies that bar arrests in churches, schools, and medical facilities) in Alexandria, Virginia.
Mother Jones reports on domestic violence advocates’ concerns about Sessions as attorney general. As a senator, Sessions voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2012-2013, when the law’s protections were extended to immigrant women, LGBTQ people, and Native women abused by non-Natives on tribal territories. Stories like [last week’s ICE detention of a transgender, undocumented domestic violence victim in court, likely tipped off by her abuser] suggest that undocumented victims might be less protected under a Sessions Justice Department that is likely to crack down on undocumented immigrants. "What we know from experience is that when an immigrant community knows that local law enforcement is regularly collaborating with ICE, victims are not going to come forward," says Grace Huang, policy director of the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence and a member of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. "They are going to stay in the shadows. And that harms all of us… We're probably going to have to change our advice to survivors on how to stay safe."
A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry finds that transgender and gender-nonconforming kids who are allowed to socially transition before hitting puberty experience mental health outcomes on par with their cisgender peers and siblings on measures of self-worth and self-reported depression and anxiety.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration rescinded Obama administration Department of Education guidance that had supported transgender students in using the bathroom that best aligned with their gender identity and instructed teachers to use students’ chosen names and pronouns.
The New York Times examines California’s aging water infrastructure in the wake of issues at the Oroville Dam this month.
Citizens are protesting en masse at town hall meetings during the Congressional break, using tactics similar to the Tea Party activists in 2009 to demand answers about GOP plans to repeal the ACA, reports Vox, the New York Times, and others. Of particular and bipartisan concern among constituents is the provision requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions.
NPR interviewed community health clinic directors about their fears if the ACA is repealed, many of which center around ending Medicaid expansion. "All the progress we made with those patients to stay and be healthy — that can fall apart really quick," said a clinic director in Phoenix.
Over the past few years, more than 150 cities and counties in the US have implemented “ban the box” policies to prevent employers from asking about applicants’ criminal histories until later in the hiring process. Colorlines covers a new study from the Urban Institute on Ban the Box and Racial Discrimination, which finds that “ban the box” policies are having adverse consequences for young Black and Latino men across the board, whether or not they have criminal records. “These findings suggest that when information about a person’s criminal history is not present, employers may make hiring decisions based on their perception of the likelihood that the applicant has a criminal history. Racism, harmful stereotypes and disparities in contact with the justice system may heavily skew perceptions against young men of color….”
Last week, Texas became the sixth state (at least) in which federal courts have kept Planned Parenthood eligible for Medicaid reimbursements, CBS reports.
A new CityHealth study that ranked the 40 biggest U.S. cities on public health policies (eg paid sick leave, universal pre-K, smoking bans, affordable housing) gave Los Angeles, DC, New York, Chicago and Boston “gold medals”—while Philadelphia, SF, San Jose , and San Diego received silver, reports WBEZ and the Philly Inquirer.
Sean Spicer said this week that the White House will practice “greater enforcement” of federal laws against recreation marijuana, tying it to the opioid crisis, the Cannifornian reports. Research shows states that have legalized medical marijuana see a drop in opioid use.
A new KFF poll finds public support for the ACA is now at 48%, the highest level since shortly after it was passed, Kaiser Health News reports. Six in 10 don’t support turning Medicaid over to the states.
The World Health Organization released a report that indicates the number of people living with depression increased by more than 18% between 2005 and 2015, when the number topped 300 million. The report, Depression and Other Common Mental Disorders, states: “Although depression can and does affect people of all ages, from all walks of life, the risk of becoming depressed is increased by poverty, unemployment, life events such as the death of a loved one or a relationship break-up, physical illness and problems caused by alcohol and drug use.” More than 80% of people with depression are living in low- and middle-income countries, according to the report. Depression: Let’s Talk will be the focus of WHO’s World Health Day 2017.
The Asian-American Literary Review features Open in Emergency: A Special Issue on Asian American Mental Health. “Rather than trying to recalibrate our existing mental health resources to better engage race and Asian American experience, we decided to start on the opposite end, with what wellness, unwellness, and care actually look like in Asian American life. With the help of an amazing group of writers and artists, scholars and teachers, practitioners and survivors…we’ve created a work of book art that decolonizes mental health and opens up a wealth of new approaches.”
A Viewpoint article in JAMA makes the case for providing rehabilitative resources to prevent people with mental illnesses from being unnecessarily incarcerated. The authors, Matthew Hirschtritt and Renee Binder, doctors with the University of San Francisco Department of Psychiatry, suggest steps such as providing stable housing, training law enforcement in crisis intervention, and establishing courts that consider and address factors that contribute to the behavior that brings people to law enforcement’s attention.
Mental health providers say there’s a surge of people reporting stress as a result of the current political turmoil, Kaiser Health News reports. Apprehension about the political developments permeating the news has been informally dubbed Post-Election Stress Disorder, the report says.
Medical News Today reports on a study published in JAMA that finds a link between the legalization of gay marriage and a decline in suicide attempts. “"These are high-school students so they are not getting married anytime soon, for the most part,” the study says. “Still, permitting same-sex marriage reduces structural stigma associated with sexual orientation. There may be something about having equal rights - even if they have no immediate plans to take advantage of them - that makes students feel less stigmatized and more hopeful for the future."
In an interview with NPR, rapper Oddissee reflects on the effects of witnessing aspects of the refugee crisis in Syria and on his own experiences growing up as the son of a Sudanese refugee. Of his song “Waiting Outside,” which is about mental illness, he says: “I mainly focus on mental illness in the African-American community, but there's something that needs to be said about depression, stress and mental illness in the communities of developing countries. Sudanese people, and many other countries around the world, see the idea and the concept of depression, stress, anxiety attacks, nervous breakdowns, mental illness, as something that only white people and Europeans go through and experience — let alone seek help for, and actually speak to someone and pay someone to help them with their problems.”
CityLab reframes the “car problem” from demonizing driver to stopping subsidization of driving: There are lots of problems that stem from the way we use cars. We price roads incorrectly, so people overuse them. Cars are a major source of air pollution, including the carbon emissions that are causing climate change. Car crashes kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, injure many more, and cost us billions in medical costs and property damage. And building our cities to accommodate cars leads to sprawl that pushes us further apart from one another. But the problem is not that cars (or the people who drive them) are evil, but that we use them too much, and in dangerous ways. And that’s because we’ve put in place incentives and infrastructure that encourage, or even require, us to do so. When we subsidize roads, socialize the costs of pollution, crashes and parking, and even legally require that our communities be built in ways that make it impossible to live without a car, we send people strong signals to buy and own cars and to drive—a lot. As a result, we drive too much, and frequently at unsafe speeds given the urban environment.
ThinkProgress reports that “two new studies add to the growing body of evidence that air pollution is causing higher rates of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Particulate matter may be responsible for more than one in five dementia cases, as the smallest particles appear to travel directly from the nose to the brain, where they do considerable damage.”