Blogs
AB 411 – How Including Gender will Make a Good Bill Even Better
May 22, 2013 | Kate Karpilow, PhD
The California State Assembly voted 51 to 17 last week in support of AB 411 (Pan), which would require managed care plans provided through Medi-Cal to evaluate the quality and appropriateness of their services by the geographic region, race, ethnicity and primary language of their clients, and to the extent that data is available, by sexual orientation. The bill now goes to the State Senate, and our representatives in the upper house have an opportunity to make a good bill even better.
What’s needed? A requirement to analyze by gender. more
California’s Health in All Policies Task Force
May 21, 2013 | Julia Caplan
The State of California created a Health in All Policies Task Force in 2010 in order to build inter-agency partnerships across State government to address issues of health, equity and environmental sustainability. This initiative brings together 18 state agencies, departments, and offices including education, transportation, land use planning, social services, food and agriculture, and forestry. more
Addressing the Mounting Costs of Extreme Weather in California
May 16, 2013 | Jeni Miller, PhD
In testimony before a state Senate committee Thursday, the Public Health Institute's Dr. Linda Rudolph called for strong action on climate and cited a recent study that found six climate-related extreme weather events - three of them in California - generated health costs of over $14 billion. "The health care cost impacts of climate change are enormous," she told the panel. more
Stigma, Choice and Change: GYCA's Joya Banerjee at TEDx
May 09, 2013 | Gillian Dolce
From a 14-yr-old sex trafficked girl in Mumbai, to a Cambodian boy shooting heroin, to a Nigerian woman who believes using condoms will send her to hell, how do circumstances and stigma shape HIV risk and intervention? Joya Banerjee, co- founder of PHI's Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GYCA), recently attended TEDxBarcelonaChange in Barcelona, Spain, where she spoke about how GYCA members and other early members of the youth AIDS movement turned the typical notion of public health on its head. Watch her TEDx talk. more
Worsening Wildfires: Threat to Health, Reason for Action on Climate Change
May 07, 2013 | Jeni Miller, PhD
This past week wildfires torched 28,000 acres in California, at one point threatening 4,000 homes in Ventura County before fire crews were able to begin to rein them in. These California wildfires are one more signal that the time to act on climate change is now. To protect our health, we must lean into the two challenges before us. more
What Every Woman Wants this Mother's Day
May 06, 2013 | PDF | Mary A. Pittman
Every day the Public Health Institute (PHI) helps moms around the world raise healthy kids. In honor of Mother’s Day this Sunday, we are asking our supporters to make a donation so we can continue this life-changing work. more
World Asthma Day: Show Your Support for Asthma Programs
May 06, 2013 | Anne Kelsey Lamb
Tomorrow, May 7th, is World Asthma Day, and no matter where you live you can show your support for reducing the burden of asthma on children and families in communities across the country. There are plenty of ways you can help. more
Remembering Toni Yancey
May 03, 2013 | Mary A. Pittman, DrPH
Toni Yancey's enduring legacy will be that she helped elevate public awareness that physical movement is as vital as healthy eating. “Every minute of activity counts,” she liked to say. more
Evaluation IS Intervention
May 01, 2013 | Denise Dunning, PhD
The very process of evaluation has the potential to strengthen and sharpen our impact, if we use it wisely. Contrary to widely-held views, evaluation is not a neutral force that objectively assesses impact without influencing the initiative in question. Quite the opposite, evaluation is one of the social sector’s most important forms of intervention. Two case studies, from Guatemala and Liberia, illustrate how evaluation can serve not merely as a strategy to assess impact, but also as an opportunity for learning, reflection, and growth for a program and participants. more
PHI Heads to Women Deliver Conference
April 30, 2013
On May 28-30, PHI will head to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to join thousands of participants from around the world, including government leaders, policymakers, healthcare professionals, non-profit representatives, and corporate leaders, at this year's Women Deliver conference, which promises to be "the largest global event of the decade to focus on the health and empowerment of girls and women."
Find out more about PHI program-sponsored events. more
Media advocacy then and now
April 25, 2013 | Katie Woodruff, MPH
In celebration of PHI's Berkeley Media Studies Group's 20th year anniversary, an advocate reflects on 20 years of using the media to improve public health. How is media advocacy the same and how has it changed? more
NCDs in the Post-2015 Development Framework
April 23, 2013 | Jeff Meer
The UN's Milennium Development Goals have focused much international development assistance on acheiving global progress in eliminating poverty by 2015. Now the question arises, what to do after 2015? A new UN report suggests an overarching goal could be "sustainable well-being for all," which would include improving education, gender equality, sustainable energy, nutrition, water/sanitation, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. more
Celebrate Solutions: Transforming Lives through Girl-Centered Advocacy
April 22, 2013 | Denise Dunning, PhD, MPA
Since 2009, PHI's AGALI has engaged adolescent girls in developing their own solutions to the challenges they face, and built a global movement of leaders successfully advocating for girl-centered laws, policies, budgets, and programs in Africa and Latin America. more
Promising Strategies for Reducing Obesity in the Latino Community
April 17, 2013 | Carolyn Newbergh
A number of Latino communities are leading the way in demonstrating how to improve conditions for health and prevent obesity – including one whose efforts saw students’ body mass index drop 8.79 percent in a Southern California school district. more
Estrategias Prometedores para Reducir la Obesidad en la Comunidad Latina
April 17, 2013 | Carolyn Newbergh, traducido por Alina Madrid
Varias comunidades latinas están poniendo el ejemplo de cómo mejorar las condiciones de salud y prevenir la obesidad – incluso una cuyos esfuerzos lograron que el índice de masa corporal de los estudiantes bajara 8.79% en un distrito escolar de California del Sur. more
Boosting healthy eating - and profits for local farmers
April 05, 2013 | Anne Sunderland
PHI’s Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program worked with community stakeholders to implement Electronic Benefit Transfer at two local flea markets in Merced. This allowed residents to use CalFresh benefits to buy produce at these venues, supporting healthy eating while also boosting revenue for local farmers to the tune of $220,000 a year. more
Workplace Wellness Is Catching on, National Public Opinion Poll Shows
April 03, 2013 | Carolyn Newbergh
Workplace wellness programs are taking root throughout the country and are starting to boost the bottom line, speakers reported at a Public Health Institute webinar. more
Telehealth: the RX to Effective Health Care Delivery
April 02, 2013
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The old prescription 'Take two aspirin and call me in the morning' has gone digital--and given physicians the opportunity to treat so much more than the common headache. Health care systems aiming to reduce costs and increase both the reach and the efficacy of health care provision are increasingly turning to telehealth technologies. PHI's Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) makes the case for the value, and cost savings, of telehealth technologies. more
Safe Routes to School: An Investment Worth Protecting in California
April 02, 2013 | Anne Sunderland
For over two decades Safe Routes to School has helped California communities remove barriers to walking and biking to school. It's an investment in children's health and safety worth continuing, but recent proposals by Governor Brown put SRTS funding at risk. more
Saving Money; Preventing Asthma
March 31, 2013 | Anne Sunderland
According to the CDC, asthma cost the U.S $56 billion in 2007. Indoor asthma triggers such as mold, dust mites and cockroaches are frequent culprits of the attacks that lead to expensive ER visits and hospitalizations. For over 12 years PHI’s Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP) program has supported the delivery of in-home case management services that help families remove indoor asthma triggers and better manage a child’s condition. These services have been shown to slash costs, and one day, may even yield a return for private investors. more