As Children’s HealthWatch regularly demonstrates to policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public: a stable, affordable home is a prescription for good health. Unfortunately, that prescription is out of reach for tens of millions of people. At the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), we work to ensure that the lowest income people in the United […]
In recent years, household food insecurity (HFI) has been shown to predict increased health care utilization (including hospitalizations) and costs among Canadian working-age adults.[i] Additionally, a 2018 study has shown food insecure US adults had significantly greater estimated mean annualized health care expenditures ($6,072 vs. $4,208), an extra $1,863 in health care expenditure per year, […]
Originally posted at BU.edu/SPH. Housing is a prescription for good health. Yet, as housing prices rise while wages remain stagnant, we know that millions of families and individuals are unable to afford a stable home. Across the country, public health initiatives to address homelessness through affordable housing combined with supportive services are being implemented. These […]
You may have heard our news this year: We’re turning 20! For the past two decades, we’ve provided policy-relevant research from the frontlines of pediatric care to improve the health of young children and their families by addressing and alleviating economic hardships. But we haven’t done this work alone. Every step of the way, our […]
Children’s HealthWatch was born out of concerns that policies like the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reauthorization Act (PRWORA) of 1996, the so-called “welfare reform” law, instead of improving public health or the standard of living, could cause great harm to the health and well-being of young children and their families. The pediatricians, child development […]
When Children’s HealthWatch started 20 years ago in 1998, we had a passionate mission: to measure the impact of the “new” policies, namely welfare reform, and their impact on the health and development of young children and their families. So, equipped with paper surveys we created, we began talking with families of young children across […]
“I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do.” -Edward Everett Hale This sentiment by author Edward Everett Hale has guided many of my steps in life, particularly around volunteerism and non-profit work: In 1985, I began a […]
Sitting in a conference room in Washington D.C. twenty years ago, my clinical colleagues, Drs. Diana Cutts, Patrick Casey, Carol Berkowitz, and Maureen Black, and I shared disturbing and tragic stories of the consequences of the 1996 welfare reform on the health of children. I told them of a child at Boston City Hospital (now […]
Originally posted on Opportunity Starts at Home As a doctor, I know that a stable, affordable home is a prescription for good health. This was recently instilled by my work at the GROW Clinic at Boston Medical Center, which takes care of kids underweight for their age. One of my patients at age 2 was […]
Over the past several years, Health care systems and individual providers have increasingly recognized their role in identifying and addressing their patients’ food security needs. Efforts to screen for food insecurity in health care settings and facilitate successful connections to anti-hunger organizations and emergency food providers have increasingly become squarely positioned within systems of health […]