Category Archives: Intersectoral Success

Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job

The short-term benefit is money in their pockets. The long-term benefits are improved educational, employment and health outcomes and reduced drug/alcohol use, arrest rates for violent crime and incarceration. Summer jobs for youth do more than save kids from boredom during their time off from school.   After generally trending downward since 1989, the labor […]

Will Free Sunscreen Prevent Skin Cancer?

Nicer weather across the country is bringing everyone outside in droves to enjoy the sunshine. But most of you won’t be using sunscreen. That’s why many cities have decided to provide sunscreen in public parks, free of charge, in hopes you’ll use it.   In the past three decades, more people have had skin cancer […]

The Latest Trend: Outdoor Pre-schools

Can outdoor preschools and farm-to-preschool programs help make our children healthier or are they just the latest trend? An urban farm preschool took first place this year at an international contest that focuses on innovative ideas in architecture, interior design, industrial design and urban planning. The idea is that children learn through experience, using their […]

California’s Housing Shortage and Employment

A graph showing slow job growth in LA

Lately I’ve been thinking about how LA has been bad with job creation, and I wonder if there’s a connection to housing. The above graph is from an UCLA Andersen Forecast that is a few years old.  More recent data put LA in the middle of the pack, but still not great. What’s worse is […]

Housing and Health

To promote the conditions of health, we have to tackle housing.   A recent report from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, takes note of the housing shortage in California and finds, among other things, that: Between 1980 and 2010 construction of new housing units in LA and San Francisco grew by only 20%, compared to the […]

Treating Drug Addiction as a Health Issue, Not a Crime

An average of 125 people die a day from drug overdoses, primarily driven by prescription painkillers and heroin. That is more than car accidents. Overdoses have increased in nearly every county in the U.S. between 2002 and 2014. Heroin used to be primarily used by inner-city young men, but today suburban areas and the White […]

Preventing Conflict Starts in the Classroom

Read any news story today and you’ll likely get the sense that we are a nation becoming increasingly divided along political, racial, religious, and income lines. Perhaps related, many of our large cities are experiencing a recent increase in violence. In Milwaukee the number of murders increased by 76% between 2014 and 2015. The most […]

The Benefits of Car-free Days

Los Angeles has a solid reputation for its traffic. People complain of long commutes, air pollution, common traffic collisions and delays. And Los Angeles certainly isn’t the only city with these problems.   Santa Monica Planning Commissioner, Richard McKinnon proposed closing off a portion of the city to vehicles for a few hours one Sunday […]

The Third Era of Humility

The third era is an exciting time to be in public health. It means not just badgering individuals about their health behaviors, but working across sectors to ensure the conditions in which people can pursue health. And it recognizes health as a resource for everyday living. But while the third era of public health has […]

Standing Desks for Students

Here’s an innovative idea. Ditching tables and chairs for standing desks at schools. That is just what this elementary school has done in San Rafael, California.   We are seeing more workplaces using standing desks and replacing chairs with yoga balls, so why not schools? Sitting for too long can have a negative impact on […]