News

Green & Healthy Homes Initiative Selects Service Providers to Participate in Asthma-Related Pay for Success Projects

May 19, 2015 | Green & Healthy Homes Initiative

Projects will assess using Pay for Success to benefit low-income children in Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Utah and Tennessee

Today, the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI), a grantee of the Social Innovation Fund’s (SIF) Pay for Success program, and its collaboration partner Calvert Foundation, selected five service providers to participate in regional Pay for Success (PFS) projects. These awardees, selected by GHHI through a national competition, […]

Study: Asthma Intervention Can Lead To Fewer School Absences

May 18, 2015 | Hartford Courant

HARTFORD — Greater communication between school nurses and families on how to manage asthma could help reduce the number of school absences for children afflicted with the chronic disease, according to preliminary data from an ongoing study in Hartford.

Read more from Hartford Courant

Feds Block Shareholders’ Attempt To End Production Of Toxic Lead Paint

May 13, 2015 | Huffington Post

One of the world’s largest paint manufacturers continues to add a toxic heavy metal to products it sells outside the U.S., mostly in poor countries, despite decades of health warnings and ongoing pleas to stop the practice — the latest of which came from the company’s own investors.

Read more from Huffington Post

Women hospitalized more frequently after ED visit for asthma

May 8, 2015 | Healio

Women are approximately 60% more likely than men to be hospitalized after being seen in an ED for acute asthma, according to study results.

“It’s important to note the men and women whose charts we studied had certain things in common,” Rose M. Chasm, MD, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a press release. “Most had not been seen by an allergist, and had not used controller […]

Fall-related deaths nearly doubled for US seniors since 2000

May 7, 2015 | Medical Xpress

(HealthDay)—The number of American seniors who die from fall-related injuries has nearly doubled since 2000, a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals.

The observation is based on an analysis of death rate information compiled by the National Vital Statistics System between 2000 and 2013. The report specifically noted that while roughly 30 seniors in every 100,000 died following a fall in 2000, that figure […]

Cities like Baltimore Still Suffer From the Toxic Legacy of Lead Contamination

May 7, 2015 | TIME

Before Freddie Gray suffered a fatal injury at the hands of the police, the Maryland native was allegedly the victim of lead poisoning

The Sandtown neighborhood of Baltimore has all the markers of the depressed inner city. Unemployment is high, drug abuse is rampant and many houses are vacant and dilapidated. Less apparent—but equally insidious—is the prevalence of lead poisoning.

Read more from TIME

What Does Lead Poisoning Have To Do With Criminal Behavior?

May 7, 2015 | Here & Now

In the wake of the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man who died after sustaining spinal injuries in police custody, The Washington Post published a story chronicling his exposure to lead paint as a young child in Baltimore, and the effects it may have had on him.

Gray, his twin sister and mother were part of a lawsuit in a 2009, in which they received a settlement from […]

World Asthma Awareness Month

May 1, 2015 | Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America – Michigan Chapter

World Asthma Day is an annual event organized by multiple organizations to improve asthma awareness and care around the world. World Asthma Day 2015 is taking place on Tuesday, May 5, 2015, and will again have the theme “You Can Control Your Asthma.” Taking this awareness one step further – the entire month of May is dedicated to asthma and allergy awareness. […]

Freddie Gray’s life a study on the effects of lead paint on poor blacks

April 29, 2015 | The Washington Post

BALTIMORE — The house where Freddie Gray’s life changed forever sits at the end of a long line of abandoned rowhouses in one of this city’s poorest neighborhoods. The interior of that North Carey Street house, cluttered with couches and potted plants, is lacquered in a fresh coat of paint that makes the living room glow.

But it wasn’t always this way. When Gray lived here between 1992 and […]

Before The Police, Freddie Gray Was Attacked By His Own Walls

April 27, 2015 | Think Progress

More than a week after his death from severe spinal cord injuries sustained under police custody, the circumstances of Freddie Gray Jr.’s life, particularly his upbringing in the inner city, are coming to surface through court documents and testimonies of family, friends, and attorneys.

While these narrative include stories of poverty, frequent moves, a mother’s drug problem, they too highlight a public health issue that has plagued thousands of Baltimore […]