Center in the News
In a new book, “Investing in Children’s Mental Health,” Raghavan and co-author UCLA health economist Daniel Eisenberg, make the case for a boost in government funding and new policies that support “social vaccines,” which address the health of children’s social ecology and everyday environments.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has released an update for its report, Medical Debt in LA County: Baseline Report and Action Plan, which found that total medical debt burden now exceeds $2.9 billion with an approximate $300 million increase from 2021 to 2022 ... This analysis used data from the 2017–2022 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the nation’s largest state-level health survey conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles.
When it comes to encouraging women in California to breastfeed, health care providers, insurance companies and employers need to be doing more, according to recommendations in a new report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
This analysis used data from the 2017-2022 California Health Interview Survey, the nation’s largest state-level health survey conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles. Most of the analyses were based on 2019-2022 survey responses from a representative sample of 18,002 adults (18+) in Los Angeles County who were asked if they have had problems paying medical bills for themselves or their household members in the past 12 months.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies are widely known to have harmful impacts on mental health, but a new policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research revealed large disparities in rates of serious psychological distress across immigrant subgroups in California.
Two California lawmakers publicly blew up at each other earlier this month, hitting a nerve on an issue that has long-divided the state’s elected leaders: Whether and how much to offer government-subsidized health benefits to undocumented residents. Just 20 years ago, “in the early 2000s, the idea of offering this benefit was considered political suicide for both Democrats and Republicans,” said Arturo Vargas Bustamante, faculty research director at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute.
Nearly two-thirds of Latinx LGBT immigrants without Green Cards live in poverty. Using data from the California Health Interview Survey, researchers examined the demographic, socioeconomic, and health characteristics of Latinx LGBT immigrants. Results show that Latinx LGBT immigrants without Green Cards are older, have less education, and have fewer economic resources than U.S.-born Latinx LGBT people.
California’s population is rapidly aging, and the over-60 population is growing racially and ethnically diverse faster than any other age group. By 2030, it is projected that one in four Californians will be an older adult. CHCF is funding research to understand ... the experiences and health-related outcomes of older adults and adults with disabilities in California who need home and community-based long-term services to maintain their independence and quality of life (using data from the Long-Term Services and Supports follow-on survey of the California Health Interview Survey).
“Using California survey data, we found that childhood lifetime asthma prevalence varied among Asian American ethnic groups, with the lowest prevalence in Korean American children and the highest prevalence in Filipino American children,” said [Meng] Chen, [MD and clinical assistant professor of allergy and immunology at Stanford University].
The situation worsened after the pandemic: in 2021 the California Health Interview Survey, the state’s largest survey, estimated that 38 percent of young Californians aged 18 to 30 had not had sexual partners in the previous year: a choice, rather than contingency from quarantine, if the following year the percentage stood at 22 percent.