Insights

Earlier this year, encouraging news broke of a marked decrease in early childhood obesity. But overall childhood obesity rates have held steady, a recent report finds, with big disparities persisting among minorities and Southerners.

With the upcoming enrollment for California's health exchange expected to be half as long and twice as hard, officials are looking to improve on call wait times, outreach to diverse communities, and persuading the remaining uninsured to sign up.

Take a look at this week's roundup of job openings across the country that includes job openings at WebMD, BringMeTheNews, The Deseret News, Family Circle, TakePart.com, and WNYC's Health Unit.

Like a growing number of Medicaid programs around the country, Rhode Island’s Medicaid program has quietly posted its first guidelines for coverage of an expensive new drug for hepatitis C. The new drug, called Sovaldi, is a big deal, whether you have hepatitis C or not.

In California and many other states, skilled nursing facilities do not have to secure a signed consent from a resident or family member to administer antipsychotic drugs. Does that result in unnecessary use of potentially dangerous drugs?

Press coverage and outrage has followed news of new research in Wisconsin that involves separating newborn monkeys from their mothers a day after they’re born, frightening them, and then regularly scanning their brains to compare them with the brains of baby monkeys not subject to such traumas.

In California, nursing home stakeholders are wrestling over what kind of guidelines to put in place for the prescription of antipsychotic drugs. A key question: What level of consent is appropriate and who should give it?

A recent policy brief found that public health programs must expand their reach if they're to increase the number of people who receive preventive care. But reaching those who don't routinely seek care means meeting people where they are — culturally, linguistically and geographically.

Ever consider sharing your health care knowledge? The California State University is looking for a professional to lecture in their Department of Public Health.