Tag Archives: community

AHCJ webcast to look at role of communities in terms of wellness, health

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Photo: dmitryzhkov via FlickrA May 25 webcast will examine the role of communities on health, including space utilization, affordable housing, area resources and more.

How do housing, along with space, community resources and other development issues, combine to impact health? From infrastructure to proximity to parks, an increasing amount of attention being is to how one’s surrounding space directly impacts wellness and disease.

Two experts will discuss the connection during a May 25 AHCJ webcast that will look at both the medical impact as well from a community planning perspective. Continue reading →

Susan Heavey, (@susanheavey) a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on social determinants of health and curates related material at healthjournalism.org. She welcomes questions and suggestions on resources and tip sheets at determinants@healthjournalism.org.

New report rates best states for older adults’ well-being

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Photo: Steve Baker via Flickr

Photo: Steve Baker via Flickr

Hawaii tops the list of states with the highest well-being among adults over age 55 for the second consecutive year, according to new national research. West Virginia was ranked last, with its older residents reporting the lowest metrics for a sense of purpose and social, financial, community and physical health.

Arizona, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Colorado also ranked in the top five, while Kentucky, Oklahoma, Ohio and Indiana again fell toward the bottom in Gallup-Healthways’ Well-Being Index. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

Community-based program trains seniors to aid seniors

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Photo: Barbara Wells via Flickr

Photo: Barbara Wells via Flickr

An innovative program in Orange County, N.C., taps into older adults’ leadership skills — and trains them to give back to the community. Project EngAGE helps people age 55 years and older build relationships with community leaders and organization so they can advocate for other older adults who may need social services, housing or other assistance.

Jan DuMont, 71, a retired nurse who moved to the area from Washington, D.C.,  enrolled in the 13-week program, which covers a range of health and aging services specific to the older population. As this News-Observer article explains, they serve as senior resource leaders who address important concerns among other older adults in the community. “We help to address gaps in the system,” she said in a phone interview. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

AHCJ fellow tells how she examined hospital community benefit, post-ACA

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Reform_Kutscher-StFrancisMemorialHospital

Photo: HaeB via Wikimedia CommonsSaint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco

Beth Kutscher, a Modern Healthcare reporter who recently become the publication’s California bureau chief, has covered health care finance for several years, with a particular focus on for-profit health care.

During her 2015 AHCJ Reporting Fellowship on Health Care Performance, she looked at the impact Medicaid expansion had on hospital finances. And she spent some time reporting on how not-for-profit hospitals have to give back to their communities to justify their tax exempt status.

That’s often through providing charity care or training physicians – but some hospitals are addressing different community needs. One San Francisco hospital, for instance, supports a program that escorts kids after school through a gang-ridden neighborhood, enhancing both their physical safety and their stress levels.

Find out more about how Kutscher explored this topic, and what she learned from it, in her How I Did It essay.

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.