The Impact of Health Care Reform on California's Children in Immigrant Families

Examines how 2010 reform provisions limit coverage options for noncitizens and may deter immigrant parents from enrolling citizen children and how the exclusion of uninsured children in immigrant families may affect community clinics and public hospitals

The Status of Evaluation and Research on Effective Interventions Serving Boys and Men of Color

The authors draw upon Chandler's Life Course Framework for Improving the Lives of Boys and Men of Color to focus on health outcomes. They argue that investing in health and educational outcomes could yield improved health behaviors and access to healthcare, and post positive returns in cognitive and socioemotional skills for boys of color. The authors aim to identify opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration between educators and health care providers that can improve the overall life course for boys and men of color

Reach of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) interventions and nutrition and physical activity-related outcomes, California, 2011-2012.

IntroductionThis study combined information on the interventions of the US Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education with 5,927 interview responses from the California Health Interview Survey to investigate associations between levels of intervention reach in low-income census tracts in California and self-reported physical activity and consumption of fruits and vegetables, fast food, and sugar-sweetened beverages.MethodsWe determined 4 levels of intervention reach (low reach, moderate reach, high reach, and no intervention) across 1,273 program-eligible census tracts from data on actual and eligible number of intervention participants. The locations of California Health Interview Survey respondents were geocoded and linked with program data. Regression analyses included measures for sex, age, race/ethnicity, and education.ResultsAdults and children from high-reach census tracts reported eating more fruits and vegetables than adults and children from no-intervention census tracts. Adults from census tracts with low, moderate, or high levels of reach reported eating fast food less often than adults from no-intervention census tracts. Teenagers from low-reach census tracts reported more physical activity than teenagers in no-intervention census tracts.ConclusionThe greatest concentration of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education interventions was associated with adults and children eating more fruits and vegetables and adults eating fast food less frequently. These findings demonstrate the potential impact of such interventions as implemented by numerous organizations with diverse populations; these interventions can play an important role in addressing the obesity epidemic in the United States. Limitations of this study include the absence of measures of exposure to the intervention at the individual level and low statistical power for the teenager sample

Street Children’s Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child: A study of acceptance and observance in Mexico and Ecuador

This paper offers a first template for assessing performance by national governments in guaranteeing disadvantaged groups of youngsters access to their rights, as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Street children, who are among the most severely disadvantaged children of any society, are the particular focus of this paper. The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) constitutes a bold new approach to children’s rights, requiring governments to assume new commitments to helping street children. Latin America has a particularly strong history of work with street children, spanning at least 30 years, but governments have not managed to guarantee access by street children to their basic human rights. This paper explores CRC adherence with respect to street children in two Latin American countries – Mexico, a fairly affluent country and Ecuador, a relatively poor one. I divide my exploration of each country’s observance of the CRC into the broad fields of legislation, implementation and enforcement, and assess governmental progress in the decade since their ratification of the Convention. Findings are disappointing for both countries: they suggest that domestic legislation is still inadequate, and that neither government has implemented the policies or allocated the budgetary resources necessary to ensure that street children gain access to their rights. Regrettably, data collection, monitoring of implementation and measurement of outcomes, are all gravely inadequate for enforcement of CRC provisions in Mexico and Ecuador. The findings suggest that strong monitoring and enforcement mechanisms are required to counter existing disincentives for governments to invest in street children. Substantial improvements are needed, particularly in the field of enforcement, before street children in Mexico and Ecuador can gain consistent access to their basic human rights. The prospects for Ecuador’s street children are particularly bleak: the government will need considerable international support to be able to deliver on its commitments to street children under the CRC. Mexico has a more developed political economy and has made more progress than Ecuador; the Mexican government is in a position to make substantial advances toward guaranteeing street children their rights as provided by the CRC.

The Dialectic of the Sign in Claudio Rodríguez's Alianza y Condena

This is the published version. Copyright 1989 Johns Hopkins University Press.There is no abstract available for this work

Medi-Cal Versus Employer-Based Coverage: Comparing Access to Care

This report takes a close look at access to care under Medi-Cal for nonelderly adults and children on the eve of Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation. Using data from the 2012 and 2013 California Health Interview Surveys (CHIS), the research examines a total of 49 measures (45 on realized and potential access and 4 on health status and health behaviors) for nonelderly adults and 31 measures (28 on realized and potential access and 3 on health status and behaviors) for children.For adults, access under Medi-Cal is compared to access under employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) overall; among Medi-Cal enrollees, access is compared across subgroups defined by region, race/ethnicity, language, and other dimensions. For children, access under Medi-Cal and Healthy Families together (referred hereafter simply as "Medi-Cal") is compared against access under ESI. To account for differences in health status and socioeconomic status between those with Medi-Cal and those with ESI, for each measure, three sets of analyses are presented: unadjusted percentages, predicted percentages adjusted for health care need, and predicted percentages adjusted for both health care need and socioeconomic status. The same approach is used in the analysis of regional and subgroup differences within the Medi-Cal population

One-Fifth of Nonelderly Californians Do Not Have Access to Job-Based Health Insurance Coverage

Examines access to employer-based coverage among children and nonelderly adults age 64 and under, insurance status, and other sources of coverage, including Medi-Cal and family coverage, by income, firm size, citizenship, race/ethnicity, and region