Mapping Paths Toward Health

A group of 20 teens from Harlem and 20 from Pinellas County, Florida spent last summer garnering preliminary information from health clinics, hospitals and pharmacies on their respective communities’ health needs and awareness. Prior to the start of the project youth were trained in interviewing techniques and survey development. Most of the students didn’t know what health literacy was.

Resources on Mental Health Needs and Juvenile Justice Youth

Almost four pages of links and organizations with information and resources on mental health and juvenile justice issues.

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Their Unexpected Adolescence

A special cohort of young people with H.I.V. follows the children who died in the early days of AIDS/HIV and precedesthe generations in which the transmission of H.I.V. was stopped. The revolution in medical treatment of H.I.V. has created a generation of young people whose unexpected maturation is both a miracle and a challenge.

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AIDS Drugs Tested on Foster Children

A review by Associated Press has found that government-funded researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of children over the past two decades, often without providing them with a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states. The research was conducted in at least seven states – Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas – and involved more than four dozen studies. The children ranged in age from infants to those in their late teens.

More details at the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report for May 5, 2005

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Antidepressant Medication and Children: Tips for Parents

This National Mental Health Association Children's Fact Sheet is intended to help parents better understands and make decisions about the use of SSRI antidepressant medications for their children.

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Florida Halts Fight to Bar Girl's Abortion

Governor Jeb Bush's administration changed course on Tuesday and said it would abandon the legal fight over a judge's order to allow a 13-year-old in state custody to get an abortion. The girl became pregnant after running away from a group home in January.

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Health Issues

Recommended Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers this information in a four-page pdf file that includes a special schedule for children who start late or are more than one month behind. 

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The Health and Well-Being of Young Children of Immigrants

This Urban Institute report focuses on the health and well-being of young children under six in immigrant families with at least one parent born outside the United States. Eight key themes emerged from this study:

• Children of immigrants are a large share of the young child population.

• Many young children of immigrants are citizens living in mixed-status families.

• Over one-quarter of young children of immigrants have undocumented parents.

• More young children of immigrants than natives live in two-parent families.

• Many young children of immigrants live in families with low incomes, parents with low education levels and limited English proficiency and interact less often with parents.

• Young children of immigrants have higher levels of economic hardship, lack benefits.

• Children of immigrants are more likely to have fair or poor health and to lack insurance or a usual source of health care.

• Children of immigrants are more often in parental care and less often in center-based care.

Pdf file. About 75 pages.

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Missed Opportunity: National Survey of Primary Care Physicians and Patients on Substance Abuse

CASA, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, brings attention to the profound disconnect between primary care and substance abuse detection and treatment. This report is the result of a CASA survey of a nationally representative sample of 648 primary care physicians and a patient sample of 510 adults currently receiving treatment for substance abuse in 10 facilities. Some of the results of the survey:

• 94% of primary care physicians failed to include substance abuse among the five diagnoses they offered when presented with early symptoms of alcohol abuse in any adult patient.

• 40.8% of pediatricians failed to diagnose drug abuse when presented with a classic description of an adolescent patient with symptoms of drug abuse.

• Most patients (53.7%) said their primary care physician did nothing about their substance abuse.

• Less than one-third of primary care physicians carefully screen for substance abuse.

• Most patients agreed that physicians do not know how to detect addictions.

CASA will offer a one-day conference on this report in Washington, D. C. on April 21, 2005. Details at the link above.

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Anorexic Girls

An underground internet subculture where teenage girls bond over their eating disorders and glorify bone-thin celebrities is a growing trend and it frustrates treatment for the girls. Online the girls share their near-starvation diet and offer tips for denying hunger pangs or dodging suspicious family members. They talk about weight loss through laxatives, diet pills and purging. They idolize Mary-Kate Olson, who was recently hospitalized for an eating disorder, and Kate Moss, among other super skinny celebrities. This article from MSNBC also features a very good fact file on anorexia and bulimia – warning signs, causes, treatment, mortality.

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Findings From an Evaluation of the Young Women’s CHOICES HIV-Prevention Program

CHOICES, in Brooklyn, New York,  is designed to serve high-risk HIV-negative girls, ages 14-17, who are mandated by the Family Court to CCA’s (Center for Community Alternatives) Youth Advocacy Project for community supervision. This article from Women, Girls & Criminal Justice magazine describes an assessment of the program’s implementation and success in achieving its goals, among which are reducing risky sexual practices and increasing knowledge about HIV/AIDS.  5 page pdf file.

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The Boy Who Would Not Die

Jonathan Swain was born in 1983, given a contaminated bag of donated blood at birth, and contracted AIDs. He was Colorado’s first child to be diagnosed with AIDS and he was not expected to live past age four. He is now 21 years old, has recently gotten married, works out every day, and maintains a grueling personal and work schedule. Along the way his parents split up, he was ostracized in school, he spent time in foster care, his mother is in jail, and he moved to Utah to work with his father. Jonathan’s story is a saga of courage and determination and altogether a fine read.

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African Women’s Health Center Addresses Genital Mutilation

While the subject of this article is beyond the typical subject matter addressed in Brevity, I’m including it for those people who may find themselves dealing with young African women who have been genitally cut and suffer from the medical problems associated with this condition. The clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston is apparently the only place in the country that provides appropriate treatment with cultural understanding.

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Drug Endangered Children

This monograph from ONDCP provides background and information for law enforcement, medical services and child welfare workers on dealing with drug endangered children, primarily those children who live in or visit meth labs across the country.  These children face a variety of health and safety risks, including:

• Inhalation, absorption, or ingestion of toxic chemicals, drugs or contaminated foods that may result in nausea, chest pain, eye and tissue irritation, chemical burns, and death
• Fires and explosions
• Abuse and neglect
• Hazardous lifestyle (presence of booby traps, firearms, code violations, poor ventilation)

This useful document includes links to drug endangered child protocols, reviews legislation on the subject, and links to DEC programs throughout the country.

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• Meditation Lowers Teens’ BP:  A study has found that two 15-minute meditation sessions each day – one at home, the other at school – help students lower their blood pressure. The students who meditated also have lower rates of absenteeism, school rule violations and suspensions than the control group had.

   

• Kids and Their Environment: The U.S. government will track 100,000 children from their mothers’ wombs to age 21 to increase understanding of how the environment affects their health. The National Children’s Study is coming at a time when rates of autism, asthma, certain birth defects and other disorders are on the rise.

   

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This web site is for a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Locks of Love uses donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children served have lost their hair due to alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure.

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Below you'll find some examples from the new reports.

• Immunizations– The percent of young children who are fully immunized increased dramatically from 69% in 1994 to 79% in 1998. 78% were fully immunized in 2002.

   

• Lead Poisioning– The percentage of children with elevated blood lead levels has decreased dramatically in the past three decades, from 88.2% in 1976-1980 to 2.2% in 1999-2000.

   

• Children With AIDs -  While the number of children under age 13 newly diagnosed with AIDS has continued is dramatic decline since the mid-1990s, the number of new cases among teens has recently surged, to 301 newly diagnosed cases among teens in 2002.

   

• Violent Crime Victimization - Violent crime victimization among youth has declined substantially since the mid 1990s. In 2002, youth ages 12 to 15 were victimized at a rate of 44.4 per 1,000 and youth ages 16 to 19 were victimized at a rate of 58.2 per 1,000. The rates are less than half of what they were as recently as 1994.

   

• Infant and childhood death rates continue to drop

   

• Fewer adolescents are smoking

   

• Fewer children are exposed to secondhand smoke

   

• Fewer adolescent girls are giving birth

   

• More adolescents are taking honors courses.

   

• Children are more likely to be overweight than in previous years

   

• The percentage of children with a parent working full time dropped slightly

   

• The percentage of low birth weight infants increased slightly.

   

• The percentage of children with health insurance

   

• The child poverty rate leveled off

   

• The percentage of children living in married, two-parent families has remained the same

   

• The percentage of children living in households reporting any housing problems has not changed since 1995

   

o        Facts in Brief: Teen sex and Pregnancy – Quick two pages of information about teen sexuality in all contexts. 

• Children in the poorest health missed less school and improved school performance.

   

• The Healthy Families Program improved access to care for its members.

   

• The Healthy Families Program had a positive impact on children with chronic health conditions. 

   

The Healthy Families Program is a state and federally funded health coverage program with children with family incomes above the level eligible for the no cost Medi-Cal insurance program and below 250% of the federal income guidelines. Full report available at the site. 

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Over half of all HIV/AIDS infections are occurring in youth ages 15-24, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.  People under 25 are 38% of the 40 million people with HIV/AIDS worldwide. 

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Depression in children and Adolescents: A Fact Sheet for Physicians

This publication from the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) summarizes some of the latest scientific findings on child and adolescent depression, which may appear very different from depression in adults. According to the fact sheet, the following is a partial list of  some of the signs that may be associated with depression in children and adolescents:

 frequent vague, non-specific physical complaints such as headaches, muscle aches, stomachaches or tiredness. 

frequent absences from school or poor performance in school.

talk of or efforts to runaway from home. 

being bored 

lack of interest in playing with friends 

alcohol or substance abuse 

social isolation, 

The fact sheet includes information on risk factors, treatment, medications, and talking with parents. List of resources too. Six pages, readable and downloadabl

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The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual health and Responsible Sexual Behavior calls for strategies focused on increasing awareness, implementing and strengthening intervention, and expanding the research base relating to sexual health matters.

The report cites three fundamental areas in which strategies could help provide a foundation for promoting sexual health and responsible sexual behavior: increasing awareness, implementing and strengthening interventions, and expanding the research base.

• Recognition that parents are the child’s primary educators and should guide a child’s sexuality education in a way that is consistent with their values and beliefs.
• Recognition that families differ in their level of knowledge and comfort in discussing such issues.
• Making school education a vital component in providing equity of access to information. That information should be thorough and wide-ranging, begin early, and continue throughout the life span.
• Education should recognize the special place that sexuality has in every day life; stress the value and benefits of remaining abstinent until involved in a committed, enduring, and mutually monogamous relationship; and assure awareness of optimal protection from sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

The Call to Action was developed through a collaborative process. In June 1999, Satcher formed a work group charged with finding ways to move forward on promoting sexual health and responsible sexual behaviors. He then commissioned scientific review papers and held two conferences. Each of the conferences were attended by more than 100 people of varying experience, expertise and perspectives - including the academic, religious, policymaking, education, and advocacy communities, as well as parents and youth.

Links to the Report:

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AIDS Among Children and Young People, World Wide and U.S. 

• UNICEF estimates that at least 10 million young people worldwide have HIV/AIDS, about one third of all people infected with the disease. 
• AIDS has orphaned another 13 million. 
• Girls are 50 percent more likely to become infected than boys. 
• In Africa, which has 70 percent of the world’s 34 million HIV-infected people, AIDS has a devastating impact even for those who are not infected. Nearly one million children may have lost teachers to AIDs in 1999 alone. 

UNICEF released a report on AIDS among children in November. Read it at the UNICEF site.

• According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the disease is creating an entire generation of orphans in sub-Sahara Africa. An estimated 11 million black African children have lost one or more parents to AIDS. By 2010, that number is expected to grow to more than 40 million.
• The White House Office on National AIDS Policy has released a report on youth with HIV. According to the report, youth ages 13-24 make up half of the 40,000 new HIV infections reported in the United States each year.  White House Office on National AIDS Policy.

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Sex, Etc.

Sex, Etc. is a sexuality and health newsletter and a web site, both published "by teens for teens." It is produced by the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University.  Sex, Etc. came to be because teens complained that their sex ed classes were "too little, too late," their parents didn't talk to them about sex, and they were left on their own to figure it all out.   Begun in 1994, it now reaches teens in all 50 states and over half a million free copies are distributed three times a year. . Sex, Etc. is distributed in schools, churches, teen pregnancy prevention programs, juvenile justice centers, clinics and other programs around the country. The web site provides a forum for kids to ask questions and includes a number of articles, stories, resources and links. 

If you would like to receive FREE copies of Sex, etc., contact the Network for Family Life Education, email: sxetc@rci.rutgers.edu or write to PO Box 411, Shrub Oak, NY 10588-0411.  The newsletter is published three times during the school year and may be ordered in quantities of 50 up to 1,000 copies per newsletter.  Each issue includes a discussion guide for adults designed to use with the newsletter.