The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) this week released a report, “Taxation of Sugary Drinks,” which examines the purpose of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes and key design decisions for the Legislature to consider. Recall, AB 1838 was a budget trailer bill that was passed and signed into law in June 2018 that bans the ability…
Read More »This week, researchers at UCLA and UC Berkeley released a new study that projects hundreds of thousands more Californians could become uninsured due to federal changes to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate penalty. Recall, the ACA’s individual insurance coverage mandate tax penalty will be repealed beginning in 2019 as part of the sweeping…
Read More »The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) this week released three mortality reports, finding that life expectancy declined for the third consecutive year in 2017. Contributing to the declining life expectancy was an additional 70,000 deaths from overdoses and a 3.7 percent increase in the suicide rate….
Read More »Last week, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and its 13 federal member agencies released the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) which assesses the science of climate change and its impacts across the United States. The comprehensive and extensive report examines 12 different national topic areas on which climate change will have significant impacts,…
Read More »The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) on Wednesday published its report, “The 2019-20 Budget: California’s Fiscal Outlook,” which assesses the status of the state’s budget in anticipation of upcoming state budget process. The report finds that the state budget “is in remarkably good shape” and, using its revenues and spending estimates, determines the state’s constitutional…
Read More »The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) this week released its 2018 Forces of Change Report which details the impact of the economy, public health investments, and other forces that have impacted LHDs throughout the country. This year’s report indicated that the economic situation is slowly improving for many LHDs, though one…
Read More »The California Senate Office of Research, the nonpartisan office charged with serving the research needs of the California State Senate, issued a paper on Monday titled, “The Public Health Impacts of Climate Change in California.” The report was prepared at the request of Senator Ricardo Lara and compiles a number of notable sources of international,…
Read More »This week, the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) issued a guide detailing access options for stakeholders can find or purchase naloxone for their organizations. The two-page chart includes access for local health departments, behavioral health departments, first responders, Medi-Cal beneficiaries, and others. Included in the guide is information on the Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) Expansion Project…
Read More »The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) recently released its long-awaited report, “Rethinking the 1991 Realignment,” which examines the impacts of recent changes to 1991 Realignment, including the impact of the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Maintenance of Effort (MOE) agreement that was reached in 2017. The report details the history of 1991 Realignment, discusses increased program…
Read More »The 2018-19 California County Scorecard of Children’s Well-Being was released this week. The report, published by Children Now, is an interactive report that details a comprehensive snapshot of how children are faring in each of California’s 58 counties over time and by race and ethnicity. The scorecard features indicators across four domains of health, education,…
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