Study reveals extent of pandemic-related hardship among Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders
Accessing health care, including mental health services, became much tougher for California ’s Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to areport published today by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and colleagues at UC Riverside.Those obstacles, the report reveals, were closely tied to other pandemic-related difficulties affecting the AANHPI community, including growing economic hardship and a lack of access to quality affordable housing, food and education. The findings are drawn from data in UCLA ’s California Health Interview Surveys for 2018 through ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - February 8, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Study finds parents receiving financial coaching were more likely to bring infants to well-child care visits
Parents of infants who received financial coaching in a pediatric primary care setting were much less likely to miss well-child care visits for the first six months of life, according to new UCLA-led research.The study, published in Pediatrics, followed 81 parent–infant pairs; most of the parents were mothers. The researchers also found that parents who received the coaching were significantly more likely than those who did not receive coaching to have their children vaccinated according to the recommended s chedule.Poverty-related social needs and other measures of patients ’ financial hardship are among the mos...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - February 3, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
In memoriam: Henry Cherrick, 84, former dental school dean and oral pathologist
Dr. Henry Cherrick, a professor of oral pathology who served as dean of theUCLA School of Dentistry from 1988 to 1995, died on Jan. 24, in Davie, Florida. He was 84.Cherrick ’s affiliation with UCLA spanned two different terms. Arriving at the dental school as assistant professor of oral pathology in 1971, he was promoted to associate professor two years later and then to full professor in 1977. That year, he was honored with the UCLA Alumni Association’s Distinguis hed Teaching Award.Leaving Westwood in 1978 to serve as dean of the Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine, he was appointed to the same ti...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - February 3, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
In memoriam: Henry Cherrick, former school of dentistry dean and oral pathologist
Dr. Henry Cherrick, a professor of oral pathology who served as dean of theUCLA School of Dentistry from 1988 to 1995, died on Jan. 24, in Davie, Florida. He was 84.Cherrick ’s affiliation with UCLA spanned two different terms. Arriving at the dental school as assistant professor of oral pathology in 1971, he was promoted to associate professor two years later and then to full professor in 1977. That year, he was honored with the UCLA Alumni Association’s Distinguis hed Teaching Award.Leaving Westwood in 1978 to serve as dean of the Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine, he was appointed to the same ti...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 31, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
New UCLA center promotes reproductive science and sexual health
A new center at UCLA will bring together students, scientists, educators and physicians across a wide range of disciplines to support research and education initiatives designed to improve human reproductive health, promote healthy families and to advance the well-being of society.The UCLA Center for Reproductive Science, Health and Education aims to fill a void in reproductive health knowledge while developing new technologies to improve reproductive health for all. The center’s inaugural director is Amander Clark, a UCLA professor, stem cell biologist and an expert in the field of reproductive sciences.While reprod...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 30, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Native American ‘deaths of despair’ are overlooked in health policy discussion
An increase in mortality among middle-aged Americans — largely attributed to “deaths of despair” from suicide, drug overdoses and alcoholic liver disease — has been frequently portrayed as a phenomenon affecting white communities. Under a common narrative, these deaths have often been explained by the perceived loss of status felt by many les s-educated white Americans as their economic opportunities declined and their social standing diminished.However,a new analysis led by UCLA researchers and published in the Lancet shows that Native American people aged 45 to 54 actually have had the biggest increases in mor...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 27, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Under COVID-era stay-at-home orders, household conflicts had direct link to poor mental health
Key takeawaysCalifornia adults who had financial or child care difficulties due to COVID-19 in 2020 experienced an increase in household conflict during the statewide stay-at-home orders.Overall, 12% of adults in a UCLA survey reported experiencing serious psychological distress and 11% reported moderate psychological distress during 2020. But the incidence of serious distress was much greater among those who said they also experienced an increase in physical confrontations.The findings suggest state policymakers must continue to address the mental health impact of the pandemic, including by removing barriers to mental h...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 26, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Telehealth, key part of pandemic-era care, should be more accessible for more patients
This study is timely because in July 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to extend Medicare reimbursements for telehealth visits through the end of 2024, and the U.S. Senate is currently considering legislation that would direct more funding for telehealth visits to Medicare beneficiaries.Improving how telehealth services are deployed could help address the longstanding inequities in access to and use of health care services that communities of color have faced, saidArturo Vargas Bustamante, a professor of health policy and management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and director of faculty ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 24, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Tiny implantable device designed by UCLA scientists helps kill cancer
Many solid tumors resist treatment in part by turning human biology against itself. Tumors surround themselves with extra white blood cells known as regulatory T cells, which call off the body ’s natural defenses against the disease.Strategies to treat cancer by deactivating these cells risk creating other serious problems. Since regulatory T cells play an important role in safeguarding healthy tissues, diminishing them throughout the body can lead to other immune cells mistakenly attacking these tissues and causing autoimmune conditions that damage the colon, liver, heart and other organs.Now, an interdisciplinary UCLA ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - January 4, 2023 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA-developed soft brain probe could be a boon for depression research
Key takeawaysUCLA chemists ’ new probe is outfitted with biosensors designed to track specific neurotransmitters like serotonin.The probe is flexible enough to monitor the brains of research subjects as they move and perform everyday activities.The ability to continuously measure neurotransmitters would improve our understanding of how these chemicals affect psychological states.Anyone familiar with antidepressants like Prozac or Wellbutrin knows that these drugs boost levels of neurotransmitters in the brain like serotonin and dopamine, which are known to play an important role in mood and behavior.It might come as a su...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 16, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
2022 reflections: Milestones and achievements that made a difference
As we prepare to usher in 2023, let ’s take a moment to look back on 2022, another year in which UCLA and the people who make it come to life made us proud as they excelled in their fields, surprised with their originality, provided comfort in our grief, helped us more clearly make sense of a confusing and, at times, troubling wor ld, and added to our collective knowledge.This year, our annual year-in-review list is divided into categories that highlight just some of the many Bruins who embody our most important values.UCLA expands access and growsFulfilling a long-held aspiration, UCLA became thefirst University of ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 16, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Homelessness is linked to a higher risk of death from COVID in L.A. County
People experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County who contract COVID-19 are more than twice as likely to die than someone in the general population, according to new study by researchers from UCLA, the University of Southern California and Los Angeles County.The study, published in JAMA Network Open this month, suggests that homelessness is a unique risk factor for COVID-related deaths and that the likely cause is the vulnerability brought on by accelerated aging among the homeless, the researchers said.“Excess risk of mortality for people experiencing homelessness, versus the general population, was observed across...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 16, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
UCLA report finds abortion bans have outsized impact on Latinas
Key takeawaysThe U.S. states with the highest growth rates of Latinas of childbearing age in recent years are also states that have abortion restrictions.In each of the 29 states with abortion restrictions, Latinas are far more likely to be of childbearing age than non-Hispanic white women.The potentially harmful impacts of the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling are likely to disproportionately affect the Latina population.Nearly half of childbearing-age Latinas in the U.S. currently live in states that ban or restrict abortions, UCLA researchers report, and the percentage of Latinas of childbearing age in each of those states is s...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 13, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Wearable sensor could guide precision drug dosing
Key takeawaysVariations in how different people ’s bodies react to medicine mean that someantibiotics and anticancer drugs have to be dosed carefully to avoid serious side effects.A new wearable device continuously and painlessly measures the actual amount of medicine taken in by assessing fluid between cells underneath the skin.In studies in rats, the sensor accurately measured drug levels and could predict how much medication is effectively delivered to the animal ’s bloodstream.For some of the powerful drugs used to fight infection and cancer, there ’s only a small difference between a healing dose and a dose that...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 7, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
People with long COVID, those with other illnesses experiencing similar lingering effects
People who have long COVID-19 can experience many of the same lingering negative effects on their physical, mental and social well-being as those experienced by people who become ill with other, non-COVID illnesses, new research suggests.The findings, which were published in JAMA Network Open, are based on a comparison of people known to have been infected with COVID-19 with individuals with similar symptoms who tested negative for COVID. The researchers found that 40% of the COVID-positive and 54% of the COVID-negative group reported moderate to severe residual sy mptoms three months after enrolling in the study.“Man...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 3, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
