IN THIS EDITION:
Strengthening the safety net:
Community health centers
form  partnerships to 
increase capacity,  improve service

Policy brief looks at centers in four U.S. regions, including Los Angeles


Community health centers, the leading providers of primary health care to the nation's poor and uninsured populations, need strong partnerships and effective strategies to strengthen the current health care safety net, and to prepare for what may happen in the future, according to a new policy brief by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
iStock.com/Jacob Ammentorp Lund

The brief looks at a selection of Federally Qualified Health Centers, referred to as Community Health Centers, in Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and New York State that collaborate with other regional centers, local hospitals and health departments to improve and expand care, or work with legislators and advocacy groups to push for changes in health policy.

Three questions for the expert
Young      

Maria-Elena Young: "CHCs and their patients [should not be] thrown under the bus to fund tax breaks for the wealthy."

Maria-Elena Young is a graduate student researcher at the Center and lead author of a new policy brief about how Community Health Centers (CHCs) formed partnerships to expand coverage to the uninsured.

CHCs are the main providers of health care to 25 million low-income and uninsured people in the US. 
In this brief interview, Young discusses how partnerships increased CHCs' capacity to serve their patients and how ongoing attempts to repeal and replace the ACA may undermine these efforts.
Noon seminar today!
  "Partnership Strategies of Community Health Centers:
Building Capacity in Good Times and Bad"
Community Health Centers (CHCs) serve as critical safety net providers to those who are uninsured or who may become uninsured. In today's livestreamed July 31 seminar from noon to 1:00 p.m. PDT, Center Associate Director  Steven P. Wallace  and Graduate Student  Researcher  Maria-Elena Young  will discuss findings from a  new study  on these centers' efforts to serve the remaining uninsured. 
Wallace and Young
Wallace and Young

Specifically, the study looked at strategies undertaken by CHCs in four states that reinforce the local safety net through partnerships, improvements to the local health system, and advocacy.


With the uncertainties ahead about whether Medicaid expansion will be continued or be handed over to the states with limited oversight, partnerships both among CHCs and with others in the health care system and beyond may become even more important. 
New AskCHIS© online training videos 
The Center's newest product, the AskCHIS© On-Demand Learning Center, has online video tutorials for both AskCHIS and AskCHIS Neighborhood Edition©, the health data reporting systems of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). The video "guides" are presented in 10-minute-or-less segments and are designed for those who have no experience with conducting a query as well as those who want to brush up on their search skills. Examples of some guides include: 


  • Painting a picture with data
  • How to report findings from AskCHIS
  • Understanding average mean and confidence intervals

The 24/7 access allows users to learn at their own pace and focus on their own data needs, said Peggy Toy, director of the Center's Health DATA program.   
Save the date!  August 22     
"Parks After Dark: How Los Angeles
Transformed Recreational Public Spaces"

Pourat
Parks After Dark (PAD) is a Los Angeles County program that began in 2010 as the prevention strategy for communities with higher rates of violence, economic hardship, and rates of obesity. The Center was the evaluator of this innovative program, in which PAD parks stayed open late on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings in the summer months to offer a variety of safe, free recreational and cultural activities for people of all ages.

What started as a program in three parks has grown to 21 parks throughout Los Angeles County.
Please join us at this August 22 seminar to hear lead evaluator Nadereh Pourat, director of the Center's Health Economics and Evaluation Research Program, talk about how the Parks After Dark Program evolved into a key County strategy to promote health, safety, equity, and community well-being.

Please note: Seminar will be 2:00-3:00 p.m. PDT. on Aug. 22.  

What:   

"Parks After Dark: How Los Angeles Transformed

Recreational Public Spaces"


When:    

Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017 

2:00-3:00 p.m. PDT [PLEASE NOTE SPECIAL TIME!]


Where:   

UCLA Center for Health Policy Research

10960 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1550

Los Angeles, CA 90024 [Map]
Pet owners, kids healthier, but
not necessarily because of Spot
Are you healthier because of your pet? Not necessarily, according to a RAND study co-authored by the Center's Susan Babey that analyzed differences between pet owners and nonpet owners. Another upcoming report by Babey featured in Psychology Today found the same result for children ages 5 to 11: Children who live in homes with pets have better rates of health, but it may not be because they have a pet. 
iStock.com/Maria Sbytova
Both papers were based on California Health Interview Survey data.

"Those of us with pets were a little disappointed," said Babey, co-director of the Center's Chronic Disease Program, who has a cat and a dog. "An upside is that we found no difference in asthma rates between children with pets and those without pets. But it doesn't prove that having a pet makes you healthier."
CHIS 2015 data revision
In connection with our review of the 2016 CHIS data, we are releasing revised weights for the 2015 CHIS data.  We have removed the CHIS 2015 data from our online dissemination platforms while we make these updates, and expect to release the revised data in mid-August. The survey weight revisions should not measurably affect the percentage distributions of most CHIS indicators and is only applicable to the CHIS 2015 data, with higher impacts on teen and child estimates compared to adult estimates. More information on the revisions can be found in the CHIS forum.
 
CHIS will rerun all affected projects produced with CHIS 2015 data through our Data Access Center, at no cost to the researcher. Please feel free to contact the Data Access Center (dacchpr@ucla.edu) to obtain additional information about the change in the 2015 weighted population estimates. 
In the media
Center data and researchers were featured this month in dozens of media stories: The Los Angeles Times, CBS-LA, New Republic, Psychology Today, California Health Report, Sacramento Bee, US News & World Report, Public Health and more.

See all of our media hits in the Newsroom.
Center Director Gerald Kominski was a panelist on CNN International the night of the Senate health bill's dramatic rejection and discussed it, the ACA, and universal health care.

CBS-LA also featured Kominski in a broadcast about what would happen in California if the ACA remained in place. 

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Kominski on a Senate health bill proposal: "The new Republican plan has gone from horrible to absolutely awful. The first version guts Medicaid, and now this version does the same for exchange marketplaces. Republicans should be ashamed.
POLITIFACT: Regarding Rep. Kevin McCarthy's claim that more people got exemptions or paid ACA penalties than gained coverage under the ACA, Center Director Gerald Kominski said, "It’s a false statement." He said McCarthy didn't include the 14 million people who gained coverage under the ACA's Medicaid expansion.
[Stephen Bures] © 123RF.com 
PUBLIC HEALTH: Associate Center Director  Ninez Ponce  said that policy can improve nutrition among the poorest members of society: "The minimum wage is one policy lever that can help to protect children in the poorest families against malnutrition, which is a factor in approximately 45 percent of child deaths worldwide." 
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT, CALIFORNIA HEALTHLINE: Data from California Health Interview Survey was cited in a story about diesel trucks being exempt from new emission-reduction standards.
News and notes
RCMAR, IAGG: Associate Center Director Steven P. Wallace, Center Faculty Associates Janet Frank and Nina Harawa, and Community Relations Manager Porsche McGinnis, organized and/or presented at the Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMAR) workshop at the IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics July 23. Wallace, Frank and Center Research Scientist Kathryn Kietzman also presented at regular sessions at the IAGG in San Francisco July 24-28. Wallace also spoke July 27 on poverty and aging at a Northern California Grantmakers funder briefing. 
MIGRATION, DIVERSITY: Wallace also presented June 26 at The Health Initiative of the America's Summer Institute on Migration and Global Health in Los Angeles and co-presented at the NIH/NIGMS Training, Workforce Development, & Diversity Annual Meeting in Baltimore in June.
UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES: Professors from the University of the Philippines Manilla, visited the  Center  July 24-28 to develop with the  UCLA Fielding School of Public Health  a pilot program to co-teach an online course, "Global Health: Frameworks, Policy and Practice and Health Economics: Low and Middle Income Countries Perspective." Students at each institution will be able to work together in class and on assignments. 

From left to right: Emerito Jose Faraon, Ronald Del Castillo, Fernando Garcia, Ninez Ponce and AJ Scheitler discuss the global online course.
UCLA participants included Associate  Center  Director  Ninez Ponce , Center Stakeholder Relations Coordinator  AJ Scheitler , Center Faculty Associates  Jack Needleman ,  Corinna Moucheraud  and  James Macinko , and Fielding School professor Laura Erskine. 

UNIVERSITY OF IHEA: Ponce and Center Public Administration Analyst Riti Shimkhada presented at the International Health Economics Association in Boston on July 10.
ESRA CONFERENCE: CHIS Director Todd Hughes attended the European Survey Research Association Conference July 17-21 In Lisbon, Portugal.

NCHCMM: Smokefree Apartments Los Angeles' abstract submission to the National Health Communications, Media and Marketing Conference focusing on the project's smoke-free media campaign has been accepted for a poster presentation at the August 15-17 event. The project is a finalist for the conference's Berreth Awards for Excellence in Public Health Communication.
ACA REPEAL & REPLACE UPDATES: Find current news on the Affordable Care Act's repeal, replacement or redesign in the Center's ACA updates page.
About us
One of the nation's leading health policy research centers and the premier source of health-related information on Californians. Browse our free publications on health insurance, health care reform, health economics, chronic disease, health disparities and more: www.healthpolicy.ucla.edu

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CHIS is the nation's largest state health survey and one of the largest health surveys in the United States. Each year, CHIS interviews up to 50,000 or more Californians on a range of health topics. Visit us at healthpolicy.ucla.edu/chis
 
A free, easy-to-use online tool that enables journalists, health experts, policymakers and others to quickly search for health statistics on their county, region or statewide. Visit us at www.askchis.com.