For doctors, sometimes less is more

Patients generally come to the doctor’s office expecting that their doctor will do stuff. And, doctors often feel a sense of satisfaction the more they can do for their patients. Psychologically, it makes sense: as doctors, we feel a sense of purpose by providing, measuring, injecting, prescribing, cutting, and ordering. We want to help set our patients down a healthier pathway, which often requires change in their current status; naturally, we respond to this call to duty to promote change by doing, doing, doing. But is all this doing really necessary?

Boyle Heights gets grant to explore ‘Children’s Zone’ program

The community of Boyle Heights has been selected for a federal grant that could lead to $1 million or more to improve education in the area by focusing intensely on children’s needs from the time they are born until they graduate from high school. The idea, tried most famously in New York City’s Harlem Children’s Zone, is to give kids all the support they need – inside and outside of school – to succeed academically.

A beach town moves to a wellness beat

Can a city redefine itself through health and wellness? Long Beach wants to try, and its residents are the reason. The city is the voice of the people, and the people want pedestrian-friendly streets, bicycle lanes, grocery stores and cooking seminars. Wellness doesn’t come cheap, but Long Beach is hoping its ambitious portfolio of grants and innovative programs will attract new funders eager to participate in this urban laboratory that recently hired its own Bike Ambassador, Olympic cyclist Tony Cruz.

A city learns to market wellness

The city of El Monte sponsors a walking club and is working with local convenience stores to stock more healthy alternatives to junk food and alcohol. The efforts are part of the Healthy El Monte initiative, which seeks to combat high rates of obesity and diabetes in a city of 125,000 sandwiched between major freeways and industrial sites. Margaret Simpson has the story.

Schwarzenegger condemned for cutting nearly $1 billion from budget

Democratic lawmakers and advocates for the poor harshly criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over the weekend after he vetoed nearly $1 billion from the state budget, much of it from programs intended to aid low-income families. Schwarzenegger sliced $962 million from the spending plan sent to him by the Legislature 100 days after the start of the fiscal year July 1.

In final budget, Schwarzenegger wins pension change he pushed seven years ago

Seven years after he first proposed it, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week finally achieved his goal of rolling back most state worker pensions to levels that existed before lawmakers, relying on the fruits of a booming 1990s stock market, boosted benefits with a bill they passed in 1999. The change has been one of Schwarzenegger’s goals since the day he took office.

ARB chair, construction industry, announce deal on diesel emissions

California’s top air quality regulator and the head of a major construction industry trade group announced Thursday that they have reached agreement on a plan to reduce diesel emissions from construction equipment. The agreement, if approved by the full Air Resources Board in December, would end years of dispute between the board and the Associated General Contractors of America, which has fought California’s diesel emission regulations for construction equipment since they were adopted in 2007.

Fostering health, hope and opportunity

Health isn’t just about the doctor’s office. For all of us, but especially for a young person, health begins in our community. That truth was echoed throughout a two-day national town hall in Los Angeles to address the health disparities facing boys and young men of color. Community leaders and experts from across California and the nation convened because a growing body of research shows that the health of boys of color stems from their neighborhoods, their schools, their environments.

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