Public Health Institute

THIS FRIDAY: Join PHI’s Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) January 22nd, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM PST for the second webinar in our Winter webinar series, Telehealth Policy & COVID-19. Find out how Medicaid agencies support and engage Medicaid providers as they pivot to telehealth delivery and hear from high-level administrators and policy staff from North Carolina Medicaid, the Nevada Division of Health Care Financing and Policy and Ohio Medicaid. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us//register/WN_LmezDjdTR2KKRzk9y-e8Dw

PHI's Tracing Health contact tracers always connected those in isolation with resources like food and rent money. Now they are among the first in the country to receive training to identify and support those with mental health crises, too.

More than 200 million Americans may be drinking water contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and new studies show that exposure could lead to potential health conditions, as well as susceptibility to COVID-19. Scientists are calling for action to limit the use of PFAs so that these chemicals stay out of drinking water.

According to a recent study in the journal, Nature Climate Change, baked-in carbon pollution that is already present in the air will increase global temperatures to about 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit). This amount of warming is higher than anticipated, and is enough to surpass international agreed upon goals to mitigate climate change.

COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted health care workers of color, where they are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to test positive for the virus. In addition to concerns over insufficient PPE, health care workers of color are more likely to work in nursing homes and treat patients that have been diagnosed with COVID-19. We were disproportionately affected because of the way that Blacks and Latinos in this country have been disproportionately affected across every [part of] our lives from schools to jobs to homes, says New Jersey emergency room nurse Maritza Beniquez.