English

In this article, we comment on the experience of the Kovler Center Child Trauma Program (KCCTP) following the March 21, 2020, shelter at home order in Chicago due to COVID-19. The KCCTP is a program of Heartland Alliance International that was founded in 2018 to provide community-based mental health and social services to immigrant and refugee youth and families who have experienced trauma. COVID-19 temporarily closed the doors of the center, suspending provision of in-person services in the community, and the program was forced to become remote overnight.

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly impacted and devastated the world. As the infectionspreads, the projected mortality and economic devastation are unprecedented. In particular, racial and ethnic minorities may be ata particular disadvantage as many already assume the status of a marginalized group. Black Americans have a long-standinghistory of disadvantage and are in a vulnerable position to experience the impact of this crisis and the myth of Black immunity toCOVID-19 is detrimental to promoting and maintaining preventative measures.

As the world struggles with the rapidly evolving pandemic of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), evidence and experience suggest that low-income and marginalized communities in our global society will bear the biggest impact. Weknow this because, with our colleagues in Boston, Haiti, Uganda, and Sierra Leone, we have worked in under-resourced, overstretched, and overwhelmed health systems for our whole careers.

The current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is again reminding us of the importance of using telehealth to deliver care, especially as means of reducing the risk of cross-contamination caused by close contact. For telehealth to be effective as part of an emergency response it first needs to become a routinely used part of our health system. Hence, it is time to step back and ask why telehealth is not mainstreamed. In this article, we highlight key requirements for this to occur.

As it confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, the US faces what could be its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. A successful government response to the economic consequences of the pandemic is critical for sustaining families’ health and well-being and allowing families to remain housed as major sectors of the economy remain closed. The success of this response will partly depend on its effectiveness in reaching the families hardest hit by the loss of jobs and incomes.

This article explores the growth in popularity and reliance on telemedicine in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. No telemedicine program can be created overnight, but U.S. health systems that have already implemented telemedical innovations have been able to leverage them for the response to Covid-19. More than 50 U.S. health systems already have such programs. Jefferson Health, Mount Sinai, Kaiser Permanente, Cleveland Clinic, and Providence, for example, all leverage telehealth technology to allow clinicians to see patients who are at home.

The US opioid crisis is the public health emergency of our time and requires urgent public health action to monitor and protect the most vulnerable Americans. We have witnessed a startling death toll in 2017 with 70 237 drug overdose deaths in the United States, of which two-thirds involved opioids. The devastating consequences of this epidemic for mothers and infants have received less attention.

This study examines the labor market and economic consequences of the opioid crisis. While previous studies have estimated economic costs of the opioid epidemic, none has taken into account the most significant way opioid dependency is likely impacting the U.S. economy: its impact on labor force participation. This study measures the direct cost on the economy of opioids leading workers out of the labor force. Specifically, it estimates the number of workers who are absent from the labor force due to opioids, the loss of hours at work, and the resulting decline in real output. It finds: 

Children whose parents or caregivers use drugs or alcohol are at increased risk of short- and long-term sequelae ranging from medical problems to psychosocial and behavioral challenges. In the course of providing health care services to children, pediatricians are likely to encounter families affected by parental substance use and are in a unique position to intervene. Therefore, pediatricians need to know how to assess a child’s risk in the context of a parent’s substance use.