Hispanic-American adults have lower rates of alcohol and illicit drug use than the national averages, a federal government study has found.

The research revealed that 46.1 percent of Hispanic-American adults drink alcohol and 6.6 percent use illicit drugs, compared with national average rates of 55.2 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.

However, Hispanic-American adults have a slightly higher level of binge drinking (26.3 percent versus 24.5 percent) and a slightly higher past-year need for alcohol treatment (8.7 percent versus 8.1 percent), according to a news release from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

However, Hispani ... (Read More)

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act includes restrictions on tobacco products labeled or advertised with the terms "light," "low," "mild" or similar descriptors. This is because many smokers mistakenly believe that these products cause fewer health problems than other cigarettes. ... (Read More)

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Labor today clarified the definition of "son and daughter" under the Family and Medical Leave Act to ensure that an employee who assumes the role of caring for a child receives parental rights to family leave regardless of the legal or biological relationship.

The FMLA allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period to care for loved ones or themselves. The 1993 law also allows employees to take time off for the adoption or the birth of a child. The administrator interpretation issued by Nancy J. Leppink, deputy administrator of the department's Wage and Hour Division, clarifies that these rights, which provide work ... (Read More)

CDF's The State of America's Children 2010, is a compilation of the most recent and reliable national and state-by-state data on poverty, health, child welfare, youth at risk, early childhood development, education, family income and gun violence. The report provides a statistical compendium of key child data showing alarming numbers of children at risk: the number of poor children has increased by 2.5 million since 2000 to 14.1 million, with almost half of them living in extreme poverty, and 8.1 million children lack health coverage―with both numbers likely to increase during the recession.

According to the CDF report, children in America lag behind almost all industrialized nati ... (Read More)

Lawrence, Mass – The Mayor's Health Task Force is joining the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women's Health in celebrating National Women’s Health Week. On Saturday, May 8, 2010, from 8:00am—12:00pm, the Mayor's Health Task Force, in collaboration with the Lawrence Senior Center, and the YWCA of Greater Lawrence, will hold a Women's Health Breakfast, where women in the community will enjoy a delicious and nutritious breakfast, learn about health topics affecting women, and listen to a motivational address by Dr. Maria T. Vivaldi, Staff Cardiologist at the Mass. General Hospital Women’s Heart Health Program and Circle of Red member of the American Heart Asso ... (Read More)

The Department of Public Health has just released "Health of Massachusetts," a very comprehensive, user-friendly report that compiles data from over 50 sources and covers topics such as Community Assets, Mortality, Health Care Access, Health Care Quality, Natality and Early Childhood, Infectious Disease, Wellness and Chronic Disease, Environmental Health, Occupational Health, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use, Unintentional Injury, Suicide and Self Injury, Violence, and Mortality. It also incorporates Health Disparities and policy perspectives throughout. ... (Read More)

The Patrick-Murray Administration today announced that the high school smoking rate dropped to 16% in Massachusetts in 2009. helping the Commonwealth meet the national Healthy People 2010 goal for youth smoking rates. In celebration, 300 young people from across the state, joined by anti-smoking advocates and officials from the Department of Public Health, gathered at the State House for the Commonwealth's first annual "Kick Butts Day" today.

"Our work with young people to stop nicotine and tobacco addiction is paying off," said Governor Patrick. "It's not just our laws restricting youth access to tobacco products, it's also the work of community programs to educate the public on the ... (Read More)

On Wednesday, the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act was officially passed by Congress and will be sent to President Obama to be signed into law.

The PACT Act will:

Require Internet sellers to pay all federal, state, local or Tribal tobacco taxes and affix tax stamps before delivery to any customer;

Mandate that the age and identification of purchasers be checked at purchase and at delivery;

Require Internet vendors to comply with state and local laws as if they were located in the same state as their customers;

Provide federal and state enforcement officials with new tools to block delivery of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products that evade ... (Read More)

Lawrence, MA - Ten nonprofits in Greater Lawrence have joined forces to create The Lawrence Mentoring Consortium (LMC), a collaboration to increase and improve youth mentoring services in the Lawrence community. The Consortium is being launched in January, the beginning of National Mentoring Month. Together, the 10 organizations that form the Consortium support over 1,000 youth and adult mentor matches.

Going forward, The Consortium will serve as an information clearing house for all mentoring activities in Lawrence. "Each mentoring program in the city caters to a specific age group and has specific goals and objectives" said Leah Feroce, Big Friends Little Friends Program Coor ... (Read More)

There are rich resources–decades of research and scholarly articles–documenting health disparities in America and the importance of social determinants of health. But how can we make sure that these findings are well-understood by policy makers?

One objective of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America was to engage public and private sector decision makers. The challenge was how to "translate" the wide-ranging, highly-specific and technical information about social determinants and health disparities into language that would resonate with a diverse group of leaders. ... (Read More)

The Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) Annual Award recognizes exemplary partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions that are striving to achieve the systems and policy changes needed to overcome the root causes of health, social and economic inequalities. The award highlights the power and potential of community-campus partnerships as a strategy for social justice. The 2010 award will be announced and recognized during a ceremony at CCPH's next conference, May 12-15, 2010 in Portland, Oregon.

Partnerships nominate themselves and need not be members of CCPH. Partnerships that have applied in the past but did not receive the award or honora ... (Read More)