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A state lawmaker wants all incoming college students to get an HPV vaccine, as part of a push to drive up vaccination rates and prevent cervical cancer. At least four other states have enacted a similar mandate.
A new graphic novel by Kathleen Founds follows an angst-ridden bear on his quest for mental health treatment. Founds drew on her own experience with bipolar disorder.
Californians will decide Nov. 8 whether to approve a statewide ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes. But the measure, known as Proposition 31, exempts hookah tobacco. Anti-smoking activists criticize the carve-out, calling it the latest example of businesses using identity politics to profit from a deadly product.
As public libraries morph into support hubs for homeless people with mental illness or addiction, librarians are struggling to reconcile their shifting roles.
In carrying out the federal covid-19 鈥渢est-to-treat鈥 initiative, California is targeting the uninsured by outfitting 138 testing sites with screenings for free antiviral drugs. But as of mid-June, fewer than 800 people had been prescribed the medicines. And two-thirds of those undergoing screenings are insured.
People who have lost children to pills laced with fentanyl are demanding that lawmakers adopt stricter penalties and are pressuring Silicon Valley for social media protections. The movement harks back to the 1980s, when Mothers Against Drunk Driving activated a generation of parents.
Alice Wong, a writer and organizer in San Francisco, says the isolation and loss of the pandemic have shown society what it鈥檚 like to be disabled.
For years, women with painful gynecological issues have faced long waits in ERs or longer waits to see their doctors. During the pandemic, women have increasingly turned to women鈥檚 clinics that handle urgent issues like miscarriage or serious urinary tract infections.
Covid-19, distrust of police and cheap narcotics have turned parts of the wealthy city into cesspools of filth and drug overdose. City officials and residents profoundly disagree on what needs to be done.
Retirement areas are increasingly being built in the idyllic wooded fringe of towns and cities. Being close to nature also means being in the path of wildfires.
Midwifery was a tradition among slaves from Africa, but in more recent decades, pregnant Black women have generally shunned the approach. Now, home births and midwives are making a comeback in the Black community.
The pandemic is racing through packed apartment blocks as Mexican and Central American workers bring the virus home to their families.
Health clinics in isolated African American communities in the San Francisco Bay Area provide crucial services to neglected populations. But like thousands of other community clinics around the nation, their finances have been wrecked by the pandemic shutdown.
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