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Washington Post: Poverty Rate Held Steady Last Year, Census Says
August 27, 2008
The nation's poverty rate held steady as median household income edged upward last year, according to annual census data released yesterday. The number of children in poverty increased by 500,000 to 13.3 million.
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Washington Post: Healthy Lunches Help Kids' Concentration in School
August 25, 2008
Healthy foods should be included on the list of back-to-school supplies for your children, says a University of Michigan Health System expert.
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Washington Post: For Many Kids, There's No Free Lunch in Summer
August 19, 2008
In the 2006-2007 school year, 16.3 million children benefited from free or reduced-price lunches through the National School Lunch Program. But what happens when schools let out for the summer? The hunger does not end for many of these kids, but their access to free lunches does.
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New York Times : Patterns: In Older Neighborhoods, Less Weight Gain
August 5, 2008
Can where you live play a role in how much you weigh? A new study finds that it can, and reports that people who live in older neighborhoods appear less likely to be overweight.
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Los Angeles Times: Council bans new fast-food outlets in South L.A.
July 30, 2008
The one-year moratorium, proposed by Councilwoman Jan Perry, is aimed at attracting restaurants serving healthier fare to the area, where a study found 30% of children are obese.
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MSNBC: Heavy? Your neighborhood may be to blame
July 29, 2008
It could be your neighborhood that's making you fat — or keeping you slender.
A new study found that the year your neighborhood was built may be just as important as diet and exercise for shedding pounds.
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Wall Street Journal: Exiling the Happy Meal
July 22, 2008
Despite its health-crazy reputation, parts of Los Angeles are plagued by obesity rates that rival any city in America. Now, the city may join a growing roster of local governments aiming to put their residents on diets by cracking down on the fast-food industry.
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Associated Press: Report: Invest $10 a Person for Better Health
July 18, 2008
Investing just $10 per person — roughly the price of a six-pack of beer and some chips — could greatly fuel community programs that get couch potatoes moving, prevent smoking and improve nutrition, researchers say.
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Washington Post: L.A. Official Wants a Change of Menu
July 13, 2008
Citing alarming rates of childhood obesity and a poverty of healthful eating choices, a city councilwoman is pushing for a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South-Central Los Angeles.
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The Baltimore Sun: An Uphill Nutrition Fight
July 11, 2008
Johns Hopkins University's attempt to get better food into inner city runs into difficulties, including customer resistance.
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USA TODAY: CDC Campaign Hopes to Make USA Healthier Nation
July 9, 2008
Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wants to get this message out to Americans:
Health care isn't only what takes place in a doctor's office, a clinic or a hospital.
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New York Times: Diabetes Cases Increase 15 Percent In 2 Years
June 30, 2008
The number of Americans with diabetes increased by 15 percent in two years to 24 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 8 percent of the population now has the disease, mainly Type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity and sedentary living, the agency said in a report using data from 2007.
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Chicago Tribune: New York to Issue Licenses for 500 Veggie-Only Food Carts
June 29, 2008
In an effort to get New Yorkers to eat better, the city is preparing to issue licenses for 500 food carts that will be allowed to sell only fresh fruit and vegetables. The carts, which are expected to start appearing on the streets later this summer, are restricted to low-income areas that have the fewest sources of fresh produce in the city.
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HealthDay: Education, Income Affect Heart Attack Survival Rates
June 25, 2008
Being well-off and well-educated may improve your chances of surviving a heart attack, according to new report.
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Los Angeles Times: Education level makes a difference in your BMI
June 2, 2008
When it comes to a healthy body weight, education matters.
Highly educated men and women in the U.S. have a lower average body mass index than their less-educated counterparts, according to a new comparison of international data. Conversely, highly educated men and women in poor countries where malnutrition is prevalent tend to have a higher BMI than less-educated people.
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Washington Post: Obesity Threatens a Generation; 'Catastrophe' of Shorter Spans, Higher Health Costs
May 21, 2008
With one in three children in this country overweight or worse, the future health and productivity of an entire generation -- and a nation -- could be in jeopardy.
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Washington Post: The Less the Education, the Higher the Risk of Dying Early
May 14, 2008
The difference in death rates between highly educated and poorly educated people in the United States is very wide and growing wider, according to new research.
For Americans with less than a high school education, the risk of dying prematurely is on the increase -- rising most quickly for white women in that category. In contrast, the risk of premature death among college graduates is falling -- fastest of all for black men.
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LA Times: UCLA Study Links Poor Health to Fast-Food Neighbors
April 29, 2008
Higher rates of diabetes and obesity occur in neighborhoods -- regardless of the residents' income, race or ethnicity -- where fast-food restaurants and convenience stores greatly outnumber grocery stores and produce vendors, according to a statewide study released today.
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New York Times: Counting Birthdays: The Short End of the Longer Life
April 27, 2008
Throughout the 20th century, it was an American birthright that each generation would live longer than the last. Year after year, almost without exception, the anticipated life span of the average American rose inexorably, to 78 years in 2005 from 61 years in 1933, when comprehensive data first became available.
But new research shows that those reassuring nationwide gains mask a darker and more complex reality. A pair of reports out this month affirm that the rising tide of American health is not lifting all boats, and that there are widening gaps in life expectancy based on the interwoven variables of income, race, sex, education and geography.
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USA TODAY: Life Spans Decline in Some U.S. Areas
April 22, 2008
While most Americans enjoyed a clear jump in life expectancy from 1960 to 2000, a startling number — especially women — living primarily in the Deep South and in Appalachia actually saw a drop in life spans beginning in 1983, says a study that came out Monday.
In sum, where you live makes a difference in how long you can expect to live.
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Florida Times-Union: Bad Food, Not Just Hunger, Is Literally Killing The Poor
April 16, 2008
According to the Duval County Health Department study, "Place Matters," people who live in the urban core are more likely to die from heart disease and diabetes - maladies that are directly related to diet and lack of access to foods that don't cause high blood pressure and obesity.
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Newsweek: What's Race Got To Do With It?
April 11, 2008
We're all the products of our environment and our genes. But when it comes to health, which factor is the trump card? Would a woman with a family propensity for ovarian cancer avoid coming down with the disease if she were raised on a macrobiotic diet in pollution-free rural North Dakota? Or on the flip side, could a white woman adopted from a middle-class family in Idaho into a poor Hispanic family in New York suddenly become vulnerable to diabetes or asthma?
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San Francisco Chronicle: PBS to air study on link between money, health
March 27, 2008
Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, a four-part PBS series that explores why social factors - economic status, race, neighborhood conditions - can be more powerful predictors of health and life expectancy than biology or even some behaviors such as smoking.
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USA Today: Can Wealth Affect Health
March 24, 2008
Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? concludes that, contrary to popular belief, your health is not just the sum of your genes, your health habits and the quality of your health insurance plan. Your income, education and race matter; so does your address, your job title and the status your parents had when you were small.
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New York Times: Gap in Life Expectancy Widens for the Nation
March 23, 2008
New government research has found “large and growing” disparities in life expectancy for richer and poorer Americans, paralleling the growth of income inequality in the last two decades.
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Brownsville Herald: Study: McAllen Area Hispanic Children Have Fewer Opportunities
March 11, 2008
In the March/April issue of the journal Health Affairs, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health conclude that the McAllen metropolitan area is one of the five worst regions of the country in its proportion of Latino children who live in "low-opportunity" neighborhoods compared to white children.
Low-opportunity neighborhoods tend to have fewer grocery stores with fresh produce, poorer schools, fewer parks and playgrounds and higher crime rates than high-opportunity neighborhoods, said lead researcher Dolores Acevedo-Garcia. Those factors contribute to children's overall health as they grow up, she said.
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Washington Post: Life Expectancy Tied to Education
March 11, 2008
Life expectancy in the United States is on the increase, but only among people with more than 12 years of education, a new study finds.
In fact, those with more than 12 years of education -- more than a high school diploma -- can expect to live to 82; for those with 12 or fewer years of education, life expectancy is 75.
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Associated Press: New Report Details Health Challenges Facing Urban Indians
March 5, 2008
Rich or poor, American Indians in cities across the country are facing startling health challenges unlike those of any other urban population, according to a new study of federal data.
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New York Times : Council Vote for Good Health May Weaken Business at Groceries in Poor Neighborhoods
February 28, 2008
They are fixtures of New York City life: sidewalk peddlers and the grocers who try to shoo them away from their storefronts. The City Council grudgingly added to that time-honored clash on Wednesday, approving a bill that will increase the number of fruit and vegetable carts in the city’s poor neighborhoods.
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Washington Post: Very Premature Babies Don't Get Follow-Up Care
February 13, 2008
A groundbreaking study reports that most very low birth-weight babies born to low-income women failed to get critical follow-up care within their first two years of life.
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