A BILL OVERHAULING the state’s fractured public health system appears to have become a casualty of the last-minute legislative rush to pass bills in the final days of the legislative session. Gov. Charlie Baker returned the bill to the Legislature with an amendment on Monday night. By Tuesday, public health advocates and lawmakers had come […]
public health
Posted inUncategorized
No more Band-Aids on broken public health system
WE KNOW MASSACHUSETTS has a broken local public health system because our organizations represent the thousands of health directors, board of health members, public health nurses, and other staff and volunteers who have been on the front lines throughout the pandemic. Over the past 18 months, our members have been working overtime and then some […]
Posted inHealth Care
Monica Bharel, realistic optimist
MONICA BHAREL, the state’s public health commissioner, is definitely a glass-half-full type of person. On the Health or Consequences edition of the Codcast with Paul Hattis of Tufts University Medical School and John McDonough of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Bharel went through a series of major challenges facing her agency and in […]
Posted inThe Download
Monica Bharel, realistic optimist
Monica Bharel, the state’s public health commissioner, is definitely a glass-half-full type of person. On the Health or Consequences edition of the Codcast with Paul Hattis of Tufts University Medical School and John McDonough of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Bharel went through a series of major challenges facing her agency and in […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
No welcome wagon for sober houses
IT”S BECOME INCREASINGLY popular to talk about addiction problems as a public health issue, with those suffering from the problem in need of help, not scorn or jail. Much less popular is the idea of that help being delivered next door. Especially when that means packing the programs into communities that feel they already do […]
Posted inThe Download
No welcome wagon for sober houses
It’s become increasingly popular to talk about addiction problems as a public health issue, with those suffering from the problem in need of help, not scorn or jail. Much less popular is the idea of that help being delivered next door. Especially when that means packing the programs into communities that feel they already do […]
Posted inGuns
Boston doctors seek different approach to gun violence
DOCTORS AT MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL launched the new Center for Gun Violence Prevention on Monday, with a slew of Massachusetts elected officials on hand to support the effort. Clinicians will use the center, funded with $1.2 million from MGH and $200,000 from Harvard Medical School, to address the gun violence problem through a public health […]
Posted inOpinion
Cities can clean up the transportation sector
TRANSPORTATION IS THE largest source of carbon pollution in the Commonwealth, producing 40 percent of climate-disrupting greenhouse gas emissions. Cities and towns can play an important role in leading the way to a clean transportation future. How? By helping residents drive less, and switch to electric vehicles when they must continue to drive. While the […]
Posted inOpinion
Arming doctors with a tool to save lives
“It is the curse of humanity that it learns to tolerate even the most horrible situations by habituation” – Rudolf Virchow, MD OVER THE COURSE of 1,000 days spanning 2014 to 2016, our state was home to 618 shootings. During that period, 19 children were shot. Worse, not a single perpetrator was arrested in any […]
Posted inHealth Care
BI-Lahey merger gets a break on cost growth
STATE HEALTH OFFICIALS stripped language from a document that would have required the merger of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Lahey Health to prove they’ll meet legislatively mandated cost growth benchmarks, a requirement officials made sure was adopted as part of the recent merger between Partners HealthCare and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. The […]