It is well documented that children enter foster care with special health and mental health needs and, while in care, those conditions are often exacerbated. However, less attention has been given to foster parents who have the most contact with these children. Results are presented from a national study on the developmental, health and mental…

Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD), loss of sexual desire for sexual activity, is one of the most common sexual dysfunctions of men and women in the United States. This article presents an overview of this specific sexual dysfunction including incidence, possible causes, treatment options, and the role of the health educator in addressing…

The Hmong population in the US has grown since 1975. According to the 2000 US census, there are more than 160,000 Hmong living in the US. New waves of Hmong immigrants are re-settling in the US. Over 15,000 Hmong have come to the US from Thailand as refugees since summer 2004. California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are the States with the highest…

This paper estimates linear structural models using LISREL and employs MIMIC models to find out factors determining child health in Pakistan. A distinction has been made in permanent and transitory health states that lend support to Grossman's (1972) stock and flow concepts of health. The paper addresses the issue of health unobservability and…

University-community partnerships are widely recognized as critical to the success of community research and advocacy work but difficult to form and sustain. This article will describe a unique facet of that partnership, namely the collaboration between mental health clinicians and community consultants, a partnership that our data suggest was a…

Families In Recovery Staying Together (FIRST) is a team from Children's Hospital and Research Center at Oakland that has joined in collaboration with two local perinatal residential drug treatment programs to create early childhood mental health services at those sites. The authors highlight the collaboration strategies and challenges the partners…

The state of Indiana took a unique approach to developing a statewide plan to improve perinatal health outcomes by engaging parents in a series of focus groups, called Community Conversations in Perinatal Care (CCPC), to hear directly from consumers about their health care experiences and needs. Recognizing that disparities exist among different…

Latina mothers' perceptions of mental health and factors that promote/restore mental health were explored in this qualitative study. Participants discussed the importance of community, safety, and financial stability in addition to conventional factors that are related to mental health. Implications for working with urban Latinas and their…

The School-Based Mental Health Program's goals are to identify at-risk children, reduce ineffective functioning of at-risk children, provide social service interventions, increase effective parenting skills, help families access community resources, and support mental health education. The program was designed to develop a comprehensive,…

Health care reform represents a major step toward achieving the goal of improved preventive and primary care services for all Americans, including children and adolescents. Adolescence is a unique developmental age district from both childhood and adulthood with special vulnerabilities, health concerns, and barriers to accessing health care. It is…

Americans must accept the notion that each and every American is responsible for each and every child and the United States must develop a national children's policy encompassing concerns that influence children's health. There are at least four fundamental steps that the United States can take to improve children's health in the 1990s. They are:…

Professional and governmental enterprises in health promotion are based on serious conceptual, operational, and ethical flaws. Proposes an approach to health promotion intervention emphasizing the following: (1) protecting the public interest; (2) assuring equal access to a health-promoting life; and (3) giving primacy to "non-health"…

While a nationwide study of vision problems in children has not been conducted in over 30 years, the most recent NHIS (National Health Interview Survey) study shows vision problems are common in children, with an estimated 13.5 million children ages 0-17 affected. As of 2002, 30 states plus the District of Columbia "required" vision…

In response to Committee requests from the U.S. House of Representatives, the Government Accounting Office examined the extent to which children in Medicaid are receiving Early and Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) services. State efforts to improve service delivery and federal government efforts to ensure that state Medicaid…

The Southern Rural Access Program, a grant program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in eight southern states, funds projects that nurture rural and disadvantaged students in health-care fields; build state, regional, or community capacity to recruit and retain rural health professionals; support rural health networks; and provide loans to…