The current Congress allowed health centers’ funding to expire on September 30th, leaving many CHCs scrambling to cover their costs and keep providing services to a patient population that includes veterans and CHIP enrollees.
Reveal investigates the toll of nuclear testing on the country’s “atomic vets”; federal labor officials propose new mining safety rules; D.C. officials vote in support of a $15 minimum wage; and an Amazon employee writes a first-person account from inside one of the company’s warehouses.
In the first large-scale study of its kind, researchers report that sexual trauma is indeed a risk factor for suicide among military veterans and are calling on veteran health providers to continue including such trauma in suicide prevention strategies.
Public Health Practice
Worth reading: Veterans’ health, Medicare data, and public-health challenges in West Virginia
The Washington Post provides in-depth coverage on issues facing veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; an unprecedented release of Medicare data gives reporters a lot to work with; and journalists consider how West Virginia’s reliance on a few industries has influenced the state’s response to contaminated water and drug addiction.
Firecrackers, bottle rockets and other fireworks are Fourth of July favorites for many Americans. Veterans suffering from PTSD may be dreading the sound that reminds them of combat.
J. Freedom du Lac reports in the Washington Post that Army Spec. David Emanuel Hickman, killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on November 14th, was the 4,474th US servicemember to be killed in Iraq. With all the US troops now gone from Iraq, Hickman’s death may well be the last servicemember fatality directly attributed […]
It’s wonderful to hear what substantial progress US Representative Gabrielle Giffords has made in recovering from the traumatic brain injury she sustained from being shot in the head in January. As the Associated Press reported this morning, Giffords has spent the past five months in a rehabilitation facility and has regained some of her speaking […]
This Memorial Day, I haven’t just been thinking of those who died in combat, but also of those who’ve died because of combat. This morning’s NPR story about 23-year-old Ivan Lopez, who struggled with PTSD after returning home and then became the 14th Pennsylvania Guardsman since 2003 to die by his own hand, is just […]
While Veterans Day is an opportunity to thank veterans for their service, it should also be a time to consider how well we’re doing at taking care of veterans who’ve suffered physical or mental damage as a result of their service.
The Oregonian’s Julie Sullivan has been following the story of the National Guard troops who were exposed to the carcinogen hexavalent chromium at the Qarmat Ali water plant in Iraq – which contracting giant KBR was tasked with rebuilding. (Oregonian stories are here; also see our past posts on the subject here, here, and here.) […]