Browse Publications: Health
Medicaid Responsiveness, Health Coverage, and Economic Resilience: A Preliminary Analysis
Medicaid's responsiveness to changing conditions may also have important implications for the economy as a whole, not just for individuals in need. When recession hits, more households have incomes low enough to qualify for Medicaid. Because Medicaid guarantees coverage to eligible individuals, enrollment automatically rises, which increases state and federal spending. Such spending stimulates the economy, limiting further job loss and contributing to economic recovery.
This background paper focuses on the impact of decisions to transfer young men of color from the juvenile justice system to adult criminal courts, as well as the impact that alternative sentences and alternatives to incarceration have on these youth. In addition to providing historical perspective and an overview of the relevant literature, the paper offers promising practices in alternative sentencing and alternatives to incarceration, and policy options to ensure proper interventions and assistance for young men of color. This paper complements and reinforces the conclusions of other Dellums Commission background papers on education, health, criminal and juvenile justice, recidivism, the child welfare system, the media, and community well-being.
DELLUMS REPORT: Young Men of Color in the Media: Images and Impacts
Although infant mortality in the United States decreased among all races between 1980 and 2000, the overall blackwhite gap for infant mortality widened—and this pattern has continued. A 2002 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis of infant mortality rates in 1995- 1998 in the 60 largest U.S. cities revealed that the median infant mortality rate for blacks was 13.9 per 1,000 live births, compared to 6.4 and 5.9 for whites and Hispanics, respectively. Nationwide, the most recent data (2003) show that the infant mortality rate for blacks is 13.5 per 1,000 live births, compared to 5.7 for non-Hispanic whites and for Hispanics. The lack of progress in closing the black-white gap is largely due to a persistent two- to threefold higher risk for low birthweight and very low birthweight among black infants compared to white infants.