‘Silent epidemic’ of dental disease threatens poor kids’ health, By Renée C. Lee, March 4, 2012, Houston Chronicle: “Every time Dr. Martee Engel treats a young patient whose teeth have brown or white chalky spots, she’s reminded of an acute problem affecting children – particularly poor children. Engel sees more than her share of early childhood tooth decay as dental director at Denver Harbor Clinic in northeast Houston. The clinic treats mostly poor children who are twice as likely as more affluent children to have untreated tooth decay, studies show. While overall oral health care for adults and children has improved, tooth decay continues to be the most common chronic disease among children. It can have serious social and health consequences when untreated and, in rare cases, can be fatal…”
Daily Archives: March 6, 2012
Extreme Poverty Worldwide
Dire poverty falls despite global slump, report finds, By Annie Lowrey, March 6, 2012, New York Times: “A World Bank report shows a broad-based reduction in extreme poverty – and indicates that the global recession, contrary to economists’ expectations, did not increase poverty in the developing world. The report shows that for the first time the proportion of people living in extreme poverty – on less than $1.25 a day – fell in every developing region between 2005 and 2008. And the biggest recession since the Great Depression seems not to have thrown that trend off course, preliminary data from 2010 indicate. The progress is so dramatic that the world has met the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals to cut extreme poverty in half five years before its 2015 deadline…”
SNAP Eligibility – Missouri
Some Missouri lawmakers rethinking food stamp ban for drug felons, By Jesse Bogan, March 6, 2012, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Somewhere beyond rock bottom, there was a dark pit that consumed Christine McDonald. The former crack addict bounced between parks, prisons and abandoned buildings. She has scars all over her body, including her face, where a rat bit her when she passed out one night with stolen lunch meat in her mouth. All that was before she became a community activist, a voter, a mother. That was before she suffered a rare eye disease that left her blind. And that was before she became a witness at the state Capitol, encouraging the passage of a bill that would allow drug felons to be eligible for food stamps. McDonald lost her job in December but under current law, she’s banned for life from receiving food stamps…”
Poverty and School Funding – New Jersey
Acting N.J. education chief reconsiders using school free-lunch programs to measure poverty, By Jessica Calefati, February 26, 2012, Star-Ledger: “Tucked into an 80-page report on Gov. Chris Christie’s plan to overhaul distribution of state aid to public schools is a proposal that could have greater implications on school funding than anything else the governor has pitched, experts say. In New Jersey and across the nation, the number of students living in poverty is determined by how many of them qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, a federal program run by the Department of Agriculture. But the count is not just about the federally subsidized meals – schools with poor students in the lunch program receive up to 57 percent more state aid than their peers. Citing growing concerns with the program’s susceptibility to fraud and error, acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf is calling for a governor-appointed task force to study whether there’s ‘an alternative way to measure New Jersey’s at-risk student population.’ The move has the potential to shift where the money goes in the state school system, rekindling New Jersey’s long debate over school funding for needy children…”