COVID-19

How Legal Changes in Response to COVID-19 Can Improve Access to Community Behavioral Health

Robert Belfort, Julian Polaris

Behavioral Health, Medi-Cal

This report discusses the impact of temporary legal reforms on outpatient and residential behavioral health services in California and identifies the most promising candidates for long-term reform.

Pandemic Highlights Vulnerability of California’s Latinx Community

February 3, 2021

Agustín Durán

Health Equity, Behavioral Health

While the pandemic has upended the lives, finances, and health of millions of Californians from all backgrounds, it has hit Latinx people the hardest.

CHCF Commends First Step to Roll Back Public Charge Wealth Test, Urges Further Action

February 3, 2021

Yesterday President Joe Biden directed federal agencies to begin a review of the public charge wealth test for immigrants implemented under the Trump administration. In response, Sandra R. Hernández, MD, president and CEO of the California Health Care Foundation issued this statement.

LA and the Pandemic: A Tale of Two Cities

February 1, 2021

Xenia Shih Bion

Health Equity, Workforce

Stories That Caught Our Attention: Overcrowded housing, large essential industries, and an ill-prepared health care system are blamed for the staggering COVID-19 surge in LA.

Californians Overwhelmingly Support Funding of Public Health Efforts to Defeat Pandemic

January 29, 2021

Kristof Stremikis

Health Care Costs, Health Equity, Homelessness & Health Care, Workforce

New CHCF survey finds that 9 in 10 Californians say taming the public health crisis is highly important.

Controlling Spread of COVID-19 Is Californians’ Top Policy Priority; 71% Say They Will Get the Vaccine

January 28, 2021

The 2021 CHCF California Health Policy Survey

Rebecca Catterson, Lucy Rabinowitz Bailey, Emily Alvarez

COVID-19 and health care costs are key priorities that Californians want lawmakers to address, according to this statewide poll.

Committed Champion for Health Equity Joins Biden White House

January 25, 2021

Xenia Shih Bion

Stories That Caught Our Attention: Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith — clinician, researcher, and academic leader at Yale School of Medicine — will lead President Joe Biden's White House COVID-19 equity task force.

State Must Write New Medi-Cal Contracts to Advance Health Equity

January 20, 2021

Anne Sunderland

Health Equity, Medi-Cal

An interview with Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network.

Street Medicine Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Center for Health Care Strategies

Homelessness & Health Care

The Center for Health Care Strategies recently spoke with representatives from the Los Angeles Christian Health Centers and with a provider from the Street Team Outreach Medical Program at the Roots Community Health Center in Oakland to learn more about how their street medicine programs are adapting to meet patients’ needs amid the pandemic.

New Year Brings California No Pandemic Relief

January 11, 2021

Xenia Shih Bion

Stories That Caught Our Attention: If the first week of 2021 is any indication, the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to batter California and the nation well into the new year.

Only Nine Months After the Pandemic Began, a Vaccine Is Delivered

December 21, 2020

Xenia Shih Bion

Workforce, Health Equity

Stories That Caught Our Attention: The first Americans have received the COVID-19 vaccine, but administering enough shots to reach herd immunity will be a logistical challenge.

California Health Providers’ Attitudes Regarding a COVID-19 Vaccine, December 2020

Goodwin Simon Strategic Research

In a survey of 1,203 California doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, more than 8 in 10 said they would get the COVID-19 vaccine.

COVID-19 Providers Hampered by Intense Psychological Burden

December 7, 2020

Xenia Shih Bion

Behavioral Health, Workforce

Stories That Caught Our Attention: Health care workers are physically and mentally exhausted from the relentless and growing demands of caring for COVID-19 patients.

Listening to Black Californians: Racism and Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

December 2, 2020

Black Californians are being hit hard by the compounding stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic and the structural racism that they have always lived with.