Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Traumatic childhood events and the stress they cause can negatively affect health over a lifetime. For children with Medicaid coverage, visits to the doctor's office present an opportunity to improve this trajectory. Medicaid's... more
Traumatic childhood events and the stress they cause can negatively affect health over a lifetime. For children with Medicaid coverage, visits to the doctor's office present an opportunity to improve this trajectory. Medicaid's Early Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) mandate requires that children receive more than a basic physical when they see a doctor for regular "well-child. checks." As part of a comprehensive look at their development, they should receive mental health check-ups that could identify childhood trauma, its impacts, and the interventions that could help improve health and mental health. Data suggests that many children do not receive these mandatory comprehensive screenings. Significant barriers to screening include lack of transportation for patients, low reimbursement rates for physicians that limit their ability to devote enough attention to screenings, and lack of access to mental health screening tools. Medical-legal partner...
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This session gives an overview of the hiring market and process for entry into the legal academy for candidates currently on the job market as well as students, fellows, practitioners, and activists thinking about entering the legal... more
This session gives an overview of the hiring market and process for entry into the legal academy for candidates currently on the job market as well as students, fellows, practitioners, and activists thinking about entering the legal academy. It highlights additional challenges that critical, progressive, and social justice oriented scholars and teachers face on the market.
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A robust body of research supports the centrality of K-12 education to health and well-being. Critical perspectives, particularly Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Dis/ability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit), can deepen and widen health... more
A robust body of research supports the centrality of K-12 education to health and well-being. Critical perspectives, particularly Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Dis/ability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit), can deepen and widen health justice’s exploration of how and why a range of educational inequities drive health disparities. The CRT approaches of counternarrative storytelling, race consciousness, intersectionality, and praxis can help scholars, researchers, policymakers, and advocates understand the disparate negative health impacts of education law and policy on students of color, students with disabilities, and those with intersecting identities. Critical perspectives focus upon and strengthen the necessary exploration of how structural racism, ableism, and other systemic barriers manifest in education and drive health disparities so that these barriers can be removed.
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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Introduction 426 I. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Their Impact 428 A. The ACEs Studies 431 B. The Impact of ACEs on Children: Toxic Stress 440 C. The Significance of the ACE Study 445 II. High Rates of Trauma Among Delinquent and... more
Introduction 426 I. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Their Impact 428 A. The ACEs Studies 431 B. The Impact of ACEs on Children: Toxic Stress 440 C. The Significance of the ACE Study 445 II. High Rates of Trauma Among Delinquent and Criminal Justice Populations 448 A. Gender Differences 451 B. High Rates of Trauma in Early Childhood 451 C. ACEs Among the Juvenile Justice Population 452 D. Effect of Childhood Trauma on Mental Health Needs of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System 457 III. Solution: A Collaborative, Multi-Generational, Upstream Model 459 A. Need for Early Identification and Intervention 459 B. Early Identification of a Particular ACE in Albuquerque, New Mexico: Household Substance Abuse 462 C. The University of New Mexico Medical-Legal Alliance 470 1. Early Identification of Children Who Have Experienced ACEs and Multi-Disciplinary, Multi-Generational Healthcare and Early Intervention 473 a. Kinship Guardianship Advocacy 485 b. Educational Advocacy 487 Conclusion 489 I...
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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The opioid crisis is now a nationwide epidemic, ravaging both rural and urban communities. The public health and economic consequences are staggering; recent estimates suggest the epidemic has contracted the U.S. labor market by over one... more
The opioid crisis is now a nationwide epidemic, ravaging both rural and urban communities. The public health and economic consequences are staggering; recent estimates suggest the epidemic has contracted the U.S. labor market by over one million jobs and cost the nation billions of dollars. To tackle the crisis, scholars and health policy initiatives have focused primarily on downstream solutions designed to help those who are already in the throes of addiction. For example, the major initiative announced by the U.S. Surgeon General promotes the dissemination of naloxone, which helps save lives during opioid overdoses. This Article argues that the urgency and gravity of the opioid crisis demand a very different approach. To stop the epidemic, interventions are needed long before people are on death’s doorstep. Rather, it must focus on upstream interventions that stop people from becoming addicted in the first place. To accomplish this, we should leverage an existing legal infrastruc...
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Traumatic childhood events and the stress they cause can egatively affect health over a lifetime. For children with Medicaid coverage, visits to the doctor's office present an opportunity to improve this trajectory. Medicaid's... more
Traumatic childhood events and the stress they cause can egatively affect health over a lifetime. For children with Medicaid coverage, visits to the doctor's office present an opportunity to improve this trajectory. Medicaid's Early Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) mandate requires that children receive more than a basic physical when they see a doctor for regular "well-child. checks." As part of a comprehensive look at their development, they should receive mental health check-ups that could identify childhood trauma, its impacts, and the interventions that could help improve health and mental health. Data suggests that many children do not receive these mandatory comprehensive screenings. Significant barriers to screening include lack of transportation for patients, low reimbursement rates for physicians that limit their ability to devote enough attention to screenings, and lack of access to mental health screening tools. Medical-legal partners...
Research Interests:
A retrospective study of adults conducted by the CDC & Kaiser Permanente examined the relationship between several forms of childhood trauma (adverse childhood experiences or ACEs) & related health outcomes. Individuals with 4+ ACEs... more
A retrospective study of adults conducted by the CDC & Kaiser Permanente examined the relationship between several forms of childhood trauma (adverse childhood experiences or ACEs) & related health outcomes. Individuals with 4+ ACEs (12% of sample) were more likely to report health conditions & shorter lifespans. The current study includes all 220 juvenile offenders committed for incarceration in New Mexico during 2011 & uses the results of comprehensive multi-disciplinary psychosocial assessments to examine juveniles’ ACEs, psychological & family conditions, & exposure to other traumatic events. 86% of incarcerated New Mexico juveniles experienced 4+ ACEs, 7 times higher than the CDC-Kaiser study. New Mexico juveniles experienced ACEs at a higher rate than juvenile offender populations in other studies. Among incarcerated New Mexico juveniles, majorities experienced emotional (76%) or physical (94%) neglect, parental divorce/separation (86%), and substance abuse in the ho...