Author: the Burke Foundation

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.

The pandemic’s disproportionately harmful impacts on communities of color are “the results of generations of policies and decisions communicating what and whom we value,” says Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, former Surgeon General of California and author of The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity.

Public policies influence the health, social-emotional, and financial wellbeing of children and their families. When they aren’t applied equitably, disparities result.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues. Fear of getting sick, uncertainty about the future, and a polarized political system have contributed to an increasingly distressing mental health environment in recent years — especially for young people. 37.1% of high school students reported poor mental health during the pandemic, with 19.9% seriously considering and 9% attempting suicide. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently issued an advisory on the youth mental health crisis following a joint declaration of a national state of emergency in child and adolescent mental health by 3 child health organizations.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.

Mothers are caregivers, protectors, and nurturers. As we celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday, we should recognize mothers’ own needs for care, protection, and nurturing. With poor maternal health outcomes compared to other high-income countries, the United States has a lot of work to do to better support the health needs of moms – especially those in families that struggle to make ends meet and mothers of color.

In this issue, we spotlight Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and the opening of the new South Ward Wellness Center!

👋Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.

Paid family leave enables parents time to develop the nurturing relationships that are crucial to their children’s healthy brain development. It works by providing wage replacement for people who take time away from work to bond with a newborn, newly adopted, or newly fostered child — or to care for a loved one who is ill or injured, or recover from a long-term personal health issue.

Unfortunately, unlike other countries around the world, the US has no national paid family leave policy.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.

We’ve covered topics ranging from Medicaid to maternal mortality, and this week, we’re very excited to cover a pivotal moment for our organization. Guided by compelling evidence, we at the Burke Foundation believe investing in the earliest years provides lifelong benefits for children and their families. Over the past 5 years, we’ve supported community-centered initiatives to bolster health and wellbeing during that period of life, with particular emphasis on communities of color — where glaring disparities threaten development.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.

This week’s issue is the second of a two-part series discussing Medicaid. In our first issue of the series, we gave an overview of Medicaid and its contributions to the health and wellbeing of 78 million people in the US, which continues to experience very high health costs and, for too many people, disappointing results. Today, we delve into Medicaid innovations.

Jointly funded by the federal government and states, Medicaid must provide certain coverage to specific categories of people under federal law.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.

This week’s issue is the first in a two-part series discussing Medicaid, the public health insurance program that provides much-needed coverage to about 78 million people in the US. Medicaid covers those with low-incomes and is often confused with Medicare, which covers people 65 and over regardless of income. Medicaid is the largest payer for health services in the nation. It makes a major contribution to health equity by addressing both individual health and the social factors that affect health.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work in the field, and interesting takes on issues that matter.

In this week’s issue, we examine promising global healthcare models to gain insight on how they might improve health in the US. As described by Dr. James L. Madara, CEO of the American Medical Association, the US healthcare system is “extraordinarily expensive and highly inefficient.” The US spends substantially more on healthcare than other high-income countries, with worse results and less access to quality services.

In the spirit of global health, we collectively mourn the loss of Dr.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work in the field, and interesting takes on issues that matter. 

This week’s issue explores the growing movement to help people who struggle to make ends meet by providing guaranteed income in the form of no-strings-attached cash grants. Supplementing a family’s income can lead to many benefits, not least of which is improved brain development.

Dr. Kimberly Noble, professor of neuroscience and education at Columbia University, and her team recently released their pivotal Baby’s First Years study examining the causal relationship between poverty reduction and increased brain activity.

👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work in the field, and interesting takes on issues that matter.

For this week’s issue, we welcome guest editor Isabelle Hau, who curated our content on the power of play. Play is crucial to children’s learning and development. When kids engage in play, they learn to communicate, build motor skills, and increase their socioemotional wellbeing. Simply put, play builds happy and healthy bodies, minds, and hearts in children. ❤️

As a thought leader in education and a mother of two, Isabelle is well acquainted with the importance of play.