The emotional burden on BIPOC youth to ‘fix’ climate change
Prism reports a growing field of mental health advocates, psychologists, and physicians are concerned that youth entering adulthood are silently suffering from a type of pre-traumatic stress disorder known as "climate depression" and "eco-anxiety." In 2020, Oregon Health Authority (the state's main public health agency) conducted a study with five different youth-serving organizations to better understand the unique impacts of climate change on the well-being of BIPOC youth. The report revealed that youth’s experiences of hopelessness and frustration result not only from climate change, but from “inaction from individuals in power to address the climate crisis,” and “the burden of responsibility that older generations have placed on [youth] to ‘fix’ the climate problem.” Read more here →
FDA approves first over-the-counter birth control
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill in the nation. “I have been a reproductive health care specialist for nearly two decades, and know that birth control access, as well as the ability to plan if and when to start a family, changes lives,” said Dr. Antoinette Marengo, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, in a statement about the news. Developed by Perrigo Company based in Dublin, Ireland, Opill is a non-prescription daily contraceptive expected to be available next year. This approval is expected to widen access to contraception at a time when states across the country continue to enact stricter abortion laws.
The benefits of mindfulness
According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than one in five adults in the U.S. live with a mental health illness. On the latest episode of Our Body Politic, host and creator Farai Chideya explores how mindfulness can be a tool to reduce mental health illness, how Black women and women of color are centering their mental and physical health in these times, and the inner workings of artists creating music-rich meditations to help achieve mindfulness.🎧 Listen to the episode →
Meet the Game Changers
Highlighting the innovators transforming health outcomes in our communities
Julie Sifuentes is the lead author of a first-of-its-kind study investigating how climate change impacts the mental well-being of BIPOC youth in Oregon. Read the study's findings