By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

The U.S. Centers for Control and Prevention have issued a new recommendation urging all adults to receive screening for hepatitis B at least once in their lifetime.

The agency describes hepatitis B (HBV) as a liver infection caused by the HBV virus. It can progress to liver cancer and other serious illnesses.

CDC officials said as many as 2.4 million people live with HBV, and most might not know they have it.

A severe infection could lead to chronic HBV, which could increase a person’s risk of getting cancer or cirrhosis.

Further, the CDC said those diagnosed with chronic or long-term HBV are up to 85% more likely to succumb to an early death.

“Chronic HBV infection can lead to substantial morbidity and mortality but is detectable before the development of severe liver disease using reliable and inexpensive screening tests,” CDC officials stated.

Even though the number of people with HBV has decreased significantly in the last 30 years, the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it is still a problem for African Americans.

That office reported that, in 2020, non-Hispanic blacks would be 1.4 times more likely to die from viral hepatitis than non-Hispanic whites.

Also, non-Hispanic blacks were almost twice as likely to die from hepatitis C as white individuals.

Further, while having comparable case rates for HBV in 2020, non-Hispanic blacks were 2.5 times more likely to die from HBV than non-Hispanic whites.

Medical officials noted that HBV spreads through contact with infected blood or bodily fluids, which can occur through sex, injecting drugs, or during pregnancy or delivery.

The CDC previously issued a recommendation in 2008, when it urged testing for high-risk individuals.

In its most recent recommendation, the agency said that adults over 18 must be tested at least once.

The agency declared that pregnant individuals should also undergo screening during each pregnancy, regardless of whether they’ve received a vaccine or have been previously tested.

Additionally, incarcerated individuals, those with multiple sex partners, or people with a history of hepatitis C should test periodically, the CDC said.

The agency warned that symptoms of acute HBV could include fever, fatigue, abdominal pain, dark urine, and jaundice.

Symptoms could take several months or longer to present and last for months.

The CDC’s latest report further notes the following:

• It’s estimated more than half of people who have the hepatitis B virus (HBV) don’t know they’re infected. Without treatment and monitoring, HBV infection can lead to deadly health outcomes, including liver damage and liver cancer.
• The report updates and expands previous guidelines for HBV screening and testing by recommending screening for all U.S. adults and expanding continual periodic risk-based testing to include more groups, activities, exposures, and conditions.
• Providers should implement the new CDC hepatitis B screening and testing recommendations to ensure all adults are screened for HBV infection with the triple-panel at least once in their lifetimes and that people who are not vaccinated for hepatitis B – but are at increased risk of HBV infection – receive periodic testing.

“Although a curative treatment is not yet available, early diagnosis and treatment of chronic HBV infections reduce the risk for cirrhosis, liver cancer, and death,” CDC officials noted in the report.

“Along with vaccination strategies, universal screening of adults and appropriate testing of persons at increased risk for HBV infection will improve health outcomes, reduce the prevalence of HBV infection in the United States, and advance viral hepatitis elimination goals.”

By Daisha Williams
Post News Group Intern

A large community of unhoused people have been living in an empty lot at 1707 Wood Street. The city of Oakland would like to remove them as soon as possible so they can build 170 units of affordable housing there.

If you live in Oakland or spend any considerable amount of time here, then you have probably seen this encampment at least a few times. The West Oakland community is estimated to include 200-300 individuals. They support each other in accessing food, water, medicine, clothing and other basic living necessities.

In an interview with a city of Oakland official, a spokesperson for the community, John Janosko, described a bike ride that they all took to Sacramento last October.

“That bike ride was amazing for me. Everyone had a chance to bond,” he said. “The people in Sacramento were so welcoming and it was my birthday that morning and they had a cake at 1 o’clock in the morning when we finally rolled in.”

This bike ride was planned, organized and executed by people who have banded together to survive in a system that doesn’t seem to care if they live or die and made the best of those circumstances.

Before the city of Oakland can begin building affordable housing, they are required to provide shelter for the people currently living there. The initial plan was to simply provide cabins near the lot for the people to live in. On Feb. 3, the U.S. District Judge William Orick said that the city could move forward with disbanding this unit only for that ruling to be reversed a week later, on Feb. 10.

Oakland Assistant City Administrator LaTonda Simmons said that the delay was due to issues finalizing the contract for the cabins as well as “IT network challenges.”

The city hasn’t released a timeline detailing when they expect to begin moving people out. Simmons commented on the delay in a statement. “We believe this minor delay will result in an even more supportive cabin program for the Wood Street community.”

Current plans for shelter for the residents include cabins with 30 beds each, which are expected to accommodate 100 people. There will also be 29 parking spaces available for people living in RVs with electrical hookups and bathrooms available.

Furthermore, the city expects to have 100 more beds available at other shelters in Oakland, which will effectively divide the community that the Wood Street residents have created for themselves.

But it is also the case that the amount of affordable housing that the city plans to build in this lot will not be enough to accommodate the people currently living there and what the city considers “affordable housing” is not affordable for many people.

Another hindrance for the community is the difficulty of qualifying for affordable housing.

One hurdle is that it is necessary to provide proof of income, which makes it even less accessible.

Another is that applicants must pass a criminal background screening. Since homelessness itself has been criminalized, many people currently living in the lot will not be able to pass that screening and qualify.

Many of the people now living at the Wood Street lot were residents of a neighboring encampment that was cleared out about a year ago. That they are back on the street can indicate that the city’s processes for quickly finding housing for people in dire need are ineffective.

This is summarized best by what James Vann, co-founder and advisor to the Oakland Homeless Advocacy Working Group, said in response to Judge Orwick’s decision.

“The calamity that will follow is another instance of the City’s failure to acknowledge the homelessness crisis as real and to implement timely actions to assure adequate accommodations and health and safety of the affected unhoused residents.”

Sources for this news article include the Mercury News, the City of Oakland and the Post News Group.

By Emma Gallegos
EdSource

When she returned to school to become a nurse, Karina Mendez wanted a work-study job that she could balance with classes at City College of San Francisco. Thanks to a new program in California, she landed one that does more than pay the bills — it gives her a career boost.

Mendez works to support patients with cancer at UCSF, helping her get a foot in the door of a hospital where she’d love to be a nurse.

“It gives me a sense of hope that I could be a part of the UCSF department,” Mendez said.

She is one of the first beneficiaries of a new state-funded work-study program called the Learning-Aligned Employment Program. It pays the wages of students who are considered underrepresented in a job that aims to give them a leg up in their careers — unlike traditional work-study positions in campus cafeterias or bookstores that have little connection to students’ future career goals.

Besides medicine, the fields include tech, engineering, clean energy, education and university research.

The state invested $500 million of its budget surplus into the program, which is run by the California Student Aid Commission. Over 98% of public colleges and universities have signed on to participate.

The program is in its early days. Funds were rolled out to the state’s public colleges and universities this fall, and institutions have until 2031 to use them. Some colleges and universities have small pilot programs, but most are in the planning stages of using this funding.

It’s too soon to say how many students are participating statewide. In the long run, state funding could provide opportunities for about 100,000 students like Mendez — who makes $20 an hour — working 15 hours weekly for a semester.

Ohlone College in the East Bay has a small pilot, and it is hearing from other colleges in the Bay Area Community College Consortium looking for ideas of how best to spend the funding.

“It has taken a fair amount of time to figure out how we will use these LAEP funds, because it’s in its infancy,” said Kelsey Bensky, program manager for the college’s Career Services.

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation, applauded California for using work-study funds this way. He called it “an important piece of a larger puzzle.”

“Students are hungry for this experience,” said Oakley, former chancellor of California Community Colleges. “They want to see that their work in the classroom is connected to their employment.”

Mendez said her role in the UCSF Patient Support Corps is giving her a preview of what a nurse’s duties look like. She reviews patients’ charts and checks in with them during telehealth appointments.

“I see words that I’m studying at school,” she said. “I’m learning how to communicate with cancer patients at a sensitive time in their life.”

Fixing The Disconnect Between School and Work

Most students work their way through college, but often these jobs have nothing to do with their career aspirations. The state and federal governments are working to change that.

Adele Burnes, deputy chief of Californa’s Division of Apprenticeship Standards, put it this way: “What if that work was really, intentionally connected to their education?”

Critics say that the lack of opportunities for college students to learn on the job is a symptom of the larger disconnect between the California economy and higher education. The state is making important strides on this front, Oakley said, but it is still behind many European countries, Singapore and even states like Indiana and Texas.

“Employers have not invested time and effort to make this work,” said Oakley. “Colleges don’t always have the resources to make this work.”

A lot of work goes into creating a high-quality internship, such as figuring out which students are eligible and vetting opportunities from employers, said Gina Del Carlo, the founding director of Earn & Learn. The Bay Area Community College Consortium contracted with Earn & Learn to guide 25 Bay Area colleges pursuing this work-study funding.

“It’s not as simple as: ‘Here’s an opportunity, here’s a student,’” said Alejandro Sandoval, director of product delivery and expansion for Earn & Learn.

Ohlone College has partnered with 11 organizations, including a local biotech company, an engineering company, a consulting firm and several community nonprofits. Del Carlo has noticed that many colleges are using the funds to pay students to conduct research relevant to their major.

Many fields, such as health care, technology, education and government, face shortages of educated workers.

But work-based learning opportunities that help students get a foothold in a new career have often been limited to building-trade apprenticeships like electrician or welder. Critics say white-collar professional internships — often unpaid — tend to go to well-connected students who can afford to forgo salaries.

This hurts both employers seeking workers and workers who fear college will leave them with debt rather than better career prospects, according to the Governor’s Council for Post-Secondary Education.

Despite placing a greater emphasis on vocational education, this has even been a problem at community colleges, said Sonya Christian, who was recently named chancellor of California Community Colleges.

She said the academic transfer mission should be better integrated with the vocational mission, and every student should expect a chance to learn on the job. She said “earn and learn” opportunities unite these two missions while opening higher education to students who thought they couldn’t afford it.

The Next Big Wave

The Learning-Aligned Employment Program launched in the 2021-21 budget after a report from the Governor’s Council for Post-Secondary Education warned: “Connections between higher education and the workforce are insufficient to meet the economic and workforce needs of California.”

The funds are intended for students who are considered underrepresented. That includes students are low-income, parents, displaced workers, formerly incarcerated, undocumented or have disabilities.

Those who are first generation in their families to attend college, current or former foster youth, homeless or at risk of becoming homeless are also eligible and given priority for the opportunities through state guidelines. Majors in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) also have priority.

“This new approach to hiring low-income, first-generation college students to work in vital, growth industries provides students with valuable career opportunities, while also helping make those fields become more inclusive and diverse in the process,” said Marlene Garcia, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission.

This money from the state supports the UCSF Patient Support Corps’ efforts to recruit community college students whose diversity, language and culture mirror the patient population, said Jeff Belkora, director of the program.

“The whole idea of me being a Latina in this program, it makes me feel like I belong,” said Mendez. “It gives me hope that I could do this.”

The state opted to give colleges the money in a lump sum to give campuses the time and money to plan the program.

State funds will pay for up to half of student wages at for-profit employers, 90% at a public educational institution or a nonprofit and 100% of the wages at the UC, CSU or community colleges.

Only 5% of the funds can be spent on administration and the rest must be spent directly on students’ wages. Students should be paid a rate comparable to regular employees doing similar work in the company or in the same field. The state recommends that students be given academic credit as well.

Funds are distributed based on the share of students receiving a federal Pell Grant. That makes community colleges one of the biggest beneficiaries. They will receive 56% of funds, while 31.8% will go to the CSU system and the remaining 12.2% will go to the UCs.

Oakley believes the state is on the right track, but he hopes that these partnerships are not just short-lived, successful “boutique programs.” Programs should reach poor, underserved students and communities in the state, he said, and the state and federal governments don’t have a successful track record of making these programs accessible.

“The more streamlined we can make it, the less friction, the more we can make sure that it’s helping the people who need it the most,” he said.

One of the early programs is the Junior Leadership Academy at Ohlone College. Cohorts of 20 students receive coaching in a 15-week career readiness class for credit, while working on a project for a local employer that involves research connected to their field.

This includes business students working for a consulting firm and engineering students at an engineering firm.

Some employers and students have enjoyed the opportunity enough to seek to extend projects beyond their 75 hours-a-semester commitment.

While it has taken time to sort through funding restrictions, such as figuring out exactly which students are eligible, Bensky, the program manager at Ohlone, appreciates the flexibility the state has offered.

“It’s been quite a bit of work, but I’m happy,” said Bensky.