Recent News

BCHD Interns Discuss Zika Virus with University of Maryland Baltimore Police Officers

Aug 25th, 2017

Taylor Owens and Vernon Stepney, two BCHD interns who are rising juniors at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, conducted a Zika presentation to the University of Maryland Baltimore Police Depar

BCHD interns Vernon and Taylor present about the Zika virus

Public Health Heroes: BCHD Animal Control Officers Often Save Humans, Too

Aug 25th, 2017

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Animal Enforcement Officer Supervisor Hodge made his way to the courthouse to get a warrant signed regarding an investigation of a home where animal abuse was suspected of taking place. Officer Hodge and other Animal Control staff met with Baltimore Police Department (BPD) officers to go to the house to execute the warrant. After entering the house, the Animal Control Officers did not find any of the dogs. Instead, the officers found the floors covered in dog feces and trash and a rancid smell in the air. What appeared to be a vacant home actually housed a family with two small infants.

Note from the Commissioner: Signing Off for a few Weeks

Aug 25th, 2017

For the next several weeks, I am signing off from my weekly newsletter note in order to spend time with my family and my newborn son, Elias “Eli” Wen Walker. I am extremely excited to be a mother and am proud of the work we do at BCHD to help children, expecting mothers, families and communities in our great city.

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UMB Police Train To Combat Opioid Overdose (UMB News)

Aug 25th, 2017

“Like a lot of the country, Baltimore City and the state of Maryland are experiencing unprecedented, epidemic opioid addiction,” Mark O’Brien, JD, director of opioid overdose prevention and treatment with the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD), said at an Aug. 24 meeting with University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) police.

Read the entire story.

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City launches texting app to alert about 'bad batches' of drugs (WBAL TV)

Aug 24th, 2017

The Baltimore City Health Department has launched a texting app to inform people when there's a cluster of overdoses in their neighborhood due to bad batches of drugs.

To sign up for alerts, text "JOIN" to 952-BB-ALERT.

Read the entire story.

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Note from the Commissioner: Innovative Efforts in Baltimore to Combat the Opioid Epidemic

Aug 18th, 2017

This week, leaders, healthcare professionals, and other frontline workers from across the U.S.

Baltimore launches 'bad batch' text-alert system for overdoses (Baltimore Sun)

Aug 18th, 2017

With the help of student computer programmers, Baltimore health officials have launched a text-messaging service to warn residents when deadly batches of drugs are in their neighborhood.

“People are using fentanyl without realizing it,” said Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore’s health commissioner. “Fentanyl is getting mixed in with heroin, cocaine, prescription drugs. They’re overdosing and dying without realizing what they’re taking.”

Read the entire story.

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Why the Trump administration is cutting teen pregnancy prevention funding (CNN)

Aug 17th, 2017

Most teenagers feel uncomfortable talking about sex, but not 16-year-old Bryanna Ely.

As a youth leader for the Buffalo, New York-based teen pregnancy prevention program HOPE Buffalo, Ely talks to not only other teens but also adults. She explains how they can help teens when it comes to their emotional, physical and sexual health, abstinence and birth control.
"It's definitely made me more comfortable around health providers, because I was very nervous and not willing to talk about it, but then once I joined HOPE Buffalo, it's an easy subject to talk about. Well, not that easy, but it's easy enough to talk about that I don't feel so uncomfortable," said Ely, who will be entering her junior year in high school this month.
 
While volunteering with HOPE Buffalo at a local community center, Ely said, she remembered meeting another teenage girl, sharing sexual health information with her and feeling like she made a difference. "She took in all the information, and she said she would not get pregnant until she was 28 or 30," Ely said. "I joined HOPE Buffalo because I wanted to make a change in my community and make sure that these teenagers who didn't have a voice had a voice." Yet federal funding for such teen pregnancy prevention programs in the United States is now on the chopping block.
 

Read the entire story. 

Cities Enlist ‘Doulas’ To Reduce Infant Mortality (Huffington Post)

Aug 17th, 2017

This city has opened a new front in its effort to give black newborns the same chance of surviving infancy as white babies: training “doulas” to assist expectant mothers during pregnancy, delivery and afterward. The doula initiative is the latest salvo in the Baltimore City Health Department’s 7-year-old program to combat high infant mortality rates among black newborns.

Read the entire story.

Federal funding cut to teen pregnancy prevention programs will hurt Baltimore, health commissioner says (BaltimoreSun)

Aug 15th, 2017

The Trump administration’s decision to cut short a grant program that would have spent $214 million to support teen pregnancy prevention programs will have far-reaching consequences in cities across the United States, including Baltimore. After the program ends next June, the city will lose the equivalent of $3.5 million in funding for a variety of programs aimed at curtailing unintended teen pregnancies. Another $880,000 grant funds research at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health to evaluate a program to reduce sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy among American Indian teens, City Health Commissioner Leana Wen called the decision shocking and “unprecedented.” “We have not ever received a cut to an existing program without explanation, and when the funds were readily available,” she said.

Read the entire story.

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