Health

LA’s program that diverts mental health crisis calls away from police becomes permanent

Since launching in 2024, the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response has diverted some 17,000 calls away from police and other first responders.

Crisis workers Alice Barber and Katie Ortiz sit in a white Penny Lane Centers crisis response vehicle. Both wear blue tops. Decals on the car read: "Penny Lane Centers: Transforming Lives."

Parents of people with disabilities push to expand services: ‘What will happen when I’m gone?’

Their children suffered brain injuries as young adults. California's network of regional centers, which serve people with developmental disabilities, wouldn't help them.

A building with a brick entrance and signage that reads "Central Valley Regional Center" is seen through a gate, which is out of focus in the foreground.

How one Long Beach resident’s $2,200 medical bill got erased

For the past two years, L.A. County has been working with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to wipe away millions of dollars in unpaid bills.

Patients rest in a hallway in the emergency room area at Providence St. Mary Medical Center on Jan. 27, 2021 in Apple Valley.

How an aging California is turning to senior centers for romance, community and health

No two senior centers are alike. We visited three very different venues in L.A. to learn how they’re changing for California’s aging population.

A group of seniors sit at tables in a long hallway lit by large windows while playing games and talking. A woman walks an older woman down the hallway.

Growing evidence points to link between autism and wildfire smoke

Two new studies have identified an alarming connection between exposure to wildfire smoke during pregnancy and autism in young children.

A lone sunbather in Santa Monica, Calif., watches a large plume of smoke from a wildfire rise over the Pacific Palisades.

RFK Jr. made promises in order to become health secretary. He’s broken many of them

Before being confirmed, RFK Jr. told U.S. senators he would not cut funding for vaccine research or change the nation’s official vaccine recommendations. He did both.

A man with white hair wearing a grey suit and blue ties speaks into a microphone. He is holding his left hand up, standing at a podium with a blurred painting in the background.

Judge orders CHOC to restore youth gender-affirming hormones through April

Gender-affirming hormone treatments will continue for people under 19 through at least April 27 at CHOC and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego.

Protesters holding trans and LGBTQ+ pride flags pose for a photo outside Children Hospital of Orange County. Their signs say "Tell CHOC administration: Patients before politics," "Impeach, convict, and remove," and "Trust doctors."

California invests $2.2M to support the mental health of kids coping with last year’s firestorms

The funding will go towards training school staff at 33 schools in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades areas.

A metal locker lies open. Across multiple rows are a series of children's backpacks. All of them, and the locker, and the ground, are scorched.

California's largest children's hospital system ends gender-affirming care as a state lawsuit looms

The hospital system announced in January it was ending hormone treatments for patients under 19. Attorney General Rob Bonta met that with a lawsuit, which is still ongoing.