Thursday, August 28, 2003
Child Welfare: Most States Are Developing Statewide Information Systems, but the Reliability of Child Welfare Data Could Be Improved A GAO report (in
Adobe Acrobat format) available at the
Open Minds web site - "HHS reported that 47 states are developing or operating a SACWIS, but many continue to face challenges developing their systems. Most state officials said they recognize the benefit their state will achieve by developing SACWIS, such as contributing to the timeliness of child abuse and neglect investigations; however, despite the availability of federal funds since 1994, states reported a median delay of 2-½ years beyond the timeframes they set for completion. States reported that they encountered some difficulties during SACWIS development, such as challenges receiving state funding and creating a system that reflected their work processes. In response to some of these challenges, HHS has provided technical assistance to help states develop their systems and conducted on-site reviews of SACWIS to verify that the systems meet federal requirements."
New Publications on Immigrant Health Care and Linguistic Access This page at the Kaiser Family Foundation site indexes and provises links to a number of new reports and related materials - "In 2000, there were over 32 million foreign-born residents in the U.S. Immigrants often face barriers to health coverage and health services. The disparities confronting immigrants can be similar to those faced by low-income working families generally, but immigrants also face other barriers, including linguistic issues and eligibility changes that have limited their ability to qualify for Medicaid. These new or updated publications address issues related to how race, immigration status, and language affect insurance coverage and access to care for non-citizens. Additionally, one report focuses on issues of linguistic access in health care settings and provides an overview of the current legal rights and responsibilities of health care service and coverage providers." Readers here may be especially interested in the basic
fact sheet and
Ensuring Linguistic Access in Health Care Settings: An Overview of Current Legal Rights and Responsibilities (both in
Adobe Acrobat format).
Emergency Department Trends From DAWN: Final Estimates 1995 - 2002 The latest data published at SAMHSA's Drug Abuse Awareness Network (DAWN)
web site. From this page, a variety of related documents can be downloaded, including the
full text (in
Adobe Acrobat format) and a variety of tables (in
MS Excel format), presenting the data by drug category (with component drugs for selected categories), metropolitan areas, patient demographic characteristics and episode characteristics.
SAMHSA Proposes Standard Grant Announcements to Replace Current Formats SAMHSA press release - "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMHSA is soliciting comments on proposed changes in the way grants will be announced. SAMHSA is proposing to issue four standard grant announcements that will describe the general program design and provide application instructions for four types of grants - service grants, infrastructure grants, best practices planning and implementation grants, and service-to-science grants. These standard announcements will replace the 30-40 individual announcements for grant programs that SAMHSA has been issuing each year. The standard announcements will be used in conjunction with brief Notices of Funding Availability that will announce the availability of funds for specific grant funding opportunities." See also the page on
Proposed Changes in Announcement of SAMHSA Discretionary Grant Funding Opportunities.
