Acceptability and feasibility of video-based firearm safety education in a Colorado emergency department for caregivers of adolescents in firearm-owning households.

Background: Easy firearm access increases injury risk among adolescents. We evaluated the acceptability and feasibility of improving knowledge of a 3 min safe firearm storage education video in the paediatric emergency department.

Methods: We conducted a single-centre block trial in a large paediatric emergency department (August 2020-2022).

Policy pathways to address American youth firearm injury and death.

Context: The burden of firearm violence and death are uniquely American problems. Over 90% of firearm deaths among children and adolescents in high income countries occur in the United States. Despite similar overall crime rates, the gun homicide rate is about 25 times higher in the U.

Integrating legal services to improve behavioral health, a challenge met from a different angle.

The United States' current healthcare delivery system is not prepared to address the expanding behavioral health (BH) crisis without treatment of upstream social determinants that contribute to downstream BH exacerbations. Medical Legal Partnerships (MLP) utilize lessons from integrated BH to create efficiencies, augment the reach of the current BH workforce, network community resources, and likely provide BH prevention at the family unit. Payment policy changes are needed, however, to provide sustainable access to these services.

A Model of Advocacy to Inform Action.

The need for effective advocacy on the part of health professionals has never been greater. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has made the connection between human health and social conditions clear, while highlighting the limitations of biomedical interventions to address those conditions. Efforts to increase the frequency and effectiveness of advocacy activities by health professionals have been hampered by the lack of a practical framework to define and develop advocacy competencies among trainees as well as to plan and execute advocacy activities.

Inequities in behavioral health: What do we really know?

Behavioral health problems are ubiquitous in today's society. Social, environmental, and physical stressors impact our daily activities and wellness, contributing to mental health conditions, both diagnosed and undiagnosed, as well as substance use. We know that populations and identities are not equally impacted.

Something Republicans and Democrats can agree on: Support for integrated behavioral health.

Barriers to the spread of integrated behavioral health and primary care continue to limit progress on meeting critical needs for mental health and substance use disorder services. The recent Bipartisan Policy Center Report (2021) provides key policy recommendations to address these barriers and accelerate the adoption of integrated behavioral health in Medicaid and Medicare. Having bipartisan support presents a policy window of opportunity to advance integrated behavioral health through advocacy for implementation of these recommendations, parallel changes to occur in employer-based and other commercial insurance plans, and development of operationalized standards for core service delivery elements.

What to do with that policy paper (and why).

In this editorial we describe the clinician/administrator/researcher experience of frustration or confusion around how to effectively advocate for policy change in health care. By the end of the piece the reader will (a) understand the importance of health professionals' advocacy; (b) know how to use policy papers to advocate; and (c) understand how policy organizations use policy papers. We also discuss the National Academies of Medicine, Science, & Engineering High Quality Primary Care report as an example of a policy paper, introduce our new coeditors for the Policy and Management Department, and describe the Collaborative Family Health Care Association's new policy principles.

Assessing cross-sector stakeholder readiness to advance and sustain statewide behavioral integration beyond a State Innovation Model (SIM) initiative.

Integrated care is recognized as a promising approach to comprehensive health care and reductions in health care costs. However, the integration of behavioral health and primary care is complex and often difficult to implement. Successful and sustainable integration efforts require coordination and alignment both within health care organizations and across multiple sectors.

The Advocacy Portfolio: A Standardized Tool for Documenting Physician Advocacy.

Recent changes in health care delivery systems and in medical training have primed academia for a paradigm shift, with strengthened support for an expanded definition of scholarship. Physicians who consider advocacy to be relevant to their scholarly endeavors need a standardized format to display activities and measure the value of health outcomes to which their work can be attributed. Similar to the Educator Portfolio, the authors here propose the Advocacy Portfolio (AP) to document a scholarly approach to advocacy.

How to write a health policy brief.

Although many health care professionals are interested in health policy, relatively few have training in how to utilize their clinical experience and scientific knowledge to impact policy. Developing a policy brief is one approach that health professionals may use to draw attention to important evidence that relates to policy. This article offers guidance on how to write a policy brief by outlining 4 steps: (a) define the problem, (b) state the policy, (c) make your case, and (d) discuss the impact.

Open communication: Recommendations for enhancing communication among primary care and mental health providers, services, and systems.

Comments on the article "Please break the silence: Parents' views on communication between pediatric primary care and mental health providers" by Greene et al. (see record 2015-14521-001). The article highlights the need to improve communication between primary care and mental health care providers to better serve children and families.