Most of us are aware that Americans waste a lot of food, which has spurred nonprofits like the Food Recovery Network to avert some of that loss and give it to hungry people. But you may not know that Americans also toss out an astonishing amount of perfectly good prescription drugs as well. These drugs end up in landfills, flushed down the toilet or burnt in incinerators where they can harm people or the environment, keeping them from people who could use them.
Fifty percent of the Americans that the Commonwealth Fund surveyed said that they had failed to fill a prescription ordered by their doctors because of the price of the drug, and according to the CDC, 25 percent of Americans struggle with paying their medical bills.
Which is why several crusaders are working to get unused prescription drugs into the hands of people who need them. George Wang, whose Stanford, California-based nonprofit startup Sirum recovers these drugs, calculates that $700 million worth of prescriptions could be saved each year. He talked with Marketplace about “the absurdity of the waste and how gross it is, the fact that it’s raining down on families where these drugs are being burnt. It’s insane, right?”
One of the big culprits is nursing homes. Residents use a lot of prescriptions, but regulations require these facilities to toss prescriptions instead of sharing them between patients. Larry McCarty, a medical waste hauler who works for nursing homes in California describes, “brand new packages that have never been open and still have the saran over the top of them. Whole packages, just sitting in there.”
Sirum has developed software to make it simple for nursing homes to donate leftover drugs, shipping them to pharmacies that will give them to low-income people or those who don’t have insurance.
In Oklahoma, Linda Johnston, the Tulsa County Director of Social Service, heads up a program that involves retired doctors in collecting unused drugs and delivering them to the needy, saving $16 million worth of drugs so far, and countless lives. Johnston talked with Marketplace about one young man who’d received anti-depression medication from the program. “He wanted me to know he was not going to commit suicide, because he had his medication, he could take it.”
MORE: How Much Food Could Be Rescued if College Dining Halls Saved Their Leftovers?
[ph]
Tag: Health
If You Protect Your Smartphone With This Case, It Could Save Your Life
What’s so important about two Carnegie Mellon graduates and their small startup Lifeshel? For starters, they’re developing technology that has the potential to alter the fate of assault victims.
Lifeshel‘s first product, which will debut in 2015, is a smartphone case and app called Whistl. The case fits onto the user’s phone and has buttons on it that activate a 120 decibels alarm (sound that’s the equivalent of sitting in the front row seat at a rock concert) and contact law enforcement and emergency contacts when pressed. Accompanying the alarm is an LED strobe light meant to disorient the attack and alert help in the area. The app also takes a video and audio recording of the incident to prevent later confusion and discrepancies.
The app uses Bluetooth technology that provides location information to law-enforcement and emergency contacts (that have been programmed in), according to The Atlantic.
To safeguard against an attacker disabling it, a personalized security gesture or ID combination is needed.
Post-college, co-founders Jayon Wang and Alan Fu developed Whistl after seeing the effects of assault on their college campus, namely on their friend Lean Yingling who was attacked while running.
“[We] “knew people on campus who had been sexually assaulted, whose cases were never properly resolved because there was no evidence,” Wang tells The Atlantic. “There was no concrete data that showed when something happened and how it happened.”
Their device could change all that. So far, Lifeshel conducted a successful 20-unit trial at Carnegie Mellon, which was greeted with positive feedback from the participants.
Although there’s still much change that needs to happen in regards to the cultural mindset of sexual assault, Whistl is a step in the right direction.
MORE: Can Nail Polish Prevent Date Rape?
Across Southern California, This Woman Is Bringing Green
Los Angeles is seeing green, and we’re not talking about not money or jealousy. Instead, we’re referring to grass, and it’s sprouting in unusual spots: vacant lots.
Across L.A. and southern California, From Lot to Spot is taking old abandoned lots and beautifying the space — turning it into community gardens and public parks.
Founder and Executive Director Viviana Franco started the nonprofit back in 2009 after witnessing the lack of public space and fresh, healthy food access in low-income communities. So, she decided to get to work turning old lots into green space and parkland.
“I founded From Lot to Spot seven years ago out of a need in my personal neighborhood Hawthorne and Inglewood ,” Franco tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “There was an abundance of vacant lots. So I went to school to learn.”
The group’s projects include the 118th & Doty Pocket Park in Hawthorne, Larch Avenue Park in Lawndale and the Stanford/Avalon Community Garden in Los Angeles, as well as a mass projection in Riverside. Working with the community, From Lot to Spot helped Riverside improve already existing parks, such as the Tequesquite Community Garden, Arlanza Community Garden and East Side Community Garden at Emerson Elementary School. These are only a few of the many projects on which the group has worked.
From Lot to Spot’s target is low-income food deserts where fresh, local food is scarce and fast-food restaurants and liquor stores thrive. Historically, many of these areas also contain large populations of Hispanics and African Americans.
The hope is that the parks and gardens will reverse the current health trends in these areas of obesity and diabetes and encourage healthy lifestyles. Parks provide a comfortable place for walks and exercise, and community gardens not only offer fresh food, but also boost the local economy, as well.
Although From Lot to Spot has grown over the past eight years, Franco has high hopes for the future as there is still much more work to be done. Her goals include the creation of 20 more farms by 2020, more partnerships with local organizations and increased access to local food in Riverside and Southern California.
“From a health and sustainability standpoint, local food is intrinsic,” Franco says to Sustainable Cities Collective. “There are no geographical limits of low access to healthy foods.”
MORE: This Startup Uses Urban Relics to Serve Up Local Food
How Does This Sheet Make Healthy Food More Accessible?
Let’s be honest, most of us probably love the taste of homegrown, fresh vegetables, but we don’t want to do the work required to start our own garden. Between weeding, planting and watering, the upkeep of a garden requires a lot of time that many of us simply don’t have.
All of that might change, however, with the invention of the Seedsheet, a seed-loaded sheet customized to your needs.
Seedsheet is the product of the new Vermont-based company Cloudform. A Kickstarter campaign to fund its production launched on Nov. 14.
Green thumbs can design their garden using the Seedsheet’s website, and according to CEO and founder Cameron MacKulger, it’s as simple as paint by numbers. Users plug in their garden dimensions on the website and and their zip code to learn which plant hardiness zone they live in. Next, users customize garden by dragging, dropping and arranging fruits, vegetables and herbs in their virtual garden.
Seedsheet will then create the sheet and all the customer has to do is prepare the soil, put the sheet in the soil and water. The sheet eliminates the need for seed selection, planting and weeding (thanks to the weed-barrier fabric in it).
Making gardening easier is not MacKugler’s ultimate goal, however.
“The primary aim of the Seedsheet, and our company, is to make healthy food accessible for everyone,” MacKugler tells Motherboard. “The Seedsheet is a value-add to people that already garden, as it is an innovation that will save time and improve upon the process that they already love. By incorporating a user-friendly software program, we make gardening approachable to millennials that would otherwise be intimidated by a 100-page seed catalog.”
Additionally, because Seedsheet warms the ground beneath it, it makes the soil and seeds more stable to fight erosion, plus, it requires less watering.
Sounds like a dream come true for green thumbs everywhere.
MORE: From Farm to Patient: How One Medical Facility is Rethinking Hospital Food
To Combat Child Food Insecurity, These Brothers Biked Cross Country
What does two brothers plus one penny per mile times 4,000 miles equal?
The answer: 400 meals for children living in poverty in the U.S.
Hailing from Ferndale, Michigan, Jon and Chris Gagnon are well acquainted with the childhood food insecurity problem in Detroit. In Wayne County, Mich., the rate of child food insecurity is 22.3 percent, meaning 102,790 children don’t have sufficient access to nutritious food.
While volunteering with an AmeriCorps summer program, Jon heard about No Kid Hungry – a national nonprofit that helps bring federal and state assistance programs to families and children. Jon is now employed by Groundwerx.CI, a Detroit nonprofit that works with No Kid Hungry.
Due to this experience, the Gagnon brothers saw that something needed to be done, and their solution was a cross-country bike campaign to raise money for the organization.
Their ride started on Sept. 3 in San Francisco and concluded Oct. 17 in Washington D.C. For six weeks, the brothers toured all around the country seeing sights all too common in Detroit: tons of grocery stores and farmers markets, but people still living without healthy food. During their trip, they were able to witness and experience the daily struggle of those families.
“Being hungry doesn’t just make your stomach growl,” Chris wrote on the brothers’ blog. “It drains your energy, steals your focus and makes the simplest actions feel impossible.”
Before they started their trip, the brothers began an online fundraising campaign on the No Kid Hungry website. Donors could make a straight donation or an amount per mile. Just $1 can provide 10 meals for a child.
Of the collected donations, 20 percent will go to the national No Kid Hungry and the other 80 percent is heading to the Detroit chapter. The brothers’ goal was to raise $25,000. As of November 13, $18, 117 was raised, and donations are still being accepted online.
While fighting child food insecurity is a long journey not near completion, the Gagnon brothers have shown what can be accomplished with a few dollars, bikes and some perseverance.
MORE: The District Where Healthy School Lunches Are Actually Succeeding
Meet The Woman Putting a Personal Touch on Health Insurance Enrollment
With all the intricate details of the health care system, it’s easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed, making it next to impossible to choose the best insurance option. Which is why King County, Wash. is taking a different approach — they’re letting the people that know the community take the lead.
So instead of residents hearing about health care options in a general format, a representative of the community presents information catered to the individual area’s needs.
The woman behind the idea? Daphne Pie, King County’s manager of access and outreach at the Public Health Department for Seattle and King County. Her group of workers consists of 24 community leaders, including representatives from Cierra Sisters, Arms Perinatal Doula Program, Gay City health project and the Asian Counseling and Referral Service.
All of this began about four years when the County Council put forth their ‘equity and social justice’ strategic plan, according to National Journal. The measure has each county department focus on reaching the communities where there is the greatest inequity in their respective area of expertise.
For Pie, that meant finding a way to reach diverse groups about their health insurance choices. Her solution? For every community that had above average rates of uninsured citizens, a leader that spreads the message: “you can have health care insurance for free or at a very low cost.”
Communities in King County are quite diverse, featuring African-Americans, Native American tribes, Latinas and homosexuals, among others. Therefore, it’s useful to have a member of that community who can understand and address each group’s specific needs — whether it be HIV medication or natural childbirth.
The County’s commitment to this project isn’t just on paper, either. In 2013, out of the $1.6 million of federal grants King County received, $1.3 million of it went to community partners.
“You have to reach the uninsured where they live,” Pie tells National Journal. “We can’t expect these people to always come to us.”
MORE: Step Right Up, the Barber Will See You Now
What This Couple Learned By Spending Six Months Dumpster Diving
If you asked husband and wife Grant Baldwin and Jen Rustmeyer what they were having for dinner, their answer would be whatever is lying around…literally.
For six months, the couple ate only “wasted” food — that which was discarded, considered “ugly” or incorrectly labelled — to demonstrate the food waste problem in America.
In a country where one in five children is food insecure, about 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. isn’t eaten — resulting in a loss of $165 billion, according to Good. That’s why the couple set out on the venture, which resulted in their documentary “Just Eat It.”
During the process, the couple was surprised to find out that individuals, not industry, are the major contributors to food waste. In the average household, about one quarter of the food bought isn’t eaten, and about 50 percent of all food waste can be traced to individuals whether through the disposal of uneaten groceries, uncooked food or unfinished meals at restaurants and at home.
So, what’s the main cause of this waste? For Baldwin and Rustmeyer, it all comes back to food date labeling. While these dates tend to be viewed as definitive, they’re actually guidelines for stock rotation and peak freshness, not expiration. In fact, an expiration date is only valid for a few products.
Other large sources of waste are restaurants and schools, where food is distributed in large amounts and rarely finished, and distribution. While some states, like California, have an overabundance of products in food banks, it can’t be efficiently and cost-effectively transported to states that don’t.
All hope isn’t lost, though, as Baldwin and Rustmeyer have simple waste-reducing steps to follow. First, trust your five senses, not the date label. Second, value everything you own. Third, save food in what Rustmeyer calls an “Eat Me First” drawer.
“That’s a bin in your fridge where you put things that need to be included in the next meal,” Rustmeyer tells Good.
So, before you throw out that food, take a break from reliance on the date label and put a little more trust in your senses.
MORE: From Farm to Patient: How One Medical Facility is Rethinking Hospital Food
[ph]
When Its Only Grocery Store Closed Its Doors, This Town Didn’t Have to Look Far for New Owners
What do you do when your local supermarket closes? For one town, it means you open your own community-owned store.
When the local Winn Dixie shut its doors in northeast Greensboro, N.C. in the 1990s, the area became a barren food desert. For the past 15 years, residents have been waiting for another grocery story to fill the void, according to Yes! magazine, but none came. The community isn’t big enough to satiate the needs of a large shareholder corporation, which has acted as a deterrent for other chain stores.
Left without access to food for too long, the community took the matter into their own hands and started researching. After exploring various options, it decided to form a grocery store cooperative.
Starting next year, northeast Greensboro residents will have access to a store that will provide them quality food as well as well-paid jobs. All workers at the Renaissance Community Cooperative will be paid more than minimum wage, starting at $10 per hour.
There’s a common belief about co-ops that they work best in more affluent communities. However, northeast Greensboro is a low-income and predominantly African-American community, so with the start of the cooperative, the town is looking to break that stereotype.
While the results and success of the co-op remain to be seen, right now it can be viewed as a positive step in the right direction. And, if it does become successful, it will serve as an example and model for other low-income areas to follow.
It goes just to show what positives can come from what first seem to be a devastating event.
MORE: These Organizations Are Empowering Female Workers
How Independence Day Clothing Is Reinventing the Way Children With Autism Get Dressed
Michele Iallonardi’s son Jackson, 12, has autism, and while he can physically put on his clothes, he can’t differentiate between right and wrong sides or front and back. “You must actually hand him the clothes the right way and ‘coach’ while he puts them on,” says Iallonardi, of Hauppauge, N.Y., who is also the mother of 10-year-old twins Bennett and Luca. “This should be a skill that he can do independently,” she says, but Jackson can’t because regular clothes have zippers, buttons, seams and tags — often insurmountable obstacles to getting dressed for children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Lauren Thierry, a mother of three boys, is very familiar with these limitations. Her oldest, 16-year-old Liam, has autism, and it was around the time he turned 7 that she envisioned an easier morning routine. “A scratchy shirt tag, a twisted sock seam, an ordinary wristwatch — that stuff can send someone with autism into tantrums, can make them tear off a shirt while on a school bus or kick off a shoe in a shopping mall,” says Thierry, who lives in New York City.
But thanks to the recent launch of Independence Day Wearable Technology, Jackson, Liam and their families are dressing more easily every day.
Thierry — a former journalist who left her job to care for Liam full-time — used her background to research clothing options for young adults with autism. She produced the documentary “Autism Every Day,” and spearheaded Autism Awareness Day at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. In fact, it was at a Mets game when Liam, then 12 at the time, came out of the bathroom with his pants halfway down that Thierry knew something had to change, because he “still did not have the fine motor skills to zip and button his fly.” Thierry’s advocacy work revealed that many other families with children on the ASD spectrum experience the same issues.
Thierry met with New York City-based designer Dalila Anderson to see if her idea for a line of sensory-sensitive, stylish clothing was feasible. “She wanted to know if we could come up with an idea to make clothing reversible, seamless, etc.,” says Anderson. “I said yes, and just started sketching.”
Anderson, who studied at the Parsons School of Design, serves as Independence Day Clothing’s creative/production director, designer and design consultant, while Thierry is the company’s president. The clothing is made in New York City, using natural fabrics and fibers whenever possible. “That’s a big deal, not only to the autism community, but for me as a designer,” says Anderson.
[ph]
The line features rugby shirts, cargo pants, dresses, tunics, leggings and hoodies that are seamless, tagless, buttonless, zipperless and either two- or four-way reversible. Careful craftsmanship and details address the shape and weight challenges facing tweens and teens (the average wearer is 10 to 16 years old) with ASD who are going through puberty. Necklines and waistlines are equally meted so clothing can be turned inside out or backward and forward with ease. “Children want to be able to hang out with friends, and feel like they are just one of the other kids, not have their clothing unzipped, unbuttoned, or backwards, in a way that other people take for granted,” Anderson says.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently estimates that about 1 in 68 children in the United States has been diagnosed with ASD, and according to the National Autism Association, roughly half, or 48 percent, of those children will attempt to wander from a safe environment — a rate nearly four times higher than their unaffected siblings. So perhaps ID Clothing’s most compelling innovation is the soft, sensory-sensitive, hidden compartments that house a small GPS device. ID Clothing truly is wearable tech — 11 different devices were beta tested to get the details right. The GPS device “had to be placed in a way where it wouldn’t bother the wearer and it wouldn’t be something someone else could see,” says Anderson. Customers receive a free GPS device with purchase, and through a partnership with Phoenix 5 Global Tracking can set up a plan to utilize the EMPOWER GPS+Hybrid Technology system.
[ph]
Though ID Clothing is the first to offer GPS-enabled apparel, they join several other brands making strides in the world of sensory-sensitive goods, including Soft Clothing, SmartKnitKids, Kozie Clothes and No Netz.
However, the wearable technology isn’t without its critics, who are concerned about privacy issues. Appearing before the New York City Council in April 2014, Thierry said, “If you were the parent of a child who bolts, you would not be worrying about big brother. These are the things moms like me go through every single day — keeping predators away, keeping him from wandering — we live with this elevated stress level every day.” The testimony was part of an effort by the council to implement a medical registry and access to GPS technology for people with developmental disorders, in the wake of the tragic loss of 14-year-old Avonte Oquendo, who wandered from his school in Queens in October 2013 and was found dead several months later.
Lisa Keane Herrera, an applied behavior analysis therapist and special education teacher in New York City, has worked with clients, including Thierry’s son, on the ASD spectrum since 2001 and was present at a focus group for ID Clothing. “You could see that the kids [with autism] were happier overall,” she says. “It’s good for their self-confidence. A task that may have taken thirty minutes may now take five. I know parents that spend hours ripping out tags and seams. This is cutting edge for someone who can’t advocate for themselves,” she says.
For Iallonardi, a special education teacher, ID Clothing is a lifesaver. “My son can go in his drawer, take out a shirt, put it on, and it’s right no matter what,” she says. “He spends his whole life with other people trying to figure out what he wants. The more that he can do for himself, the better his quality of life.”
Anderson and Thierry are enthusiastic about the future of ID Clothing. What’s up next? Producing underwear, T-shirts, sweats and socks, while skirts and cargo shorts are also in the works. Sizes will soon expand to include extra-small and extra-large (only small to large are currently available). Thierry’s ultimate goal: to show at New York Fashion Week. “I see high-end supermodels walking hand-in-hand with the real superstars — those living with autism and other special needs, who are true heroes for getting out of bed every morning and getting dressed all by themselves before they leave for school,” says Thierry. “A splashy debut of a clothing line for this population is every bit as noteworthy as a splashy launch of one by some reality show celebrity. [Kids with autism] are the superstars who deserve to be celebrated.”
[ph]
How Texting Can Improve the Health of Babies Born to Low-Income Mothers
Some app designers are now thinking beyond the traditional targets for their products and are focusing on how technology can help the poor instead.
As we’ve pointed out, Significance Labs sponsors three-month fellowship for entrepreneurs and software engineers as develop technology that serves the poor. (Twenty-five million American families live on less than $25,000 a year, yet 80 percent of low-income Americans own some kind of mobile device, according to Significance Labs’s website.)
One tool that reaches low-income Americans is Text4Baby, which can help expectant low-income and teenage mothers give birth to healthy babies, writes Jill Duffy for PC Magazine.
Text4Baby is a free service that sends pregnant women and new moms text-sized bits of wisdom and advice to support their health and parenting skills. The messages, which are available in either Spanish or English, are also tailored according to the zip code of the mother and the due date of the baby or age of the child.
The texts include health notices, such as the importance of cooking meat thoroughly and wearing a seat belt, descriptions of symptoms that shouldn’t be ignored and developmental updates as the baby grows. Texts also inform pregnant women when to schedule their next prenatal appointment and ask about blood tests they took in prior appointments.
These small, regular reminders, such as, “Even if U feel great, a pregnant woman needs checkups with a Dr./midwife (CNM/CM). For help with costs, call 800-311-2229,” can be a powerful tool for women with limited resources and support. Text4Baby messages also include information to help women access the necessary healthcare.
Tamara Grider, the director of marketing and communications for Text4Baby, says that while the service isn’t exclusively for low-income mothers, “We do put effort into [reaching them] and that includes women who are low-income, women who are African-American and Hispanic. We definitely have a target audience because we know where the need is the greatest, for one, and because of the infant mortality rate among ethnic groups.”
The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition runs Text4Baby and collects no information from users beyond their zip code and the baby’s due date. It’s anonymous and easy to use for anyone with a cell phone — regardless of manufacturer.
Users can benefit from a number of special programs, such as a current promotion that offers free flu shots for all Text4Baby users at RiteAid.
Grider tells Duffy that the reminders help because lower-income people “have a lot to worry about. A lot of our moms who are low income or younger moms, for them it’s kind of like insurance: ‘I don’t know what I don’t know. But if I need to know something, Text4Baby is going to tell me.'”
It all adds up to a tech solution that is GR8 for low-income moms.
MORE: Where Helping the Poor Comes Before Innovating for the Privileged