Latest news with #MarylandDepartmentofHumanServices
CBS News
01-05-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Elevated levels of legionella bacteria found at Maryland Dept. of Human Services Biddle Street office
Elevated levels of legionella bacteria were detected at the Maryland Department of Human Services Biddle Street office complex, the land Department of Human Services said Thursday. Officials discovered the bacteria after proactive water supply testing that began in January. Test results received on April 25 prompted immediate remediation efforts, including shock chlorination and flushing of the water system. Building remains open while remediation continues The department said it has turned off the water at all locations with elevated levels of legionella bacteria. "The safety of our team and visitors are our highest priority, which is why we are testing our buildings and taking any positive results seriously," the department said in a statement. The department also said it is providing hand sanitizer throughout the building and the landlord is supplying bottled water during the remediation process. Officials confirmed the building will remain open for services to Baltimore residents while remediation continues. Legionella presence at other Baltimore City buildings Between December 2024 and February 2025, elevated levels of legionella were detected twice, at the same three Baltimore City courthouses, according to the mayor's office. Officials said aging plumbing infrastructure could be the reason for the recurring legionella reports. In response, the city said it implemented proactive water quality checks across multiple downtown facilities and installed new mechanical systems that use ammonium salt and stabilized chlorine solutions to prevent bacterial regrowth. No confirmed cases of Legionnaires' disease have been reported in connection with any of the incidents. What is Legionnaires disease? Legionnaires' disease, is a bacterial infection caused by Legionella bacteria. Fortunately, legionnaires can't be spread from person to person. In order to contract it, you must come into contact with droplets of water or mist containing the bacteria. Legionnaires' disease is a type of pneumonia characterized by symptoms such as cough, fever, shortness of breath, muscle aches, headaches, and digestive issues like nausea or diarrhea.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Maryland has reported high child fatalities for years. Now they say they've overreported.
Maryland childhood fatalities due to neglect or abuse have been well above the national average in recent years, but state officials now say they have been accidentally overreporting the numbers, which are closer to the national average. (Photo by) In recent years, Maryland has reported notably high child fatalities related to mistreatment and abuse — well above the national average. But state officials now say that Maryland has been reporting incorrect numbers for the last five years, and the number is far lower than initially reported. 'It was really just us not checking our homework and not double-checking our work,' said Alger Studstill Jr., the executive director of the Social Services Administration in the Maryland Department of Human Services. 'Our highest priority in this work is to ensure that children across the state of Maryland are safe and well,' he said. 'We've been working with national consultants to look at how we are reviewing our child maltreatment fatalities, but also looking at our data to ensure that these types of reporting errors don't happen again.' Studstill said that 'one fatality is one too many,' and the department will be incorporating the new data into future efforts to improve child welfare services in the state. Meanwhile, advocates and child welfare experts say the time it took to investigate the Maryland's soaring child fatalities is indicative of the lack of attention the issue gets. Emily Putnam-Hornstein, with the School of Social Work at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the organization Lives Cut Short, hopes that the corrected data can serve as a 'wake-up call' for states to pay closer attention to the issue. Kids Count: Maryland fell behind majority of states in childhood health indicators 'I don't think Maryland is alone in not having a great handle on exactly what these maltreatment fatality counts consist of,' she said. 'If we're trying to prevent them (child maltreatment fatalities), we have to know exactly what we're trying to prevent. 'These data matter so much from a public health and prevention standpoint. That's why I would love to see not just corrected numbers but to see much more transparency and disclosure of the specifics of the deaths that occurred, not just in Maryland but all over the states,' Putnam-Hornstein said. The child maltreatment fatality update is part of a data overhaul for the department that was spurred by recent reporting in the Baltimore Banner that pushed the problem of child fatalities to the forefront for state officials. 'Once we were made aware of the problem, we got to work to address it,' Studstill said. Every year, states report information on child maltreatment to the federal Children's Bureau, overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which get published in the annual Child Maltreatment report. The most recent report, in January, published data from 2023. That year, Maryland reported to federal officials that 83 children had died due to maltreatment, resulting in a rate of 6.09 fatalities per 100,000 children from birth to 17 years old. The national rate was 2.73 fatalities per 100,000 that same year, when just under 2,000 children died due to maltreatment. But Studstill said it appears the department included any case in its report where a maltreatment investigation was opened, not just those where maltreatment, neglect or abuse were confirmed. As a result, the state overreported deaths for 2023, when it now says there were 47 deaths. 'They (the federal agency) are looking for child fatalities where there was child maltreatment that was 'indicated' — meaning that the fatality was a direct result of abuse or neglect,' Studstill said in a recent interview. 'What Maryland has done previously is we've been reporting all fatalities.' 'We operate an abuse hotline, so whenever we receive a call, we have screening-in criteria that we will review,' he said. 'If the fatality is alleged to have been caused by a parent or caregiver, then we screen that report in.' Studstill said the 83 cases reported in 2023 were 'all of the cases that got screened in,' while the corrected 47 cases are those where 'there was an indicated finding – meaning that the fatality was a result of neglect or abuse by a caregiver.' The department now believes the 285 fatalities it reported from 2020 to 2023 were actually 173 — with 30 in 2020 instead of the reported 50; 56 in 2021 instead of 84; and 40 instead of the reported 68 in 2022. It asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last month to correct the data. The letter to HHS said some of the inaccuracies resulted from the state transitioning to a new data system to report child welfare cases, and 'are as a result of not conducting validation or reconciliation.' The state said that of the lower number of deaths where neglect or abuse was indicated, a 'significant portion of child fatalities during this period resulted from co-sleeping, unsafe sleep, infant/toddler drug ingestion, suicide and drowning.' While national data for 2024 won't be available until next year, state officials say Maryland will report 46 child fatalities in the next edition of Child Maltreatment. 'Every preventable death is a tragedy. It is particularly tragic when that death occurs at the hands of a parent,' Putnam-Hornstein said. 'When I read the letters and the statements that were circulated in terms of how these errors occurred, as someone who works with data, I totally understand how this could have happened.' Putnam-Hornstein and other social services experts say that despite the lower reported fatalities in the state, there is still work to be done to improve child welfare and reduce the number of child deaths overall. 'I think the good news from the public standpoint is we now know what baseline we are working from, as we try to protect more children and prevent more fatalities,' Putnam-Hornstein said. 'I continue to think that there's tremendous room for improvement in how we investigate potential child maltreatment fatalities … and then what we do with that information to try to improve system coordination.' Richard Barth, professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, said the corrected data is not necessarily a comfort to those in his field, as he believes there are issues with the national reporting system at large. 'I don't think any of us feel that the numbers we have really represent the risks to kids,' Barth said, noting that there are often few differences between child fatalities where abuse and maltreatment is indicated and those where the mistreatment is unsubstantiated or ruled out. Barth says that the new data is 'a good wake-up call' for the state to bolster data on kids in the welfare system to better understand the factors that lead up to child mistreatment fatalities. 'Families that are involved in child welfare are often involved for quite some time,' he said. 'The more that we know about the accumulating risks for them, the better.' Putnam-Hornstein agreed. 'Hopefully this is a wake up call that will lead to improvements in data collection, not just in Maryland but other states. And hopefully corresponding improvements in how our systems respond to child safety concerns,' she said. Putnam-Hornstein said the data collection issues are 'arguably a collective failure on the part of many of us.' 'I could argue that researchers should have been looking at that data and asking questions of Maryland and other states, sooner. I could argue that if the federal government is collecting that data and publishing data … one would presumably hope that there'd be some additional policies done and some questions raised,' she said. 'And then of course, most locally, one would hope that Maryland would have been looking closely at those trends and the comparisons across states,' she said. Children's Bureau letter
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Maryland has reported high child fatalities for years. Now they say they've overreported.
Maryland childhood fatalities due to neglect or abuse have been well above the national average in recent years, but state officials now say they have been accidentally overreporting the numbers, which are closer to the national average. (Photo by) In recent years, Maryland has reported notably high child fatalities related to mistreatment and abuse — well above the national average. But state officials now say that Maryland has been reporting incorrect numbers for the last five years, and the number is far lower than initially reported. 'It was really just us not checking our homework and not double-checking our work,' said Alger Studstill Jr., the executive director of the Social Services Administration in the Maryland Department of Human Services. 'Our highest priority in this work is to ensure that children across the state of Maryland are safe and well,' he said. 'We've been working with national consultants to look at how we are reviewing our child maltreatment fatalities, but also looking at our data to ensure that these types of reporting errors don't happen again.' Studstill said that 'one fatality is one too many,' and the department will be incorporating the new data into future efforts to improve child welfare services in the state. Meanwhile, advocates and child welfare experts say the time it took to investigate the Maryland's soaring child fatalities is indicative of the lack of attention the issue gets. Emily Putnam-Hornstein, with the School of Social Work at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the organization Lives Cut Short, hopes that the corrected data can serve as a 'wake-up call' for states to pay closer attention to the issue. Kids Count: Maryland fell behind majority of states in childhood health indicators 'I don't think Maryland is alone in not having a great handle on exactly what these maltreatment fatality counts consist of,' she said. 'If we're trying to prevent them (child maltreatment fatalities), we have to know exactly what we're trying to prevent. 'These data matter so much from a public health and prevention standpoint. That's why I would love to see not just corrected numbers but to see much more transparency and disclosure of the specifics of the deaths that occurred, not just in Maryland but all over the states,' Putnam-Hornstein said. The child maltreatment fatality update is part of a data overhaul for the department that was spurred by recent reporting in the Baltimore Banner that pushed the problem of child fatalities to the forefront for state officials. 'Once we were made aware of the problem, we got to work to address it,' Studstill said. Every year, states report information on child maltreatment to the federal Children's Bureau, overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which get published in the annual Child Maltreatment report. The most recent report, in January, published data from 2023. That year, Maryland reported to federal officials that 83 children had died due to maltreatment, resulting in a rate of 6.09 fatalities per 100,000 children from birth to 17 years old. The national rate was 2.73 fatalities per 100,000 that same year, when just under 2,000 children died due to maltreatment. But Studstill said it appears the department included any case in its report where a maltreatment investigation was opened, not just those where maltreatment, neglect or abuse were confirmed. As a result, the state overreported deaths for 2023, when it now says there were 47 deaths. 'They (the federal agency) are looking for child fatalities where there was child maltreatment that was 'indicated' — meaning that the fatality was a direct result of abuse or neglect,' Studstill said in a recent interview. 'What Maryland has done previously is we've been reporting all fatalities.' 'We operate an abuse hotline, so whenever we receive a call, we have screening-in criteria that we will review,' he said. 'If the fatality is alleged to have been caused by a parent or caregiver, then we screen that report in.' Studstill said the 83 cases reported in 2023 were 'all of the cases that got screened in,' while the corrected 47 cases are those where 'there was an indicated finding – meaning that the fatality was a result of neglect or abuse by a caregiver.' The department now believes the 285 fatalities it reported from 2020 to 2023 were actually 173 — with 30 in 2020 instead of the reported 50; 56 in 2021 instead of 84; and 40 instead of the reported 68 in 2022. It asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last month to correct the data. The letter to HHS said some of the inaccuracies resulted from the state transitioning to a new data system to report child welfare cases, and 'are as a result of not conducting validation or reconciliation.' The state said that of the lower number of deaths where neglect or abuse was indicated, a 'significant portion of child fatalities during this period resulted from co-sleeping, unsafe sleep, infant/toddler drug ingestion, suicide and drowning.' While national data for 2024 won't be available until next year, state officials say Maryland will report 46 child fatalities in the next edition of Child Maltreatment. 'Every preventable death is a tragedy. It is particularly tragic when that death occurs at the hands of a parent,' Putnam-Hornstein said. 'When I read the letters and the statements that were circulated in terms of how these errors occurred, as someone who works with data, I totally understand how this could have happened.' Putnam-Hornstein and other social services experts say that despite the lower reported fatalities in the state, there is still work to be done to improve child welfare and reduce the number of child deaths overall. 'I think the good news from the public standpoint is we now know what baseline we are working from, as we try to protect more children and prevent more fatalities,' Putnam-Hornstein said. 'I continue to think that there's tremendous room for improvement in how we investigate potential child maltreatment fatalities … and then what we do with that information to try to improve system coordination.' Richard Barth, professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, said the corrected data is not necessarily a comfort to those in his field, as he believes there are issues with the national reporting system at large. 'I don't think any of us feel that the numbers we have really represent the risks to kids,' Barth said, noting that there are often few differences between child fatalities where abuse and maltreatment is indicated and those where the mistreatment is unsubstantiated or ruled out. Barth says that the new data is 'a good wake-up call' for the state to bolster data on kids in the welfare system to better understand the factors that lead up to child mistreatment fatalities. 'Families that are involved in child welfare are often involved for quite some time,' he said. 'The more that we know about the accumulating risks for them, the better.' Putnam-Hornstein agreed. 'Hopefully this is a wake up call that will lead to improvements in data collection, not just in Maryland but other states. And hopefully corresponding improvements in how our systems respond to child safety concerns,' she said. Putnam-Hornstein said the data collection issues are 'arguably a collective failure on the part of many of us.' 'I could argue that researchers should have been looking at that data and asking questions of Maryland and other states, sooner. I could argue that if the federal government is collecting that data and publishing data … one would presumably hope that there'd be some additional policies done and some questions raised,' she said. 'And then of course, most locally, one would hope that Maryland would have been looking closely at those trends and the comparisons across states,' she said. Children's Bureau letter
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
GOP bill would ban SNAP recipients from buying junk food
A U.S. House bill introduced earlier this month would bar those on food stamps from using them to buy soft drinks, candy and more. Rep. Josh Brecheen, an Oklahoma Republican, sponsored the Healthy SNAP Act on Jan. 16. The bill would exclude junk food from benefits provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the official name for food stamps — while requiring any SNAP-eligible foods to 'promote the health of SNAP recipients and reflect nutrition science, public health concerns, and cultural eating patterns.' About 850,000 Marylanders use SNAP, according to the Maryland Department of Human Services. 'If someone wants to buy junk food on their own dime, that's up to them,' Breechen said. 'But what we're saying is, don't ask the taxpayer to pay for it and then also expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the resulting health consequences.' Specifically, Brecheen's bill would exclude soft drinks, ice cream, prepared desserts such as cakes, pies and cookies and other similar foods. About 20% of SNAP benefits currently are used to purchase junk foods and sugary drinks, according to a fact sheet accompanying the legislation. SNAP benefits may be used to buy fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, bread, cereal, snack foods and non-alcoholic beverages. They cannot be used to buy items like alcohol, tobacco, vitamins and pet food. Breechen noted that Trump cabinet picks such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Department of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has vowed to 'make America healthy again' — have advocated excluding junk food from SNAP benefits. In 2024, Rubio and Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, led a bipartisan effort seeking to allow the government to collect more data on SNAP purchases. Their effort was designed to 'improve nutrition security and diet quality' to better inform Congress in setting policies for SNAP benefits. Booker and Rubio said in a joint statement at the time that poor nutrition is the leading factor for chronic disease. 'SNAP plays a crucial role in alleviating poverty and food insecurity, but needs to do better at improving nutrition security and diet quality for program participants,' Booker said in a July statement. Breechen's bill to reform SNAP has support from a wide swath of Republicans — mostly representing southern states. Similar bills have been introduced in the past and gone nowhere, but this year Republicans hold both chambers of Congress and the White House. That gives them better odds of passing changes to SNAP than in past sessions. -----------
