California recently approved a longer paid family leave, allowing workers whose blessed events fall on the right side of the new law to take up to eight weeks off with partial pay to bond with a new baby. How’s that going to work? 

Now that it’s upending the way you play music, cook, shop, hear the news and check the weather, the friendly voice emanating from your Amazon Alexa-enabled smart speaker is poised to wriggle its way into all things health care.

After Bethany Sasaki became certified as a lactation consultant about a decade ago, she took a break from her hospital nursing job to earn some cash consulting while caring for her newborn son. She drove all over the Sacramento region to meet with moms struggling to breastfeed. And her phone kept on ringing.

Last year, California passed legislation that made it the first state to establish voluntary standards for workplace mental health. Companies like Sutter Health, Walgreens and Bank of America quickly signed on to address mental health wellness in the workplace. Will others follow suit?

Federal lawmakers are responding to a trend of increasing temperatures with a new push for better workplace safety. Some are looking to existing laws in California as a template.

Mortality rates among black infants in California are triple those of white infants. A host of factors underlie this health gap, but studies consistently point to an ugly one: the persistence of racial bias in perinatal care for women of color.

The fate of the Affordable Care Act is again on the line Tuesday, as a federal appeals court in New Orleans takes up a case in which a lower court judge has already ruled the massive health law unconstitutional.

The California agency that regulates doctors is investigating at least four physicians for issuing questionable medical exemptions to children whose parents did not want them immunized.

Ann Manganello survives entirely off her Social Security stipend: $1,391 a month.

That doesn’t amount to much in the pricey desert enclave of Palm Springs, Calif. — especially for someone who contends with a host of expensive medical problems, including a blood vessel disorder, complications from a recent stroke and frequent bouts of colitis.

Cities across the country struggle with how to revitalize historically disenfranchised neighborhoods. An interesting and successful model — using public education, economic development and self-empowerment to drive change — has had a profound impact on a local underserved community.