At the end of the Georgia ballot this year is a referendum that, if approved, would help nonprofits provide permanent housing to homeless people with mental illness.

Referendum B would allow a property tax exemption for nonprofit housing of these individuals in residences that get tax credit financing from for-profit business entities.

3Keys is one such organization that would benefit from the proposal. It’s a nonprofit that provides 477 residential units in Fulton and DeKalb counties for people with mental illness who have been homeless. Supportive services are offered to the residents.

Because it used a ...

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Vaping devices have been marketed as a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes.

But a new GHN Commentary argues they are anything but safe. Melanie Dallas, CEO of Highland Rivers Health, says inhaling the chemically enhanced water vapor that these devices produce can expose a person to any number of risky substances.

“One of the biggest dangers of vaping – you can never be sure what you’re getting,’’ she writes. “Retailers may sell you something they call ‘synthetic marijuana,’ but you have no way of knowing what chemicals are actually in that vape cartridge, how harmful they might be or how your body will react ...

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Three Georgia children have been reported this year as having a rare, polio-like health condition, state officials said Wednesday.

They are among the 62 children nationally who have been confirmed with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in 2018, with at least 65 more cases under investigation, according to the CDC.

There is no known single cause of AFM, whose symptoms include weakness in the arms or legs, and sometimes paralysis.

Since 2014, Georgia public health officials say, that there have been 11 confirmed or probable cases of AFM in the state, with five coming in 2016 alone.

The CDC noticed an apparent increase in this ...

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Low-income adults in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid are more likely to have unmet medical needs than the poor in states that expanded the government-run program, a federal report says.

The report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), released Monday, based its estimates from a 2016 national survey. An estimated 5.6 million uninsured low-income adults had incomes eligible for expanded Medicaid as outlined under the Affordable Care Act. Most of them reside in the 17 states, including Georgia, that have not adopted expansion.

Medicaid expansion has become a campaign issue in the upcoming gubernatorial election in Georgia.

The state’s Republican political leadership has consistently ...

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