Courtesy of Providence Foundation

Dexter Hall, interim executive director of the Providence Foundation of San Francisco, often sits in meetings listening to data on the poverty, housing issues, and economic disparities that the organization takes on daily. “I don’t have to imagine who those numbers represent,” Hall tells The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. “I think: I am data. Every statistic someone reads off a slide is someone I’ve known.”

Born in East Waco, Texas, and raised in East Oakland, Hall grew up with his siblings surrounded by homelessness and financial instability. “My current knowledge of economic data now tells me what I didn’t know then: We were poor. We lived below the poverty line. But because of my mother’s love and the strength of our community, it never felt that way. We helped each other with what we had. We didn’t have much, but we had each other.”

Hall’s mother — whom he reverently refers to as “Mrs. Mildred Y. Hall” — worked as a certified nurse assistant. She later went back to school and became a dietary supervisor at a convalescent home. At home, she seemed to work miracles with what little the family had, he says. “I watched her stretch money for two weeks just to make sure she had bus fare to get to work. … She gave everything she had to make sure we had what we needed.”

The family typically lived in tight quarters but didn’t hesitate to give anyone in need a bed or the couch. “We made space where there was none,” Hall says.

These experiences constantly flash through Hall’s mind at Providence, particularly when conversations focus on those navigating homelessness or facing food insecurity. Often, these conversations can be abstract and lack understanding of what it means to live on the edge of society. Hall adds a needed reality check.

“I bring that lived knowledge to every decision,” he says, “because this work isn’t theoretical — it’s personal.”

Partners and Architects

Hall is an evangelist for the idea that organizations serving the vulnerable — such as those living in poverty, struggling to find housing, managing addiction, or experiencing domestic violence — should hire people with lived experience.

“People aren’t problems to be solved — they’re partners in their own transformation,” he says. “When leaders reflect the communities they serve, they listen differently, design differently, and deliver differently. They know how to ask without judgment, support without pity, and challenge with love. People with lived experience aren’t at the margins of this work — they are its architects.”

Team members with lived experience also are more likely to establish trust with clients. “As an immigrant, I deeply understand how overwhelming it can feel to start over in a big city like New York,” says Marlyn Navarro, a program coordinator at Bottomless Closet who immigrated to the United States

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What do people actually ask a AI telehealth platform for?

Prescription patterns paint a portrait of a nation managing pain, chronic disease, and the complications of modern life.

It’s a question that reveals more than just consumer preferences. In an era when healthcare access is increasingly strained — appointment wait times stretching to weeks, physician shortages mounting, costs rising — where people turn when barriers are lowered says something important about unmet needs.

Prescription data from Doctronic, an AI telehealth platform, offers a window into the health concerns driving Americans to seek care — and the patterns reveal clues about the state of American health and the future of healthcare delivery.

Pain relief dominates. Ibuprofen ranks as the single most prescribed medication on the platform, with Tylenol close behind in second place. Together, they represent the largest share of all prescriptions written.

Chronic disease management follows. Levothyroxine for thyroid disorders, metformin for diabetes, and atorvastatin for cholesterol round out the top five. Omeprazole for acid reflux ranks in the top ten.

Then there are the surprises: Magnesium ranks among the most prescribed items on the platform — a supplement, not a medication, appearing alongside drugs used to treat serious chronic conditions.

Taken together, the data creates a snapshot of American health in 2025 — and what people are willing to seek care for when the traditional barriers to access are removed.

A Nation in Pain

The dominance of pain relievers at the top of the list is striking but not surprising. Pain has become one of the defining health challenges of modern American life.

According to the CDC, an estimated 51.6 million U.S. adults experienced chronic pain in 2021 — roughly one in five Americans. Of those, 17.1 million experienced high-impact chronic pain, the kind that substantially restricts work and daily activities. Pain is now the leading reason Americans seek medical care.

The placement of ibuprofen and Tylenol as the top two prescriptions suggests pain management is a primary driver bringing people to AI telehealth platforms. For many patients, managing chronic pain involves ongoing access to anti-inflammatories and analgesics — not as a cure, but as a way to function day to day.

The pattern may also reflect convenience and timing. Pain is often episodic and unpredictable — a flare-up that doesn’t align with available appointment slots, a weekend injury, a headache that needs addressing now rather than in three weeks when the next opening appears on a provider’s calendar.

Traditional healthcare struggles with this temporal mismatch. The average wait for a new patient appointment has risen to 26 days, and even establ

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Part-time fitness instructors enjoy a lucrative side hustle while staying fit — and helping others stay fit, as well. If you’re interested in becoming a fitness instructor while still managing your other responsibilities, this guide from Zumba on the benefits of being a part-time instructor is just what you need to get started.

Why Should You Become a Part-Time Fitness Instructor?

There are many advantages of becoming a fitness instructor, including enhanced convenience, flexibility, and earning potential. If you’re considering starting a career as a part-time fitness instructor, here are some of the benefits you can enjoy.

Provides a Low-Risk Way to Test the Career

Becoming a part-time fitness instructor allows you to test the waters before quitting your day job. If you’ve never worked in the fitness industry, a part-time role can give you firsthand experience in what it’s like.

A part-time career can show you if you have the capacity and entrepreneurial spirit to succeed as a full-time fitness coach. It can also provide a profitable side hustle while you enjoy the stability of your full-time career. If being a part-time fitness instructor is not a good fit, it won’t be a major loss, as compared to embarking on a full-time fitness career.

Helps You Find Your Specialty

When you become a part-time fitness instructor, you get to explore different formats without committing to one permanently. You can try out one-on-one coaching or group training to evaluate if you prefer to work with individuals or groups. You can also try out different niches like dance-based workouts, weight training, and weight loss specializations.

Gives You a Flexible Schedule

Working part-time makes it easier to schedule your sessions around your life. You can create boundary hours where you’re free from work and coordinate times with clients that work for both of you. It also makes it easier to plan your sessions ahead of time and take time off for vacations or special events when you need it.

Offers Enhanced Earning Potential

With part-time fitness training, you can earn extra cash to help with bills or fund extra costs when needed. You can also set your own hourly rates, giving you more control over your earnings. The more clients or classes you take on, the more income you receive. With marketing, location, and the right clientele, you can create a fruitful stream of income.

Rewards You With Purposeful Work

Being a part-time fitness instructor gives you a rewarding way to make money. You can empower clients with the skills to keep themselves fit and reach their health goals. When you help a client reach their fitness goals, you help them build their confidence, which can be deeply fulfilling for both parties.

Brings You Additional Health Benefits

Workers with too little physical activity and Read more

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The Gulf Islands around Vancouver Island are beautiful — full of lakes and sheltered bays, and dotted with meadows and deer grazing along the road.

At first glance, most walking through these islands would believe what they see is natural and healthy — but the environment is actually “highly degraded,” Tara Martin, professor in the department of forest and conservation sciences at the University of British Columbia, explained to The Narwhal.

Those meadows were once filled with food and medicine plants and trees. But since the 1970s, the deer population on these islands has exploded and many native plants and trees can’t thrive. Native black-tailed deer, along with invasive fallow deer, have grazed these ecosystems into decline, one nibble at a time.

“[It’s a] very slow, gradual loss — so slow that most people don’t even recognize it,” Martin says.

Martin has been investigating the issue for 15 years. She co-authored a study published in November in People and Nature, which concludes Indigenous hunting is the most cost-effective and efficient solution to reduce “hyperabundant deer” — a population that has grown so large as to be environmentally unsustainable — on the Southern Gulf and San Juan Islands, bringing balance to a stressed ecosystem and benefiting human well-being.

University researchers worked with First Nations knowledge-holders and provincial and federal scientists on this study to create models of a range of solutions and their costs, and predicted success and uptake. They also predicted Indigenous hunting would have the highest chance of achieving objectives within 10 years on bigger islands.

“At the moment, what we’re seeing is we are putting a higher value on deer than everything else. And so we are losing hundreds of incredible plants — plants that pollinators, bumblebees, rely on,” Martin says.

“We’re losing Garry oaks, these amazing trees. We’re losing arbutus. … Ultimately, we’re heading towards an ecosystem that is much more simple and uninteresting and less biodiverse.”

To Tsawout Hereditary Chief W̱IĆKINEM Eric Pelkey, a co-author, the findings reaffirm the W̱SÁNEĆ goals to revitalize the Garry oak ecosystem — unique, highly biodiverse and critically endangered — and promote food sovereignty. Garry oak woodlands, which in Canada are found only in southwest B.C. and are one of the rarest ecosystems in the province, are crucial habitats for many native plants and animals, but have been threatened by urban development and invasive species.

“This is for the benefit of everyone. We’re trying to save our ecosystem,” Pelkey told The Narwhal.

Even as a child on Salt Spring Island in the 1970s, Martin recalls walking through fields “almost shoulder-deep in wild flowers” like camas, biscuit root, desert parsley and chocolate lilies. It was a “kaleidoscope of colour,” she remembers.

Hyperabundan

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For years, the promise has been clear: A safer car equals lower car insurance premiums. While this general rule holds true, the auto insurance landscape is rapidly changing. Not all safety features are created equal in the eyes of an underwriter. The rise of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) has introduced new layers of complexity and cost to vehicle repair, which can mitigate the potential savings. Cheap Insurance helps you understand which safety features and discounts are worth asking your carrier about, ensuring you get credit for your vehicle’s protective technology.

Understanding which features truly translate into a discount and which ones simply contribute to your car’s overall safety rating is the key to maximizing your savings. Insurers look for features that minimize the two biggest costs: injury claims (reducing payouts for medical expenses) and comprehensive claims (reducing the risk of theft and total loss).

The Big Three: Foundational Features That Offer Solid Discounts

Certain features have been around long enough to have proven their effectiveness to insurers, offering some of the most consistent and substantial discounts. These features primarily impact the likelihood and severity of injury claims and theft.

1. Advanced Airbags and Safety Restraint Systems

• The discount driver: These systems reduce injury severity and fatality in a collision.
• The impact: This is often the most significant single discount you can receive for a safety feature. Because these systems dramatically reduce the risk of severe injury, insurers are willing to offer some of the largest price reductions. For instance, data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) shows that vehicles equipped with highly rated seat/head-restraint combinations reduce the rate of injury claims by over 11% in rear-end crashes compared to poorly rated systems. This proven reduction in the likelihood of high-cost medical payouts allows carriers to offer discounts typically ranging from 15% to 40% on the personal injury protection (PIP) or medical payments portion of your premium.

2. Anti-Theft and Vehicle Recovery Systems

• The discount driver: Anti-theft and vehicle recovery systems reduce the risk of theft or vandalism to the vehicle, which impacts comprehensive coverage losses for the insurer.
• The impact: Discounts are available for both passive and active anti-theft devices. Passive devices (like engine immobilizers) and active GPS tracking systems can earn you savings on the comprehensive portion of your premium, which covers theft. Discounts for factory-installed anti-theft systems can be as high as 23%.
• What to look for: Consider factory-installed engine immobilizers and subscription-based GPS tracking systems.

3. Anti-Lock Braking Systems (ABS)