Alumna takes on city post
Joy Chen has a big job ahead of her: Reverse the economic
downturn in Los Angeles.
Nov. 2 was Chen’s first day on the job as the city’s
director of economic recovery. The 32-year-old was appointed by Los
Angeles Mayor James Hahn to the new post to implement the
recommendations outlined in a report by the mayor’s Economic
Impact Task Force.
“This is a great honor and opportunity to work on the
city’s economy, to stimulate the city’s economy at a
crucial time for the region,” said Chen, who in 1998 earned
both a master’s degree from the UCLA School of Public Policy
and Social Research and an M.B.A. from The Anderson School at
UCLA.
The former project manager for Catellus Development Corp. also
served as the project manager for the Economic Impact Task Force,
which was appointed by the mayor to address the city’s
worsening economic situation in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
Fear may lead to health neglect
Women who are afraid of what they might find during a
self-examination for breast lumps are less likely to perform the
exams, possibly due to a fear of being alone when they find a lump,
according to a new study by researchers at UCLA.
While the study participants ““ women at higher-than-normal
risk of breast cancer ““ displayed anxiety about all screening
tests, their anxiety was highest for breast self-examination. And
breast self-examination was the only test where compliance was low
enough to suggest that anxiety may be a barrier to cancer
screening.
The UCLA researchers found that while 79 percent of the study
participants went for regular mammograms and 89 percent went for
regular Pap smears (swab tests that look for cancer cells in the
cervix), only 34 percent of the women performed regular breast
self-exams.
Small quake hits the southland
CALIPATRIA, Calif. “”mdash; A swarm of minor to light
earthquakes, including one of magnitude-4.1, rattled the Salton Sea
area of southeastern California on Tuesday but apparently caused no
injuries or damage.
The first earthquake of the swarm hit at 5:43 a.m.; between 8
a.m. and 1 p.m. eight quakes measuring magnitude-3.0 or greater
struck, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and California
Institute of Technology.
The Imperial County sheriff’s office said there were no
injuries or damage.
The quakes were all centered three miles southeast of Bombay
Beach, on the sparsely populated east shore of the Salton Sea,
California’s largest lake.
Reports from Daily Bruin staff and wire services.