The more than 1.6 million preventable deaths of Black Americans documented in a new study reflect racism and discrimination in housing, education, employment and health care. We have the money and the means to do something about it.
More than 40 percent of American adults know someone who is transgender and yet 46 percent favor making it illegal to provide transgender medical care to minors. Support for anti-trans bills has been growing for years.
So far, there have been 292 assaults at the University of Kansas Health System for the 2023 fiscal year. Advocates are pushing to increase penalties for attacks against health-care workers, but legislation remains in limbo.
Will the massive tranche of money be used to help the people who suffered the most and for programs shown to be effective in curbing the epidemic? Or will elected officials use the money for politically infused projects?
More than 100 million people, or nearly one-third of the nation, have trouble accessing primary care. The problem is more acute in rural areas, which have long struggled to recruit and retain doctors and other medical professionals.
Pandemic expansion of Medicaid benefits ended on March 31. A former Medicaid deputy director offers thoughts on what lies ahead.
COVID is far from the only explanation for the United States’ dismal trend line. Other diseases, along with drug overdoses, were also contributors, along with politics, policies and inequality.
Gov. Jay Inslee proposed a plan to “transform the state’s mental health system” by 2023, but the state has failed to meet its deadline and the repercussions are frustrating families, advocates and law enforcement.
Currently, the state’s Medicaid coverage only covers two months after childbirth. But a bill would extend coverage for a full 12 months postpartum. In 2021, 23 percent of women ages 19-64 were uninsured in the state.
The bill will require physicians to provide care to infants “born alive” during abortion procedures and then report data to the state. The bill has enough support to override a governor’s veto.
In a new report, the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute shows that civic infrastructure affects how long and how well we live.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline received more than 371,000 calls, texts and chats in December 2022. New funding has meant more calls are getting answered. Better tech could make it more accessible.
City and county governments in Colorado are not allowed to banish the psychedelics industry from inside their borders, even if their residents don’t want it. They may, however, regulate the time, place and manner of its existence.
The Republican-dominated state Assembly has quickly overridden Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto on a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. The override passed with a 29-8 vote; just one Republican voted against.
Nearly half of all state and local public health employees left their jobs between 2017 and 2021. An additional 80,000 workers are needed to provide a minimum set of public health services to citizens.
An initiative in Orange County, Calif., is taking an innovative approach to reducing social determinants of poor health. Screenings are vital, but social and environmental factors set the stage for the problems they detect.
