Latest News On Disparities

Latest KFF Health News Stories

Community Health Workers, Often Overlooked, Bring Trust to the Pandemic Fight

KFF Health News Original

As the pandemic brings long-standing health disparities into sharper view, community health workers are being asked to help the public health response. This fast-growing workforce helps fill the gaps between health care providers and low-income communities by offering education, advocacy and outreach.

Food Guidelines Change but Fail to Take Cultures Into Account

KFF Health News Original

For decades, the federal government has tried to guide our eating habits. They once again revised recommendations, but they didn’t incorporate ethnic and cultural differences of the American diet. Here’s why.

Even With Senate Control, Democrats Will Need Buy-In From GOP on Key Health Priorities

KFF Health News Original

With a majority too small to eliminate the filibuster, Democrats will not have enough votes in the Senate to pass many of their plans without Republicans and will also have only a razor-thin majority in the House. This combination could doom many Democratic health care proposals, like offering Americans a government-sponsored public insurance option, and complicate efforts to pass further pandemic relief.

High-Poverty Neighborhoods Bear the Brunt of COVID’s Scourge

KFF Health News Original

COVID infection rates in California are consistently higher in low-income neighborhoods than more affluent areas, according to an analysis by ZIP code. Our findings underscore the heightened risks borne by millions of low-wage workers whose jobs are deemed essential.

California Lawmakers to Newsom: Give All Immigrants Health Coverage

KFF Health News Original

Given the pandemic’s disproportionate hit on minority communities, two Democratic lawmakers are pushing Newsom to agree to offer health care to all unauthorized immigrants. They planned to unveil legislation Monday — and a new strategy to make it happen.

What Doctors Aren’t Always Taught: How to Spot Racism in Health Care

KFF Health News Original

Activists across the country are demanding that medical schools eliminate the use of race as a diagnostic tool, recognize how systemic racism harms patients and reckon with some of medicine’s racist history.

The Trump Medicaid Record: Big Goals, Yet Few Successes

KFF Health News Original

The Trump administration sought to shrink the federal-state health program for low-income Americans and give states more flexibility. But Democrats and the courts thwarted most of those efforts.

HHS Plan to Improve Rural Health Focuses on Better Broadband, Telehealth Services

KFF Health News Original

The proposal details a wide-ranging agenda to remedy the gaps in health care and myriad challenges in rural America. In addition to more telehealth options, it includes shifts in hospital payments and expanded funding for school-based mental health programs.