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For decades, the U.S. medical establishment has adhered to a legally recognized standard for brain death, one embraced by most states. Why is a uniform clinical standard for the inception of human life proving so elusive?
Public health officials and resettlement groups across the U.S. have used community organizers to encourage newly arrived refugees and other vulnerable people to get vaccinated against covid-19. In a Georgia city that is home to many refugees, the vaccination rate is higher than in the state, county, and surrounding communities of similar socioeconomic status.
Abortion access is shaping races for legal office across the country, from local district attorneys to attorneys general. But it’s also highlighting the boundaries of their offices.
Know-how gained through the covid pandemic is seeping into other public health areas. But in a nation that has chronically underfunded its public health system, it’s hard to know which changes will stick.
Nonprofit RIP Medical Debt buys up unpaid hospital bills plaguing low-income patients and frees them from having to pay.
Experts say the EPA’s recent declaration that some PFAS chemicals are unsafe at detectable levels in drinking water signals acceleration in efforts to curb exposure to compounds found in nearly every American’s blood.
Wastewater testing has proved a reliable early alarm bell for covid outbreaks. U.S. researchers are now adapting the approach to track the explosive spread of monkeypox.
More than two years into the pandemic, parents face a child care crisis. That’s why some hospitals are considering starting child care centers to address recruitment and retention troubles.
Some people living with HIV and some state health officials are raising concerns about part of the federal effort to end the HIV epidemic: a new technology that analyzes blood samples to find emerging outbreaks. The critics say it’s too invasive and stigmatizing and might not be more effective than older public health approaches.
Abortion will almost certainly face new restrictions in Georgia. Patients will have a harder time finding services, and providers will have to figure out how to navigate the new landscape. Meanwhile, abortion opponents see the moment as an opportunity to put further restrictions on the procedure.
Most of the dozen states that haven’t fully expanded eligibility for Medicaid have extended or plan to extend the postpartum coverage window for new mothers. That could mean improved maternal health, but it’s only part of the puzzle when it comes to reducing the number of preventable maternal deaths in the U.S.
People talk about the sacrifices they made when health care forced them into debt.
Trauma surgeons say that the weapons used in mass shootings are not new but that more of these especially deadly guns are on the street, causing injuries that are difficult to survive.
People in jail who have serious mental illness and cannot stand trial because of their condition are waiting months, or even more than a year, to get into their state psychiatric hospitals.
Some consumers who think they are signing up for Obamacare insurance find out later they actually purchased a membership to a health care sharing ministry. But regulators and online advertising sites don’t do much about it.
Some foster children with complex mental, behavioral, and physical health needs without a foster placement are having to stay in hotel rooms and even office buildings, a practice called “hoteling.”
The nation’s largest supplier of platelets is moving to a method it says is easier for hospitals, but one that sharply raises costs, leading some centers to demand more options.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Georgia may soon join a growing list of states decriminalizing the use of fentanyl testing strips. Bans of the strips — on the books in about half of states, experts say — stem from laws criminalizing drug paraphernalia adopted decades ago. But the testing devices are now recommended to help prevent overdose deaths.
If the Supreme Court affirms the leaked draft decision and overturns abortion rights, the effects would be sweeping in states where Republican-led legislatures have been eagerly awaiting the repudiation of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.
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