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As abortion restrictions take effect across the South in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, cancer doctors are trying to decipher the laws. They’re grappling with how to discuss options with pregnant patients, who may be forced to choose whether to proceed or forgo lifesaving cancer treatments that can prove toxic for the fetus.
Rising sea levels and severe hurricanes are displacing Indigenous people in Southern Louisiana and harming health. Episode 11 explores the United Houma Nation’s push for federal tribal recognition and the climate-change help that could come with it.
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.
Spurred on by opposition to pandemic-related health mandates, a coalition of religious liberty groups, conservative think tanks, and Republican state attorneys general has filed a cascade of litigation seeking to rein in the powers of public health authorities.
Meigs County in Tennessee reported one of the highest covid-19 vaccination rates in the South for much of the past year. But those reports were wrong because of a data error that has surfaced in other states, such as West Virginia and Montana, as well.
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.
Legislators in Kansas are pushing bills to expand exemptions for school vaccines, allowing religious exemptions for all vaccine requirements in the state's schools without families having to provide any proof of their beliefs. Similar bills are being introduced around the nation as the anti-vaccine movement gains traction among politicians.
Some U.S. states have reduced use of the procedure, including by sharing C-section data with doctors and hospitals. But change has proved difficult in the South, where women are generally less healthy heading into their pregnancies and maternal and infant health problems are among the highest in the U.S.
As states prepare for the end of the covid public health emergency, they are making plans to reevaluate each Medicaid enrollee’s eligibility. They will rely primarily on mail and email because not many states can text enrollees.
Conservative lawmakers may find their anti-abortion agendas complicated by state constitutions that explicitly grant citizens the right to privacy, regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court does.
The top 12 states using antibody therapies produced by Regeneron and Lilly — which research shows don’t work against the omicron variant — include several Southern states with some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, but also California, which ranks among the top 20 for fully vaccinated residents.
Efforts by states and the private health plans that many states pay to cover low-income Americans has been scattershot and hampered by a lack of data.
Students in many places are starting the new school year with their masks off — even in one Colorado county that was one of the nation’s first delta variant hot spots.
As the nation confronts the delta variant, many consumers are again facing delays getting tested. The problem appears most acute in the South and Midwest, where new infections are growing the fastest.
Black and Hispanic students have lost up to 12 months of learning, which could lead to lower incomes and shorter, sicker lives.
The pandemic will undermine Americans' health for years. Even those not infected by the coronavirus could suffer health problems related to poverty, job loss, eviction — or all of the above.
Community health centers were born in the 1960s to reach low-income communities. But some rural health experts say federally qualified health centers were a missing piece in achieving early equity in the vaccine rollout.
Louisiana’s St. James Parish Hospital thought the vaccine would mean the end of its long covid fight. Then the ICU beds surrounding them ran out.
Colorado voters will decide whether to ban most abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy, which would eliminate a haven for people seeking to end their pregnancies in the Midwest and Mountain West.
In a decision that surprised both sides of the polarized abortion debate, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Jennifer Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times join KHN’s Julie Rovner to break down what happened, what comes next and how this case could provide a clue to the one challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
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