The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
141 - 160 of 173 Results
Hunger among kids is skyrocketing, even in America’s wealthiest counties. But given the nation’s highly uneven charitable food system, affluent communities have been far less ready for the unprecedented crisis than places accustomed to dealing with poverty and hardship.
Hospitals dealing with staff shortages during the current covid surge are unable to tap into one valuable resource: foreign-trained doctors, nurses and other health workers, many with experience treating infectious diseases. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Nevada are the only states to have eased credentialing requirements during the pandemic.
A survey of 17 cities found more than 50,000 pandemic-related eviction filings. Housing advocates worry that increased housing instability will lead to more COVID-19 and other illnesses.
Doctors are diagnosing a new stage of COVID-19 recovery: patients who take much longer than usual to regain consciousness after coming off a ventilator. And a growing number of doctors are worried some patients aren’t being given the time they need to wake up.
Massachusetts offers support and resources for people isolating because of COVID-19 — helping them make choices that keep everyone safe. Experts say that is work that more states need to fund.
“The awful truth is families have no control over what’s happening,” one advocate says.
Health care providers are seeing the effects of climate change in hospitals across the U.S. ― and urging their peers to take action.
"I know we will succeed somewhat and we will fail somewhat," says one of the plan's chief architects. "We won't be able to find every single person — but we will hopefully prevent a lot of deaths."
Revenue is way down for primary care, specialty physicians and some hospitals as patients avoid non-urgent visits. Practices small and large are doling out layoffs and furloughs to staff.
People in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction have to weather a new storm of depression, anxiety and isolation during the pandemic, just as the social supports of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs move online.
When patients need long-term treatment with intravenous antibiotics, hospitals usually let them manage their treatment at home — but not if they have a history of injection drug use. A Boston program wants to change that.
A parental consent requirement for minors who seek abortions is still on the books in left-leaning Massachusetts, as well as about two dozen other states. But a proposed Massachusetts law seeks to repeal that consent requirement and shore up the right to abortion in case the Supreme Court strikes down the federal right to the procedure.
Public health officials are adopting a law enforcement tool, the mass spectrometer, to instantly identify potentially deadly levels of opioids in local drug supplies.
Some physicians say connecting the consequences of climate change — heat waves, more pollen and longer allergy seasons — to health helps them better care for patients.
In a rare but growing practice, some hospitals offer parents the choice to transport their dying children out of the intensive care unit, with life support in tow, so that they can die at home.
WBUR and other media organizations sued Purdue Pharma to force the release of previously redacted information in a case brought by the Massachusetts attorney general.
The governor of California has proposed some big ideas. Who knows whether he can pull them off, but there’s reason for hope.
After a 34-year-old woman suffered a stroke in Kansas, doctors there arranged for her to be transferred to a Boston hospital, via an Angel MedFlight Learjet. The woman and her father believed the cost of the medical flight would be covered by her private insurance. Then they got the bill.
Medicaid drug spending doubled in five years in Massachusetts. The state wanted to exclude expensive drugs that weren't proven to work better than existing alternatives from its Medicaid plan, but the federal government blocked the effort.
Patients revived from an opioid overdose who get methadone or Suboxone treatment for addiction afterward are much more likely to be alive a year later, says a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
© 2026 KFF