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State lawmakers are advancing two bills aimed at protecting children from the harms of social media, part of a nationwide wave of efforts to address the issue. Yet the bills’ proponents face hurdles in finding an approach that can survive legal challenges from the tech industry.
Administrators at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine are trying to recruit more Black students — and more Hispanic and Choctaw Nation students, for that matter. But they face several obstacles, including a recent swell of Republican opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Proposed state standards to protect indoor workers from extreme heat would extend to schools. The rules come as climate change is bringing more frequent and intense heat waves, causing schools nationwide to cancel instruction.
Most states that saw enrollment in the Obamacare marketplace double from 2020 to 2024 are in the South. But the enhanced federal subsidies that attracted people with $0 premiums and low out-of-pocket costs will expire next year.
A single Central Florida county reported 13% of all U.S. leprosy cases in 2020. Researchers have teamed up to investigate whether armadillos are passing the bacteria that cause the disease to humans — which is especially concerning as the animals expand their range farther north.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has long given vets who served in Vietnam disability compensation for illness connected to Agent Orange harm. But those exposed at U.S. bases are still waiting for the same benefits.
With an end-of-year deadline and a presidential election approaching, payment rules that fueled rapid expansion of telehealth in the United States face a last-minute congressional decision.
People in their prime working years living in rural America are 43% more likely to die of natural causes, like diseases, than their urban counterparts, a disparity that grew rapidly in recent decades, according to a new federal report.
Framed in the rhetoric of choice, Tennessee’s new law governing childhood vaccinations is among more than a dozen recently passed or pending nationwide that set parental freedom against community and children’s health.
A lack of oversight and standards for pregnancy care in jails is becoming more problematic as the number of incarcerated women rises and abortion restrictions put medical care further out of reach.
While many Republican state lawmakers remain firmly against Medicaid expansion, some key leaders in holdout states are showing a willingness to reconsider. Public opinion, financial incentives, and widening health care needs make resistance harder.
After a decade of work, a Kentucky program launched to diagnose lung cancer earlier is beginning to change the prognosis for residents by catching tumors when they’re more treatable.
Opposition to vaccines and other public health measures backed by science has become politically charged. That makes dangerous misinformation much harder to fight.
Fewer than two dozen rural hospitals were converted into Rural Emergency Hospitals in the program’s first year. Now, advocates and lawmakers say tweaks to the law are necessary to lure more takers and keep health care in rural communities.
Being Black has always been dangerous for pregnant women and infants in the South. And researchers say things are continuing to move in the wrong direction.
Providers and health care advocates warn a proposed rule change in Montana would jeopardize immunity levels in child care centers and communities. Efforts to change vaccination exemption rules are underway in other states, too.
New HIV infections occur disproportionately among Black women, but exclusionary marketing, fewer treatment options, and provider wariness have limited uptake of preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, drugs, which reduce the risk of contracting the virus.
Mississippi has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the U.S. Now, it also has a federal grant to help in rural areas. The award could signal more flexibility from federal officials.
Mississippi has among the highest cervical cancer mortality rates in the U.S. When low-income women can't afford regular preventive care, much less gynecological visits, this highly preventable and treatable cancer becomes a killer.
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