The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
141-160 of 191 results
When criminal suspects are deemed too mentally ill to go through the court process and their charges are dropped, they can be left without stabilizing treatment — and sometimes end up being charged with additional crimes.
Petitions for protective orders under Colorado’s red flag law have been filed in more than half the counties that opposed it and declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”
The homeless tragedy in Portland, Oregon, now spills well beyond the downtown core, creating a crisis of conscience for a fiercely liberal city that has generously invested in homeless support services.
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 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 Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse many families up to $9,000 in funeral expenses for loved ones who died of covid-19. But fewer than half of eligible families have applied, while others have run into application problems.
Travel nurse contracts that were plentiful and paid the temporary nurses far more than hospital staff nurses are vanishing. Hospitals nationwide are turning their energies to recruiting full-time people.
Stan Thomas’ wife, Monica Melkonian, was one of only nine people in the U.S. confirmed to have died from vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, a rare side effect associated with the Johnson & Johnson covid vaccine. For the first time, Thomas shares her story of how excited she was to get the shot, how she died, and why he remains firmly pro-vaccine.
At Salem Health Salem Hospital in Oregon, the omicron surge is still swamping health care workers. They are ground down emotionally but keep showing up for their patients.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers guidance but calls for localities to set quarantine rules for unvaccinated children exposed to someone with covid-19. That's led to a pandemic patchwork of rules.
The pandemic has so seriously strained already tight state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Virginia, Texas and elsewhere that these facilities for the poorest and most vulnerable people with mental illness struggle to admit new patients.
Hundreds of towns, cities and states across the U.S. have ignored part of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and now it’s costing them billions of dollars to comply.
Patients with advanced cancer and heart disease are among those who have had to have surgeries and other treatments delayed and rescheduled as a high number of critically ill, unvaccinated covid patients strain the medical system.
At least 26 states have passed laws to permanently limit public health powers, a KHN investigation has found, weakening the country’s ability to fight not only the current resurgence of the pandemic but other health crises to come.
Zoom in on states with overall good vaccination rates and you see a checkerboard effect, with rural areas far lagging urban zones. That’s allowed the pandemic to rage in places like Jackson County, Oregon, overwhelming hospitals.
A significant number of post-covid patients suffer from syndromes that few doctors understand.
A KHN investigation found covid vaccine registration and information websites at the federal, state and local levels are flouting disability rights laws and limiting the ability of people who are blind or visually impaired to sign up for shots.
Black Americans are receiving covid vaccines at a much lower rate than their white peers due to a combination of mistrust and access issues, leaving them behind in the mission to vaccinate the nation’s population.
A handful of states are making dentists a lower priority than other health professionals for inoculations, even though they have their hands in people’s mouths and are exposed to aerosols that spray germs in their faces.
After spending tens of millions of dollars to oppose past efforts, Altria didn’t oppose Colorado’s tobacco tax initiative and could benefit from the law’s minimum-price provision.
© 2026 KFF