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Completing a routine depression screening questionnaire during an annual checkup is cost-free under federal law. But, as one woman discovered, answering a doctor’s follow-up questions might not be.
Safe storage maps show gun owners where to put their firearms for safekeeping if they experience a mental health crisis. The idea has support among some gun enthusiasts, but legal obstacles threaten wider adoption.
Quest Diagnostics is selling a blood test online to consumers. But results may not be reliable or easy to interpret. And it isn’t covered by insurance.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation expanding paid sick leave to five days, extending bereavement leave to miscarriages and failed adoptions, and approving an eventual $25-an-hour health care minimum wage. Still, in a possible sign of national ambitions, the Democrat vetoed free condoms in schools and refused to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms.
As homelessness explodes across California, so does the number of expectant mothers on the streets. Street medicine doctors are getting paid more by Medicaid and offering some of those mothers-to-be a chance to overcome addiction and reverse chronic diseases so they can have healthy babies — and perhaps keep them.
The American College of Emergency Physicians agreed to withdraw its 2009 white paper on excited delirium, removing the only official medical pillar of support left for the theory that has played a key role in absolving police of culpability for in-custody deaths.
KFF Health News 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.
California is the first state to ban the controversial diagnosis known as “excited delirium,” which has been used increasingly to justify excessive force by law enforcement. A human rights advocate described the law, signed this week by Gov. Gavin Newsom, as a “watershed moment” in criminal justice.
The American College of Emergency Physicians will vote in early October on whether to disavow its 2009 research paper on excited delirium, which has been cited as a cause of death and used as a legal defense by police officers in several high-profile cases.
Though never framed as a marquee issue, the topic of health care crept into the chaotic seven-way faceoff throughout the evening, highlighting Republican culture-war themes.
A report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services raises troubling questions about the use of powerful medications within Florida’s child welfare system and the risk of overdoses or dangerous side effects if children are given the wrong combination of drugs.
In Orange County, California, officials are threading a delicate needle. They want to persuade people with psychosis to accept treatment without coercion as the state’s new CARE Courts roll out in October.
Decades-long systemic shortcomings have left suicide among children ages 5 to 11 poorly tracked and addressed. Now, as rates appear to be rising, advocates are strengthening efforts to screen for problems and prevent deaths in younger children.
The California Legislature greenlighted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest plan to build more housing and increase addiction treatment as part of his response to the state’s homelessness and drug crises.
Residential addiction treatment programs that allow parents to bring their children along have been recognized for their success. But a mix of logistical challenges and low reimbursement rates mean they struggle to stay afloat.
Health department officials are asking legislators to change criminal commitment laws amid a bottleneck at the Montana State Hospital.
For rural Americans, who live in areas often short of mental health services and die by suicide at a far higher rate than urbanites, the federally mandated crisis phone line is one of the few options to connect with a crisis counselor.
An estimated 32% of adults in Logan County, West Virginia, have been diagnosed with depression, the highest rate in the United States, according to a recent CDC report.
As chatter and images about guns and violence slip into the social media feeds of more teens, viral messages fueled by “likes” can lead to real-world conflict and loss.
Teens share photos or videos of themselves with guns and stacks of cash, sometimes calling out rivals, on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. When posts go viral, fueled by “likes” and comments, the danger is hard to contain.
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