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Gov. Gavin Newsom launched an ambitious initiative to make public schools the epicenter of mental health services for young people. Five years after he promised transformation, many schools have struggled to get the program up and running, and hundreds more have yet to try.
A program in rural eastern Kentucky is receiving opioid settlement funding to address substance use disorders, housing, hunger, and other challenges.
Massachusetts passed laws and joined lawsuits to protect access to gender-affirming care for minors. But faced with the Trump administration’s threats, some hospitals voluntarily stopped care. Families are outraged.
Squeezed between their young children and aging parents, the sandwich generation is juggling a lot. KFF Health News Midwest correspondent Cara Anthony discusses embracing her identity as a caregiver and which resources are available to Washington, D.C., residents caring for family members.
An estimated hundreds of thousands of children, many of them U.S. citizens, have been separated from a parent in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Their distress manifests in physical and mental health symptoms including developmental regression, stomachaches, sleep problems, and falling grades. Research points to long-term health consequences.
Amid advancements in treatment and screening, more Americans are surviving the disease. But many are left with psychological scars, such as lingering anxiety and depression.
The research is clear: Among the various complex issues that contribute to suicide, loneliness is a big one. Now, there’s a growing push to address loneliness not just through personal choices but also through public policy.
Anxious kids can benefit from counseling, but therapy demands a commitment of money and time. Therapists recommend using three criteria to help determine when challenging behavior rises to the level of needing professional help.
To collect and scrutinize millions of Americans’ health data, U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aims to work with state organizations that help health systems share medical records. In Nebraska, millions in federal dollars has flowed into one nonprofit cooperating with Kennedy’s project.
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Podcast host Julie Rovner chats with Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a top Democrat on health issues, about President Donald Trump’s stewardship of federal spending and the effectiveness of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Some children are healthy enough to leave the hospital after a medical stay but have no place to go. Across the country, the practice of allowing children to remain hospitalized “beyond medical necessity” has become a costly problem, and states have struggled to address the issue.
Decades of research indicate that interventions that bring down people’s cost of living, such as ensuring they have access to stable housing and food, are linked to lower suicide rates.
The White House’s strategy for tackling the drug and addiction crisis, released this week, sets lofty public health goals but highlights deep inconsistencies with the administration’s own funding cuts and other policies.
Witnessing a shooting, hearing gunfire, losing someone, or living in a violent area can leave people with chronic pain and stress long afterward.
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Democrats and Republicans on a House panel that oversees Medicare had strong words about high hospital pricing at a hearing this week, but it remains unclear whether reality will match the rhetoric when it comes to reining in those prices. Meanwhile, a study found the 988 suicide prevention hotline reduced suicides significantly in its first two years. Shefali Luthra of The 19th, Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
Using Hurricane Helene as a teachable moment, a group of doctors outlined concrete steps that lawmakers can take to reverse a crisis in getting substance use medications during natural disasters.
Someone in America dies by suicide every 11 minutes. It’s a tragic and entrenched problem. A new approach to prevention shifts the focus from stopping harm in moments of crisis to upstream policies that give people reasons to live.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. completed his tour of House and Senate committees this week, ostensibly to promote President Donald Trump’s budget proposal for his department but also to answer for some of his more controversial positions, particularly on vaccines. Meanwhile, Trump signed an order to facilitate the use of hallucinogens to treat mental health conditions. Victoria Knight of Bloomberg Government, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times join KFF Health News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, as part of our “How Would You Fix It?” series, Rovner interviews Harvard public health professor David Blumenthal.
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