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Chagas disease, caused by a parasite, affects people primarily in rural Latin America. But an estimated 300,000 residents of the U.S. have the disease, which can cause serious heart problems. Patient advocates call for much more aggressive efforts to fight it.
Community health workers, who often help patients get to their appointments and pick up prescriptions for them, have increasingly been recognized as an integral part of treating chronic illnesses. But state-run Medicaid programs don’t always reimburse them equally, usually excluding those who work on tribal lands.
Novo Nordisk, the dominant company in the multibillion-dollar market for weight loss drugs, focuses on Black lawmakers and opinion leaders to spread the message that obesity is a chronic disease that needs treatment.
April Valentine’s family wants to know whether racism could have played a role in her death. A KFF Health News analysis shows state regulators are ill-equipped to find discrimination in its many forms.
Social and economic pressures have long compelled Black girls and women to straighten their hair. But mounting evidence shows chemical straighteners — products with little regulatory oversight — may pose cancer and other health risks.
As settlement dollars land at the state level, state councils wield significant power in determining how the windfall gets spent. And, though they will likely include the most knowledgeable voices on addiction, these panels also face concerns about conflicts of interest and other issues.
Amid a years-long rise in maternal mortality rates in the United States, Idaho lawmakers decided to disband a committee created to investigate pregnancy-related deaths.
Some medical professionals warn that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against using race as a factor in admissions could have far-reaching implications for the diversity of medical students, the practice of medicine, and patient care. Here’s what you need to know.
The $120 million International African American Museum that opened this week in Charleston, South Carolina, allows visitors to step back in history at Gadsden’s Wharf, where tens of thousands of enslaved Africans arrived in America, the genesis of generations of health disparities.
Kristie Fields, a cancer patient in Virginia, was urged to go public to seek financial help. She worried about feeding hurtful stereotypes.
Though most California counties are experimenting with dispatching health professionals rather than law enforcement to respond to people experiencing mental health crises, powerful police unions fear defunding.
A federal program meant to reduce maternal and infant mortality in rural areas isn’t reaching Black women who are most likely to die from pregnancy-related causes.
Cities and towns are again in deep waters this summer trying to hire enough lifeguards to open their public pools. Many are proceeding with sensitivity to issues of race and ethnicity.
Cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer of older Americans, with Black and Hispanic people at higher risk. Despite medical advances, researchers say, disparities are expected to worsen in the coming decades.
There is no direct evidence that screening women in their 40s will save lives, yet modeling suggests expanding routine mammography to include them might avert 1.3 deaths per 1,000. Highlighting the risk of false positives, some specialists call for a more personalized approach.
State lawmakers have recently been debating whether and how to stiffen punishments for dealers, while Gov. Gavin Newsom is targeting fentanyl trafficking and distributing more naloxone. The problem, experts say, is one with no easy or clear answers.
Infant mortality rates across the South are by far the worst in the U.S. A look at South Carolina — where multimillion-dollar programs aimed at improving rates over the past 10 years have failed to move the needle — drives home the challenge of finding solutions, especially in rural communities.
The profound and painful loss — 80 million years of life, compared with the white population — is a call to action to improve the health of Black Americans, especially infants, mothers, and seniors, researchers say.
A study of roughly 2,700 shootings in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia found that racial disparities in gun injuries and deaths widened during the covid-19 pandemic. Researchers looked only at assaults, excluding accidents or incidents of self-harm.
Carolina Reyes, a physician who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, says providers and health systems have a role in tackling systemic racism. She’s also married to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
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