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KFF Health News covers the health issues facing people who live in America’s rural reaches.
KFF Health News is working to collect and post complete application materials, by state, here and will update this repository as new materials, released in response to public records requests, arrive.
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Coming out of the pandemic, many rural hospitals are in even rougher shape than before. So rough that some are now practically being handed to investors for little more than a pledge to keep them open.
Know-how gained through the covid pandemic is seeping into other public health areas. But in a nation that has chronically underfunded its public health system, it’s hard to know which changes will stick.
The U.S. Labor Department investigates Noble Health after former employees of its shuttered Missouri hospitals say the private equity-backed owner took money from their paychecks and then failed to fund their insurance coverage.
Santa Fe, Texas, was a mental health care desert until a 17-year-old gunman killed 10 people at the local high school in 2018. Now the city, which sits in a rural stretch between Houston and Galveston, has a resiliency center, where anyone affected by the shooting can get free counseling. But even with an influx of mental health care, the community struggles with the aftermath.
Inflation hasn’t hit Americans like this in decades. And families living with chronic diseases have little choice but to pay more for the medicine, supplies, and food they need to stay healthy.
Nonprofit federally funded health centers are a linchpin in the nation’s health care safety net because they treat the medically underserved. The average profit margin is 5%, but some have recorded margins of 20% or more in three of the past four years.
The community of Bristol straddles the border between two states with very different abortion laws. Tennessee prohibits most abortions at about six weeks and will soon ban them nearly outright. Virginia allows them at least through the second trimester. To maintain abortion access in the area, staff at a clinic on the Tennessee side of the state line are helping open a clinic about a mile down the road on the Virginia side.
Experts say the EPA’s recent declaration that some PFAS chemicals are unsafe at detectable levels in drinking water signals acceleration in efforts to curb exposure to compounds found in nearly every American’s blood.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota allows people to buy and use recreational marijuana but not alcohol. Some tribal citizens say cannabis is safer than alcohol, meth, and opioids — which have wreaked havoc on the state’s Indigenous communities.
On July 16, a three-digit number, 988, became the centerpiece of a nationwide effort to unify responses to Americans experiencing mental health crises. But many people, especially those in rural areas, will continue to find themselves far from help if they need more support than call operators can offer.
A lack of Native physicians means many tribal communities rely on doctors who don’t share their lived experience, culture, or spiritual beliefs. In Episode 9, meet two medical students working to join the ranks of Indigenous physicians.
Dozens of Iowa hospitals have closed their birthing units. A team of University of Iowa nurse midwives can’t reopen them, but they’ve found a way to provide prenatal checkups and other crucial services in two towns.
A new federal rescue program that pays rural hospitals to shutter underused inpatient units and focus solely on emergency rooms and outpatient care hasn’t generated much interest yet.
Constraints imposed by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, that prevent recipients from using benefits to buy formula across state lines weigh on families as the nationwide formula shortage drags on.
Montana is an island of legal abortion, but three of the state’s five clinics are limiting access to abortion pills for out-of-state patients in an effort to protect themselves and patients from legal attacks.
The Blackfeet Nation is experimenting with a new way to detect chronic wasting disease in animals used by tribal members for food and cultural practices.
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.”
In Minnesota, where abortion rights are protected by the state’s constitution, legal doesn't necessarily mean accessible. The state has just eight clinics that provide abortions, and both providers and advocates say resources available aren’t enough to meet demand as nearby states reduce abortion access.
The notion that Native American nations could use tribal sovereignty to bypass state restrictions on abortion if Roe v. Wade falls is an idea largely proposed by non-Native groups.
A bipartisan U.S. Senate agreement on guns that focuses on mental health raises hopes and doubts in rural Western states with high suicide rates and easy access to guns.
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