KHN

Lack of access and infrastructure, stigma and isolation intensify a mental health crisis in agricultural communities.

The covid pandemic drove major changes to Montana health policies, including the permanent expansion of telehealth regulations, a pullback on local public health officials’ authority and the easing of vaccination requirements for workers and students.

When they were 6, Hallel told their parents they are a boy-girl. At 9, they are helping their parents, grandparents and friends understand what it means to be nonbinary.

In 2015, Houston police officers stepped into Alan Pean’s hospital room, closed the door and shot him through the chest. Nearly six years later, his survival has brought the Pean family a wrenching legacy and conflicted sense of purpose.

The pandemic has been stressful for millions of children. Schools are trying to meet children’s emotional needs in big and small ways as in-person classes resume.

In one northwestern Montana county where demand for covid vaccines is dropping well before widespread immunity is reached, people are split on whether the virus is a threat.

Some immigrant groups are closing the ethnic gap on COVID-19 shots. For many Kurdish Americans, their fears about vaccination are entangled with their experiences in refugee camps after fleeing Iraq.

All agree that covid vaccines are urgently needed to stop the pandemic, but simply waiving patents fails to provide technological know-how and address supply chain challenges.

The Biden administration is bucking the drug industry and backing a waiver of covid-19 vaccine patent protections to help the rest of the world vaccinate its populations. Here at home, the Food and Drug Administration wants to ban menthol flavorings for cigarettes, setting off a fight with the tobacco industry. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Tami Luhby of CNN and Kimberly Leonard of Business Insider join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.

Long before they receive a dementia diagnosis, many people begin to mismanage their finances as their memory, organizational skills and self-control falter.

The pandemic has demonstrated that virtual medicine is great for simple visits. But many new types of telemedicine promoted by start-ups more clearly benefit providers’ and investors’ pockets, rather than yielding more convenient, high-quality and cost-effective medicine for patients.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has outsourced his way through the covid-19 pandemic, tasking his private-sector allies in Silicon Valley and the health care industry with fundamental public health duties such as testing, tracing and vaccination. Among the losers: the state’s weakened public health system.

The costs of personal protective equipment and disinfecting offices while seeing fewer patients have some doctors and dentists demanding that insurance companies step up.

Across Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, where death rates from stroke are above the national average, routing patients from rural areas to the right level of care can be an intricate jigsaw puzzle. The closest hospital might not offer the full scope of stroke treatments, but hospitals with more advanced care could be hours away.

It’s time to consider primary care a “common good” akin to public education and shore up the foundation of the pandemic-battered U.S. health system, report says.

California officials are optimistic they can vaccinate millions more before hitting a hard wall of vaccine resistance.

A KHN investigation found that more than 2,000 schools have spent millions of dollars for systems, lured by air purifier companies’ claims that experts say mislead or obscure the potential for harm from toxic ozone.