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An Arm and a Leg: Can racism make you sick?

For the past four years, journalist Cara Anthony, a KFF Health News Midwest correspondent, has been reporting on the public health effects of racism, violence, and intergenerational trauma in a small Missouri town.

29 Oct 2024

Vance wrongly blames rural hospital closures on immigrants in the country illegally

During a recent presidential campaign rally in Wisconsin, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) was asked how a Trump administration would protect rural health care access in the face of hospital closures, such as two this year in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls.

29 Oct 2024

Parents of low birth weight babies face economic and employment challenges

Parents with babies born preterm or with low birth weight face significant economic and employment challenges, according to new research published in JAMA Pediatrics.

28 Oct 2024

Black Americans still suffer worse health. Here’s why there’s so little progress

One morning in late April, a small brick health clinic along the Thurgood Marshall Highway bustled with patients.

28 Oct 2024

Expanded access to weight-loss drugs could save thousands of lives

Researchers explore the potential benefits of expanding access to novel weight loss drugs to enhance survival rates in overweight and obese individuals.

28 Oct 2024

Surge in GLP-1 drug use for obesity coincides with drop in bariatric surgery

Researchers from Mass General Brigham and collaborators found that use of GLP-1 drugs to treat obesity more than doubled from 2022 to 2023 while rates of surgery dropped by one quarter.

26 Oct 2024

Presidential election puts Affordable Care Act back in the bull’s-eye

Health care is suddenly front and center in the final sprint to the presidential election, and the outcome will shape the Affordable Care Act and the coverage it gives to more than 40 million people.

25 Oct 2024

Research highlights importance of quality improvement programs in stroke care

New research published this month shows the key role quality improvement programs play in ensuring hospitals can adequately fight one of the biggest public health threats facing our country: stroke.

24 Oct 2024

Voters fret high medical bills are being ignored by presidential rivals

Tom Zawierucha, 58, a building services worker in New Jersey, wishes candidates would talk more about protecting older Americans from big medical bills.

24 Oct 2024

New guidelines focus on preventing first strokes through healthy living

Healthy lifestyle behaviors, such as good nutrition, smoking cessation and being physically active, along with routine health screenings and managing risk factors for cardiovascular disease and stroke with medication, can help prevent individuals from having a first stroke.

21 Oct 2024

Medicare drug plans are getting better next year. some will also cost more.

When Pam McClure learned she'd save nearly $4,000 on her prescription drugs next year, she said, "it sounded too good to be true." She and her husband are both retired and live on a "very strict" budget in central North Dakota.

21 Oct 2024

Studies reveal the financial fallout of cancer survivors

A diagnosis of cancer can take a toll on more than a person's health. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston found that financial fallout can follow patients with cancer and their families in the form of bankruptcy, lower credit scores, and other forms of financial challenges years after a cancer diagnosis.

18 Oct 2024

Innovative approach by Waymark enhances health outcomes for Medicaid patients

Waymark, a public benefit company dedicated to improving access and quality of care in Medicaid, today published a peer-reviewed study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Catalyst evaluating the impact of its early intervention model in its first year of service.

18 Oct 2024

The role of financial incentives in promoting healthy lifestyles

Move more, quit smoking, lose weight: great resolutions, hard to keep. But does it get easier if there is a financial incentive in return? According to research by Radboud University and others, it can be an effective tool, although there are still some obstacles.

18 Oct 2024

Rising concerns over benzodiazepine prescriptions in older stroke survivors

Although there has been a slight downward trend in the prescription of benzodiazepines (depressants that relieve anxiety, muscle spasms, produce sedation and reduce seizures) among older adults over the last decade, the rate of first-time prescriptions for these medications after an ischemic (clot-caused) stroke is still sizable, according to research published today in Stroke, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association.

17 Oct 2024

Patients are relying on Lyft, Uber to travel far distances to medical care

When Lyft driver Tramaine Carr transports seniors and sick patients to hospitals in Atlanta, she feels like both a friend and a social worker.

17 Oct 2024

Adenine base editors show potential to correct X-CGD-causing mutations

A collaborative effort between investigators at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, demonstrates the potential of precise genome editing technologies, called adenine base editors, to correct disease-causing mutations in stem cells from patients with X-linked chronic granulomatous disease (X-CGD), a rare genetic disorder characterized by high susceptibility to infections.

16 Oct 2024