SAN FERNANDO, Calif., — It’s early on a Wednesday morning and this city’s Recreation Park is bustling with dozens of people doing sprints, leg lifts and squats as enthusiastic students from California State University, Northridge cheer them on. “Everyone excited?” 19-year-old Celeste Alcala asked as her group lifted exercise balls. “Yes!” the men and women […]

Efforts to strengthen the country’s tattered mental health system, and help millions of Americans suffering from mental illness, got a big boost Wednesday thanks to a massive health care package approved by the House of Representatives. The 21st Century Cures Act, which provides funding for biomedical research and aims to speed up drug development, was […]

SOBRE NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL Noticias en español es una sección de KFF Health News que contiene traducciones de artículos de gran interés para la comunidad hispanohablante, y contenido original enfocado en la población hispana que vive en los Estados Unidos. SAN FERNANDO, California — Es temprano un miércoles a la mañana y el Recreation Park […]

Kenneth Berry can feel the bullets in his body move. One jiggles down his leg toward his ankle; another presses on his sciatic nerve; a third has migrated to his hip. The three bullets have been inside Berry, 41, for more than two decades, pumped into him when he was a teenager near St. Louis. Now, […]

The latest chart of overdose deaths in Massachusetts shows a climbing blue line labeled “fentanyl.” Pick a spot on that line in mid-August and picture a big, affable 40-year-old man named Joe Salemi. He died at his mom’s home in working-class Everett, Mass., after almost 25 years of heroin use. Salemi had overdosed before. His […]

The Washington, D.C., jail has big metal doors that slam shut. It looks and feels like a jail. But down a hall in the medical wing, past an inmate muttering about suicide, there’s a room that looks like a normal doctor’s office. “OK, deep breaths in and out for me,” says Dr. Reggie Egins to […]

When Ashley Hurteau, 32, was arrested in 2015, she faced a list of charges for crimes she committed to finance a drug craving she had struggled with for more than a decade. “I wasn’t using it to get high,” she said. “I was using it to survive.” Homeless, uninsured and addicted to heroin, Hurteau, a […]

Baby boomers are getting high in increasing numbers, reflecting growing acceptance of the drug as treatment for various medical conditions, according to a study published Monday in the journal Addiction. The findings reveal overall use among the 50-and-older study group increased “significantly” from 2006 to 2013. Marijuana users peaked between ages 50 to 64, then declined among the 65-and-over crowd. […]

Zero. That’s the number of new HIV infections California officials are aiming for under a comprehensive initiative released this fall. The “Getting to Zero” plan, intended to guide the state’s AIDS policy from 2017 to 2021, is designed to boost surveillance, increase access to care and eliminate disparities in treatment. “Thanks to better treatment and prevention options, […]

The Senate passed the first major mental health legislation in nearly a decade, sending the 21st Century Cures Act to President Barack Obama, who has promised to sign it. The Senate voted 94-5 to approve the act, which sailed through the House of Representatives last week. Although the 21st Century Cures Act has been championed as a […]