Public Health
For Toddlers, Pandemic Shapes Development During Formative Years
CASTLE POINT, Mo. — Lucretia Wilks, who runs a small day care out of her home in north St. Louis County, is used to watching young children embrace, hold hands and play together in close quarters. But the covid-19 pandemic made such normal toddler behavior potentially unsafe. “It’s weird that they now live in a […]
Being Vaccinated Doesn’t Mean You Must Go Maskless. Here’s Why.
For more than a year, public health officials have repeatedly told us that masks save lives. They’ve warned us to keep our distance from our neighbors, who’ve morphed into disease vectors before our eyes. Now they are telling us that if we’re vaccinated, we no longer need to wear masks or physically distance ourselves in […]
Journalists Discuss New Alzheimer’s Drug, Women’s Alcohol Use, the Hip-Hop and Opioids Link
KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed the FDA’s approval of a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease on WAMU’s “1A” on Wednesday. Click here to hear Rovner on WAMU KHN correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed the increase in alcohol use and misuse by young women on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Wednesday. Click here to hear […]
Biden Kept His Promise to Increase Covid-Testing Capacity, Even as Demand for Testing Drops
Promise: “Double the number of drive-through testing sites, invest in next-generation testing, including at home tests and instant tests, so we can scale up our testing capacity by orders of magnitude.” Before vaccinations were widely available, covid-19 tests were considered one of the few tools to help control the spread of the coronavirus. That’s why […]
KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Our 200th Episode!
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on PRX. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen to podcasts. The Food and Drug Administration found itself in the hot seat this week when it approved a controversial new drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease with scant evidence […]
Change to Gilead Assistance Program Threatens PrEP Access, HIV Advocates Say
Dr. John Carlo is concerned that patients at Prism Health North Texas who rely on the health care safety net will soon be struggling even more to stay on PrEP, a medication that prevents HIV transmission. Carlo, chief executive officer of the clinic, which runs three locations in Dallas, offers free PrEP to roughly 250 […]
Lawmakers Pressure Newsom to ‘Step Up’ on Racism as a Public Health Issue
SACRAMENTO — After the killing last year of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared racism a public health crisis. The governors of Michigan and Nevada quickly followed, as have legislative bodies in Minnesota, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Yet California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who governs one […]
Hoy, las mujeres toman tanto como los hombres, pero sufren las consecuencias antes
Victoria Cooper pensaba que su consumo de alcohol en la universidad era como los de los demás. Shots en las fiestas, cervezas mientras jugaba al bowling. Tomaba más que otros y las resacas le hacían perder clases, pero así y todo pensaba que no tenía ningún problema. “Según la imagen que tenía del alcoholismo —viejos […]
Women Now Drink as Much as Men — And Are Prone to Sickness Sooner
Victoria Cooper thought her drinking habits in college were just like everyone else’s. Shots at parties. Beers while bowling. Sure, she got more refills than some and missed classes while nursing hangovers, but she couldn’t have a problem, she thought. “Because of what my picture of alcoholism was — old men who brown-bagged it in […]
An Anti-Vaccine Film Targeted to Black Americans Spreads False Information
When a filmmaker asked medical historian Naomi Rogers to appear in a documentary, the Yale professor didn’t blink. She had done these “talking head” interviews many times before. She assumed her comments would end up in a straightforward documentary that addressed some of the most pressing concerns of the pandemic, such as the legacy of racism in […]