Latest Health disparities News
Florida hospitals ask immigrants about their legal status. Texas will try it next
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — For three days, the staff of an Orlando medical clinic encouraged a woman with abdominal pain who called the triage line to go to the hospital. She resisted, scared of a 2023 Florida law that required hospitals to ask whether a patient was in the U.S. with legal permission. ...
Hundreds of places in the US said racism was a public health crisis. What's changed?
More than 200 cities and counties declared racism was a public health crisis in the past few years, mostly after George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis in May 2020. Racial justice advocates said they finally felt heard by the quick swell of political will to address disparities like...
Takeaways from AP's report on government programs tackling the US maternal death crisis
Across the U.S., programs at all levels of government — federal, state and local — are striving to reduce maternal mortality and erase the racial gap. Many are making headway in their communities and paving the way for other places. The Associated Press examined...
Rural communities of color across the US find new ways to get the health care they need
Haywood Park Community Hospital was the closest hospital for many in Brownsville, Tennessee, a rural city in the western part of the state. Some residents believe it kept their loved ones alive. But others in this majority-Black city said they drove to a hospital miles away or...
Heart disease is rampant in parts of the rural South. Researchers are hitting the road to learn why
Darrell Dixon’s father was just 25 when he had a major heart attack in the rural Mississippi Delta. By his early 40s, a series of additional attacks had left his heart muscle too weak to pump enough blood to his body. He died in 2013 at the age of 49. “It was a big jolt for our...
Massachusetts governor pledges to sign sweeping maternal health bill
BOSTON (AP) — A sweeping maternal health bill has cleared both legislative chambers and is awaiting Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s signature. The bill would create a pathway for midwives and lactation consultants to obtain licenses, encourage the creation of more freestanding...
Suburban New York county bans masks meant to hide people's identities
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — Suburban New York officials looking to stop violent protesters from obscuring their identities have banned wearing masks in public except for health or religious reasons. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, signed the legislation Wednesday,...
Americans give Harris an advantage over Trump on honesty and discipline, an AP-NORC poll finds
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris has a perceived advantage over former President Donald Trump on several leadership qualities such as honesty, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds, although Americans are slightly more likely to trust Trump...
Bloomberg gives $600 million to four Black medical schools' endowments
NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Bloomberg's organization Bloomberg Philanthropies committed $600 million to the endowments of four historically Black medical schools to help secure their future economic stability. Speaking in New York at the annual convention of the National Medical...
Health care needs to diversify its workforce to get rid of racial inequalities, a new report says
Racial and ethnic inequities in health care are found in every state in the U.S. despite the passage of legislation intended to improve health outcomes for minorities and increased awareness of health care disparities over the past two decades, according to a new national report released Wednesday....
