Latest Health disparities News
Maryland is the first state to sign into new federal health care program
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland became the first state on Friday to join a federal program designed to improve health care quality and equity while lowering costs for all health care payers, including Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers. It builds on Maryland’s Total Cost of...
Maternal deaths surged in Texas in 2020, 2021
The rate of Texas women who died because of pregnancy or childbirth rose sharply in 2020 and 2021 to the highest since the state started tracking maternal deaths in 2013. Even excluding deaths related to COVID-19, the numbers were worse than usual, reversing two years of progress in driving the...
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...
