An epidemic of neglected tropical diseases is bubbling just beneath the surface in the United States, trapping the impoverished in a cycle of sickness and poverty. In Texas, infection with the cysticercosis tapeworm is now a major cause of epilepsy among poor residents.
Despite new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in 2009 urging women to reevaluate how often they receive mammograms, there's still an incredible amount of confusion over how often women should undergo such screening tests.
In Florida, only one in three children receive adequate preventive care, and the state ranks 50th out of 51 states and D.C. in per-child spending. Reporter Maggie Clark will look into what happens when the nation's third-largest state starts "nickel-and-diming preventive care for children."
When it comes to health outcomes, Johnson and Wyandotte counties in the Kansas City metro area might as well be in different countries. Radio reporter Alex Smith sets out to explore what's behind the health disparities, and what might work best to reduce them. Community engagement will be key.
A cluster of serious birth defects in central Washington state has led health officials on a search for the cause. Experts believe a lack of folic acid may be partly to blame, but efforts to fortify common Hispanic foods such as corn masa have languished. Fellow JoNel Aleccia investigates.
Tradeoffs are a recurring theme when it comes to Obamacare plans — lower premiums often come with a smaller range of doctors to choose from, as a new database bears out. But as earlier research has shown, the relation between the size of physician networks and quality of care is, well, complicated.
The emergence of new online tools — built by journalists, for journalists — has made it easier than ever to visualize health care data. With the power to build charts comes the responsibility to portray information accurately and in a way that enhances the story for your readers.
Last year, California embarked on a bold new experiment to improve how care is coordinated among patients enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare. But the progress has been anything but smooth for a host of reasons, as UCLA health researcher Kathryn Kietzman explains in this overview.
At first, Virginia's announcement that it was digitizing millions of vital records seemed like a win. But a closer look reveals that the effort has placed the records behind a paywall that effectively hinders access. That's a shame, given the public health benefits that come with freer access.
As a new series in Consumer Reports makes clear, antibiotic-resistant infections are becoming more prevalent. The report should be a wake-up call for prescribers and patients to be more thoughtful about how they use antibiotics.
