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The median life expectancy for a U.S. baby born with Down syndrome jumped from about four years in 1950 to 58 years in the 2010s. That’s largely because they no longer can be denied lifesaving care, including surgeries for heart defects. But now, aging adults with Down syndrome face a health system unprepared to care for them.
Ńîąóĺú´«Ă˝Ň•îl Health News and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
One of Montana’s largest mental health providers has ratcheted back services amid financial troubles, leaving a vacuum. State policymakers have promised more money to aid behavioral health care, but lasting change could be years out.
More than 1 in 5 Americans report having been threatened with a firearm, and almost as many say they worry about gun violence every day or almost every day, a new KFF poll shows.
Persistent fatigue — the feeling of having no energy — can contribute to frailty and affects 40% to 74% of older patients with chronic illness. Yet its causes can be elusive.
Doctors have no national standards on when to order urine tests to check whether adult ADHD patients are properly taking their prescription stimulants. Some patients are subjected to much more frequent testing than others.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among college students. Contrary to conventional wisdom, athletes aren’t immune from the risk factors. Players at Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin, and other colleges are learning how to protect their mental health and ask for help after their teammates killed themselves.
A recent report detailing problems with Florida’s patchwork mental health system had reached conclusions nearly identical to those of a similar report from more than 20 years ago. The echoes between the findings are unmistakable. And Florida isn’t the only state struggling with the criminalization of mental illness, a lack of coordination between providers, and insufficient access to treatment.
In-person mental health care is hard to arrange in rural nursing homes, so video chats with faraway professionals are filling the gap.
The federal government has lifted restrictions on one of the most effective opioid addiction treatment medications. The change sets up a “truth serum moment”: Will mainstream doctors and nurses now treat addiction as a common disease?
The state wants to stop paying Kaiser Permanente for treating severely mentally ill Medi-Cal patients in Sacramento and Solano counties and force the counties to take on the task. The counties’ leaders say they can’t afford it.
With their brains still developing and poor impulse control, teens who carry firearms might never plan to use them. But some do.
Older people often aren’t being screened for anxiety disorders, even though it is a common affliction — one masked by other problems when growing old.
Last year, state lawmakers adopted the country’s toughest online privacy restrictions. The law offers Congress a path forward on federal protections even as it serves as a cautionary tale for taking on Big Tech.
While there are no hard-and-fast rules about when to opt for a telehealth visit versus seeing a doctor face-to-face, physicians offer guidance about when it may make more sense to choose one or the other.
Today’s public service announcements on gun safety feel somewhat sanitized. It’s time to act with the same kind of visceral public campaign that helped de-glorify smoking. Would filmmakers commit to making action movies without guns, just as filmmakers stopped making smoking glamorous in films?
Patient injuries, abuse, and neglect have continued at the Montana State Hospital since the state-run psychiatric facility lost its federal certification due to preventable patient deaths. But state officials won’t release details, citing laws making those reports confidential.
More than 200 inmates killed themselves during eight years in which state prison officials failed to complete court-ordered suicide prevention safeguards. Inmates, the judge writes, have “waited far too long” for adequate mental health care.
KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
When U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania checked himself into the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of depression this month, he got an unusual reaction from his colleagues in Congress: compassion. It’s a far cry from how politicians once kept their mental health issues under wraps at all costs. Meanwhile, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley is stirring up controversy by proposing that all politicians over age 75 be required to pass a mental competency test to hold office. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Rachel Roubein of The Washington Post join KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner to discuss these issues and more. Plus, for “extra credit,” the panelists suggest health policy stories they read this week that they think you should read, too.
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