article thumbnail

Amid Wildfire Trauma, L.A. County Dispatches Mental Health Workers to Evacuees

KFF Health News

. “I could see people standing on the roof, watering it, trying to protect it from the fire, and they just looked so hopeless,” said Ramirez, a community outreach worker with the Pasadena Public Health Department. However, with each extreme weather event, the county has improved its support for evacuees, she said.

article thumbnail

The Colorado Psychedelic Mushroom Experiment Has Arrived

KFF Health News

The National Institute on Drug Abuse , part of the National Institutes of Health, says the risk of mental health problems caused by ingesting mushrooms in a supervised clinical setting is low, but may be higher outside of a clinical setting. Kennedy Jr. said in a social media post last year, before his nomination as U.S.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

NC Senate budget plan filled with health care policy initiatives

NC Health News

By Grace Vitaglione and Rose Hoban The North Carolina Senates proposed budget for the next two fiscal years is packed with policy around new health care initiatives, including repealing North Carolinas hospital capacity regulation laws, trimming vacant state job openings and increasing rates for child care subsidies.

article thumbnail

How to update your AHCJ Freelance Directory profile

Association of Health Care Journalists

The public-facing database allows editors to search for health journalists who could be a good fit for their projects. For example, maybe an editor is looking for someone with expertise in mental health whos a professional member, or someone whose full-time gig is journalism as opposed to public relations or copywriting for brands.

article thumbnail

How the ACA changed health insurance for the better

Association of Health Care Journalists

health insurance system. Fifteen years ago, when Congress passed the ACA (officially the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ), journalists and consumers recognized that the law provided Americans with health insurance choices that were previously nonexistent. Cut the number of Americans without health insurance.

article thumbnail

Unraveling an oral health mystery leads to rare autoimmune diagnosis

NC Health News

. “My mouth burst into blisters everywhere,” Letsky-Anderson told NC Health News in a recent phone interview. ” Letsky-Anderson’s journey is illustrative of a growing refrain in the oral health and broader medical community: the mouth is a window into overall health. Even drinking water was painful.”

article thumbnail

Crackdown on Homeless Encampments Raises Public Health Questions

KFF Health News

As states turn to the health-care system to help address homelessness, experiments with housing and other social services aimed at getting people healthier and off the streets are running up against new, aggressive crackdowns — with some cities ratcheting up enforcement of existing anticamping laws and others passing new restrictions.