Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News

Author's posts

Long Drives, Air Travel, Exhausting Waits: What Abortion Requires in the South

Restrictive abortion regulations enacted across the South require women to drive across state lines to find safe services. With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear a challenge to Roe v. Wade, abortion rights defenders say long drives and wait times could become the norm across much of America.

Why is the South the Epicenter of Anti-Abortion Fervor?

The Supreme Court, come autumn, will consider a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That’s hardly the most restrictive abortion law passed in the South. How did anti-abortion views become concentrated in the South?

Watch: More Long Covid Cases Seen in Kids

While covid is generally mild in children, doctors report a growing number of long-haul covid symptoms and MIS-C cases, particularly among Black and Latino children.

The Making of Reluctant Activists: A Police Shooting in a Hospital Forces One Family to Rethink American Justice

In 2015, Houston police officers stepped into Alan Pean’s hospital room, closed the door and shot him through the chest. Nearly six years later, his survival has brought the Pean family a wrenching legacy and conflicted sense of purpose.

Strides Against HIV/AIDS Falter, Especially in the South, as Nation Battles Covid

Public health resources have shifted from one pandemic to the other, and experts fear steep declines in testing and diagnoses mean more people will contract HIV and die of AIDS.

High Obesity Rates in Southern States Magnify Covid Threat

In the American South — home to nine of the nation’s 12 heaviest states — obesity is playing a role not only in covid outcomes, but in the calculus of the vaccination rollout.

Anti-Immigrant Vitriol Complicates Vaccine Rollout in Southern States

Inoculating the millions of undocumented workers who produce America’s agricultural bounty will be key to achieving herd immunity against covid-19. But garnering the trust of these workers is proving complicated, particularly in the South, where the last four years have been marked by workplace raids and anti-immigrant vitriol.

Anti-Immigrant Vitriol Complicates Vaccine Rollout in Southern States

Inoculating the millions of undocumented workers who produce America’s agricultural bounty will be key to achieving herd immunity against covid-19. But garnering the trust of these workers is proving complicated, particularly in the South, where the last four years have been marked by workplace raids and anti-immigrant vitriol.

Trump’s Anti-Abortion Zeal Shook Fragile Health Systems Around the World

President-elect Joe Biden inherits a global health landscape changed by the Trump administration more than under any Republican president since Ronald Reagan.

America’s Obesity Epidemic Threatens Effectiveness of Any COVID Vaccine

Vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies are less effective for obese people, leaving them more vulnerable to serious illness. As scientists race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, experts say obesity could prove an impediment — a sobering prospect for a nation in which nearly half of all adults are obese.