Category: NPR

People with sickle cell disease aren’t fueling the opioid crisis, research shows. Yet some ER doctors still treat patients seeking relief for agonizing sickle cell crises as potential addicts.

The state now requires women and girls under 18 to obtain permission from their parents or a judge. But in a recent poll, most Massachusetts voters favored letting minors decide on their own.

Over half those births will happen in just eight countries, according to the U.N. agency.

The topics range from a ticking time bomb in the Arctic to the art of taking selfies in an ethical way. Here are the stories selected by our contributors.

Nearly 1 in 4 Americans has trouble affording prescription drugs, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Over the past decade, high prices of several medicines have become flashpoints.

When the last psychiatrist in International Falls, Minn., retired that meant that there is no psychiatrists for more than 100 miles. It’s a story increasingly common across rural America.

Utah and Idaho are set to join the states that have expanded their Medicaid programs for low-income people under the Affordable Care Act.

Nearly 20 rural hospitals closed in 2019, more than any year in the past decade. And more are expected to close. These rural hospitals often see too few patients to pay for their costs.

Anger and fear have turned to pragmatic hope in the year since the people of Fort Scott, Kan., lost their hospital to corporate downsizing. A community health center remains. So far, so good.