MLK Community Hospital in South Los Angeles is surrounded by poverty, homeless encampments, and food deserts. Even though California Gov. Gavin Newsom is funneling billions of taxpayer money into an ambitious initiative to provide some low-income patients with social services, hospital executives and other critics say it won’t improve access to basic care.
Smoke- and ash-filled air can trigger or exacerbate severe respiratory conditions. But the medical specialists who treat these illnesses are often scarce where they are most in need.
Creole-speaking public health workers teach women how to test themselves for HPV, the virus that causes some cervical cancers.
Hospitals have specialists ready to offer consult and care for concerns from cancer to childbirth but often no one with expertise in addiction medicine. Patients with a history of substance use — who are discharged without care — are at risk for overdose.
The idea of human composting — to help restore a forest or grow flowers — may be a little off-putting to some, but it has many advantages over traditional-but-toxic methods of burial and cremation.
Hundreds of medical centers along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts face serious risks from even relatively weak storms as climate change accelerates sea-level rise — not to mention big ones like Category 4 Hurricane Ian.
The laws criminalizing abortion in many conservative U.S. states are expected to boost birth rates among teens, whose bodies often aren’t built for safe childbirth. For adolescents, the emotional and physical challenges of carrying a pregnancy to term can be daunting.
Twelve years ago, Marna Clarke was seized by a desire to examine what she looked like at age 70 — and to document the results. This creative project has sustained and engaged her since.
Penny Wingard, 58, of Charlotte, North Carolina, worries she won’t ever get out from under her medical debt despite new policies that are supposed to prevent medical debt from harming people’s credit scores.
New policies to prevent unpaid medical bills from harming people’s credit scores are on the way. But the concessions made by top credit reporting companies may fall short for those with the largest debt — especially Black Americans in the South.
