Health Reporting in the States : NPR

Tim Lillard at the home he and his late wife, Ann Picha-Lillard, shared in suburban southeast Michigan. Since her death in 2022, Lillard has made it his mission to pass the Safe Patient Care Act, which would create mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios in Michigan hospitals.

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As part of his pediatric practice, Dr. Safdar Medina treats opioid use disorder. During a recent appointment at a clinic in Uxbridge, Mass., Medina switched a teenage patient’s buprenorphine prescription to an injectable form and checked in about his school and social life.

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Dr. Stefan Friedrichsdorf demonstrates one of the distraction techniques he uses for children receiving shots at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco on Dec. 18.

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Jorge Rubiano outside a temporary migrant shelter where he stayed after arriving in Chicago last summer from Colombia.

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Joslyn Herrera helps clients struggling with addiction find services at the Santa Fe Recovery Center. Herrera spent her teenage years struggling with opioid addiction, and says her many stints in juvenile detention did nothing to help her recovery.

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Every year, an estimated 100,000 young adults or adolescents in the U.S. experience a psychotic episode. Only 10-20% of them gain access to the holistic treatment approach recommended by the National Institute of Mental Health as the gold standard of care for early psychosis, due to lack of space or because insurance won’t cover it.

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Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider (right) interviews comedian Tig Notaro about drawing humor from her breast cancer diagnosis. Ungerleider is the founder of End Well, a nonprofit focused on shifting the American conversation around death. Their discussion took place in November at End Well’s 2023 conference held in Los Angeles.

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Unionized workers picket outside the Providence Community Health Centers on Oct. 12, 2023.

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Graduate student researcher Jacquelynn Mornay, with the LSU School of Public Health, shows a noise reading taken beneath the Claiborne Expressway on July 18, 2023, in New Orleans. The decibel levels are similar to that of a motorcycle engine and could cause permanent hearing damage after prolonged exposure.

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Esther Lau testifies on June 20 before the California Senate Judiciary Committee in support of Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo’s bill allowing teens with Medi-Cal coverage to seek therapy without parental approval.

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Karli (left) and Elmo (right) appear in Season 51 of Sesame Street. In separate videos and stories available for free online, Karli, Elmo and supportive adult characters discuss how Karli’s mother is in recovery for an unspecified addiction.

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Intermountain Residential in Helena, Montana, is one a handful of programs in the U.S. providing long-term behavioral health treatment for kids younger than 10. Administrators recently announced that staffing shortages are forcing them to downsize from 32 beds to 8, and the facility might have to close entirely.

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A social worker prepares to roll out with an officer at Denver Police District 5 on December 21, 2017. Denver has been a model for other cities, including Philadelphia, trying to create new ways to respond to emergency calls involving mental illnesses or drug addictions.

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A #RestoreRoe rally outside Michigan’s capitol in Lansing in Sept. 2022. Voters overwhelmingly approved enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution later that year.

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Emily Bendt cradles her two-week-old infant, Willow, at her home near Portland, OR in early October 2023. Bendt, a pediatric nurse, closely followed the recent approval of the RSV monoclonal antibody Nirsevimab but has been unable to find it for her daughter.

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A pediatric dosage of the new Moderna COVID vaccine, after a long-awaited shipment finally arrived at the office of Southern Orange County Pediatric Associates. The date the vaccine arrived, Oct. 11, is marked on the box.

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At a signing ceremony in April, Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, officially repealed the state’s 1931 abortion ban. The old statute was unenforceable after voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution last November. Now Whitmer is backing more bills to repeal abortion regulations involving paperwork and payment, but one Democratic lawmaker could jeopardize the vote.

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An unidentified woman lies under a blanket in a cell in the Flathead County Detention Center in Kalispell, Montana. She has been held there for nearly a year after being found mentally unfit to stand trial on burglary charges, according to a jail official.

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Peacemakers have a debrief before concluding their work for the day at the Lincoln Fields apartments complex in Miami, Fla. Lamont Nanton (second from left) is the group’s manager and Shameka Pierce (third from left) works with the group.

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Medical assistant Lakeisha Pratt (left,) and receptionist David Bowers prepare for a busy day at North Side Christian Health Center, a safety-net health center in Pittsburgh. Even a temporary government shutdown could disrupt funding and force the clinic to cut back.

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