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Why kids’ Medicaid enrollment keeps falling
Maya Goldman, Axios, May 27
Large numbers of children are dropping off the Medicaid rolls, even though the sweeping changes Congress made to the program didn’t target kids’ eligibility. About 1.75 million fewer kids were enrolled in Medicaid this January than at the start of the Trump administration. Experts say the trend indicates that new Medicaid work rules and nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the program are having spillover effects even before they are broadly implemented. Children’s hospitals are concerned that the upcoming changes will affect their ability to care for kids. “You just can’t pull out that much funding from the Medicaid program and not have an impact on kids,” said Aimee Ossman, vice president of policy at the Children’s Hospital Association.
Trump’s $50B rural health bet meets a healthcare desert in North Carolina
Sarah Jane Tribble and Amanda Seitz, KFF Health News, May 22
When Martin General Hospital in North Carolina closed abruptly in 2023, it created a health care desert in Martin County. Now, residents may have to travel 20 miles or more to the closest, often overcrowded, emergency department. It’s an example of the finite reach of a $50 billion federal rural health fund. Martin County won’t get direct relief from the fund because its hospital is no longer open. North Carolina is distributing the money among existing organizations, and federal regulations limiting how much can be spent on construction and building regulations prevent the funds from being used to reopen the county’s hospital.
Lives saved by sociologist’s fix for skin tone bias
Clea Simon, The FAS Current, May 14
An improved color scale that reflects a more complete range of human skin tones is saving lives in hospitals around the world. Harvard professor Ellis Monk developed the Monk Skin Tone scale (MST) in 2019 to improve inclusivity in skin tone classification. Since then, it has been used in many different ways, including in the diagnosis of hospital-acquired pressure injuries such as bedsores. The injuries are traditionally underdiagnosed in darker-skinned people, but a laminated badge displaying the MST scale is helping nurses recognize more of these cases. A recent study found that the badge reduced these injuries by 94 percent at a Los Angeles hospital.
Moms in the U.S. report large decline in mental health in recent years, study finds
Sara Moniuszko, CBS News, May 27
Only about a fourth of moms in the United States describe their physical and mental health as “excellent,” according to a new study. The study found that from 2016 to 2023, mental health declined across all socioeconomic subgroups. However, mental and physical health status was significantly lower for single female parents, those with lower educational attainment, and those with publicly insured children. Study authors said their findings are consistent with increases in depression and anxiety among pregnant and reproductive-aged women. “Our findings are supportive of the claim made by some scholars that maternal mortality may be a canary in the coal mine for women’s health more broadly,” they wrote.
This Bridgeport nurse found his calling in labor and delivery
Cris Villalonga-Vivoni, CT Insider, May 24
Ahmad Young is part of the gradually growing field of male nurses across the United States and in Connecticut. While he started off studying public health, he decided to go to nursing school, where he found his maternity class to be the most challenging and clinically intriguing. “It brought everything together,” he said. “And thinking back on my public health background, I wanted to tackle a lot of health disparities, and women’s health, especially labor and delivery, is a big one. So I just felt like, why not do that?” He said that while some may assume that, as a man, he cannot fully understand the pain his patients are experiencing, he believes that difference is what makes his care more compassionate.