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Connecticut faces Medicaid cuts affecting 1.2 million residents and services, officials say
Cris Villalonga-Vivoni, CT Insider, March 10
As lawmakers in Washington consider ways to slash more than $4.5 trillion in federal spending, residents and their health could bear the brunt of the fiscal fallout. While there are still questions around where the federal government will make cuts, experts say cuts of this size would inevitably require changes to Medicaid. State leaders said they are preparing to respond to several different scenarios. One example is a potential change to the federal match Connecticut receives to cover Medicaid costs. Another possibility is Medicaid being converted into a block grant system that would give states a fixed amount regardless of need.
Millions in US live in places where doctors don’t practice and telehealth doesn’t reach
Sarah Jane Tribble and Holly K. Hacker, KFF Health News, March 10
Nearly three million Americans, who live in mostly rural counties, lack both health care and reliable high-speed internet. These people also tend to live sicker and die younger than others in the United States. Patients across the rural South, Appalachia and remote West are most often unable to make a video call to their doctor or log into their patient portals. It is a concern for doctors, academics and advocates who said these are essential ways to participate in the U.S. medical system and that limited internet service hinders medical care and access. Without reliable internet access, health disparities within telemedicine are likely to widen.
Lessons learned 5 years since CT’s first COVID-19 case
John Henry Smith, Connecticut Public Radio, March 10
Connecticut had its first confirmed case of COVID-19 five years ago, on March 8, 2020. Since then, public health professionals said they have learned important lessons to carry with them. The pandemic highlighted health disparities in Connecticut. Black residents experienced higher rates of disease burden, poverty and limited health care access. Addressing those gaps became a priority for public health officials, who said efforts like mobile vaccine clinics were a successful way of reaching those communities, and could be repeated in the future.
More Black teens are in mental health crisis. This church tries to help them heal
Katia Riddle, NPR, March 10
In recent years, experts have sounded alarms about the mental well-being of teenagers of all races. Rates of suicide for Black teens are increasing more rapidly than any other racial group. Some experts said there has been a lack of strategies that target Black communities specifically. It’s why First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York has started mental wellness programs for teens. It’s one of more than a dozen churches across the country that has participated in a national pilot to study an intervention known as HAVEN Connect to reduce suicide risk among young people.
Food insecurity in early adulthood raises the risk of heart disease, long-term study shows
Elizabeth Cooney, STAT News, March 12
A new study followed people who had no heart disease in their late 30s or early 40s to see how their access to food might relate to their heart health 20 years later. It found that people with food insecurity had a 41% higher risk of developing heart disease in middle age compared to people with a secure source of food. That was the case even when researchers accounted for other influences such as race or education. “This tells us that addressing cholesterol and blood pressure alone is not enough — we need to be tackling the upstream drivers of disease, such as economic instability, neighborhood deprivation, and access to affordable, nutritious food,” said Khurram Nasir, a preventive cardiologist and researcher.