Call To Mind: Seeking Connection
For people of all ages, social connections are critical to health and wellbeing. Experts say we are inherently social creatures — hardwired to engage and depend on others for support throughout a lifecycle. Doctors and health researchers have signaled concerns about loneliness for decades — forced isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic introduced many more people […]
Rural Minnesota child care shortage leaves parents with few choices
There’s great excitement as Alissa Kretsch hides purple hearts around the playroom in her home day care. Kretsch has been a child care provider in New Ulm for more than a decade and runs the business from her home. Her services are in demand, and it’s only getting busier. “I get calls like at least […]
Experts weigh medical advances in gene-editing with ethical dilemmas
Biophysicist He Jiankui addressed the last international summit on human genome editing in Hong Kong in 2018. His experiments in altering the genetic makeup of human embryos was widely condemned by scientists and ethicists at the time, and still casts a long shadow over this week’s summit in London. Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images Hundreds […]
A roadblock to life-saving addiction treatment is gone. Now what?
Registered nurse Jamie Simmons speaks with a patient during an appointment at the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center in Massachusetts. The patient, whose first name is Kim, says buprenorphine has helped her stay off heroin and avoid an overdose for nearly 20 years. Jesse Costa for KHN For two decades — as opioid overdose […]
Frozen cells reveal a clue for a vaccine to block the deadly TB bug
Munyaradzi Musvosvi, a researcher who works for the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, in a storage facility at the University of Cape Town that holds in deep freeze the blood samples of people exposed to TB. He’s part of a team working to develop a potential mRNA vaccine by looking at the immune cells in […]
FDA has new leverage over companies looking for a quicker drug approval
Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration more power to hold drugmakers accountable as part of the mammoth spending bill that became law in Dec. Sarah Silbiger via Getty Images 2022 The huge spending bill that became law last Dec. also included fixes to a problem that has dogged the Food and Drug Administration for […]
New statewide dashboard aims to raise awareness of violent deaths
Minnesota Department of Health officials unveiled a new data dashboard Wednesday highlighting the causes and trends of violent deaths in the state and where they’re happening. They said information gathered will be used to support more informed policy and practice decisions. While currently the data covers only the six-year period from 2015 to 2020 there […]
‘I’m really worried about it’: As federal emergency food help ends, Minnesotans voice concerns
At the beginning of the pandemic, Marie Kent left her job in health insurance to be at home full-time with her four year old and seven year old. The 41-year-old from Minneapolis said it was a tough choice — try to juggle work, parenting and facilitating at-home learning, or leave work to focus on her […]
How to help kids and teens with their mental health, students weigh in
Kids may be back in the classroom, but it is not back to normal. Last year, nearly a third of Minnesota students reported they struggle with long-term mental health problems. Girls, in particular, say they are feeling persistent sadness. Rates of depression and anxiety have skyrocketed. And there aren’t enough mental health professionals to help. […]
Inver Grove Heights reports elevated radium levels in city water
Officials in Inver Grove Heights say they’re taking steps to address elevated levels of radium detected in the city’s drinking water. In a notice sent to residents of the southeast Twin Cities suburb last month, city officials said it’s not an emergency situation, and that residents can continue drinking city water while efforts to reduce […]