The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
KFF’s policy research provides facts and analysis on a wide range of policy issues and public programs.
KFF designs, conducts and analyzes original public opinion and survey research on Americans’ attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with the health care system to help amplify the public’s voice in major national debates.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the organization’s core operating programs.
This brief examines the share of children with obesity, how obesity screening and treatment is covered under Medicaid for children, and what recent changes may mean for Medicaid programs and enrollees in the future.
This issue brief examines the most recent trends in children’s routine vaccinations, including COVID-19, and explores what to watch as children head back to school this year.
Firearms were responsible for 20 percent of all child and teen deaths in the U.S. for both 2020 and 2021, compared to an average of less than 2 percent in similarly large and wealthy nations, according to a new KFF analysis. This puts the U.S. far ahead of peer nations in child and teen firearm deaths. Data show that U.S. firearm deaths for children and teens again surpassed motor vehicle deaths – the second leading…
Firearms were responsible for 20 percent of all child and teen deaths in the U.S. for both 2020 and 2021, compared to an average of less than 2 percent in similarly large and wealthy nations. This puts the U.S. far ahead of peer nations in child and teen firearm deaths.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government declared numerous types of emergencies, Congress enacted several pieces of legislation, and various executive actions were taken and waivers issued, which established time-limited flexibilities and provisions designed to protect individuals and the health system during the pandemic. This resource provides a timeline identifying key health-related flexibilities and provisions specified by these various measures, the specific measure that determines their end date, and their end date.
Concerns about youth mental health and access to care continues to increase. Schools can be an easy access point for behavioral health services and Medicaid provides significant financing for the delivery of these services in schools. In this analysis, we explore the strategies state Medicaid programs are taking to promote and improve access to school-based behavioral health services, and how recent policies call on Medicaid to expand access to care for youth, particularly in schools.
A new KFF analysis finds disenrollment rates were lower in the 12 months leading up to annual renewals for children in states with 12-month continuous eligibility compared with states without the policy. Congress is expected to pass an omnibus spending bill by the end of the year that would require 12-month continuous eligibility for children in all states. The analysis also finds that in states with 12-month continuous eligibility, a smaller share of children disenrolled…
This analysis uses Medicaid claims data to follow a cohort of children newly enrolled in Medicaid in July 2017 in states with and without 12-month continuous eligibility to examine how children’s enrollment in Medicaid changes over time and understand the effect of continuous eligibility policies.
Amid controversies around the COVID-19 vaccine and growing distrust of public health authorities, more than four in ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, and a third of parents, now say they oppose requiring children in public schools to receive some childhood vaccines, up since 2019, a new KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey finds. Overall, nearly three in ten adults (28%) nationally now say that parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children for…
This Vaccine Monitor survey finds that almost three in ten adults now say that parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their school-age children for measles and other childhood illness, up since 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic. It also explores uptake of the new bivalent booster, and why many vaccinated adults have not gotten it.
© 2026 KFF
