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This edition highlights vaccine hesitancy and misinformation around MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccines as children return to school and measles cases resurge in parts of the U.S. It also examines emerging narratives around COVID-19 vaccine misinformation following the FDA approval of COVID-19 boosters and false claims linking mpox to the vaccines.
What do new Census Bureau data say about the uninsured? The uninsured rate remained at a near historic low of 8.0 % in 2023, per the Current Population Survey.
Education leaders and policymakers are turning to cellphone bans in schools to help address youth mental health concerns and improve learning, an idea that has largely received bipartisan support. Cellphone ban legislation has had a resurgence following advisories from the U.S. Surgeon General on youth mental health and the impacts of social media. Research on the effectiveness of these bans, however, is limited, and challenges with implementation and enforcement remain.
Amid growing concerns about the mental health of children, about one in ten parents say their children are in fair or poor mental health. Rates of mental health treatment and access for children vary by factors such as race and ethnicity, as do experiences with unfair treatment or discrimination.
Schools can play a role in promoting mental health and connecting youth to treatment. One approach that many schools have implemented is social and emotional learning, which teaches skills such as emotional management, resilience, and relationship building. This policy watch discusses how common these programs are in schools, how they are integrated, and what supporters and critics say about social and emotional learning.
The unwinding of pandemic enrollment protections in Medicaid helped accelerate states’ expansion of eligibility for key groups and adoption of policy and system changes to streamline renewal processes for enrollees, according to findings from a new KFF survey of state Medicaid officials. These changes mean that the return to “routine” operations when the unwinding period ends will not be a return to pre-pandemic operations in many states. The survey examined actions states have taken to…
The 22nd annual survey of state Medicaid and CHIP programs officials conducted by KFF and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families in May 2024 presents a snapshot of actions states have taken to improve systems, processes, and communications during the unwinding, as well as key state Medicaid eligibility, enrollment, and renewals policies and procedures in place as of May 2024. The report focuses on policies for children, pregnant individuals, parents, and other non-elderly…
In light of worsening mental health among youth, strategies have been implemented to improve access to behavioral health services in recent years, including expanding school-based care for students. Leveraging Medicaid to improve and address gaps in school-based behavioral health services has been a key strategy in recent years as youth mental health concerns have grown. Provisions from the Safer Communities Act of 2022 utilize Medicaid to expand both school-based health care and other mechanisms of…
This issue brief examines well-child visit rates overall and for selected characteristics before and after the pandemic began and discusses recent state and federal policy changes that could impact children’s preventive care. More than half of children under age 21 enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP received a well-child visit in 2019, but the share fell to 48% in 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As rates of childhood vaccination decline and with measles on the rise again, a KFF Health Misinformation Tracking Poll, fielded in late February, examines the extent to which adults have heard and believe misinformation about the measles vaccine. The poll also examines the public’s views of the U.S. government and social media companies’ role in moderating false health claims online. While most of the public—including parents—haven’t heard misinformation about the measles vaccine, many are uncertain…
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