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.
Health Policy 101 is a comprehensive guide covering fundamental aspects of U.S. health policy and programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, employer-sponsored insurance, the uninsured population, health care costs and affordability, women's health issues, and health care politics. The Public Health chapter examines how public health is governed and delivered in the United States. It includes explanations of key public health frameworks, services, capabilities and characteristics, how the public health system works in state, local and territorial governments, and public health funding, workforce, and communication challenges in an era of declining trust.
The brief provides an overview of how vaccines are reimbursed and covered across government programs and different types of health insurance in the United States. It coverage regulations specific to COVID-19 vaccine(s).
This brief summarizes the information contained in the all available draft COVID-19 vaccination plans submitted by states to the CDC, focusing in particular in critical areas such as identifying critical/priority populations, identifying and recruiting providers to administer vaccines, the completeness of state-level vaccine data collection and reporting systems, and communication plans. States report widely varying levels of progress.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has awarded KFF’s Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press one of its top journalism prizes for a joint investigation that revealed the diminished state of the U.S. public health infrastructure in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With increased attention to the global need for COVID-19 vaccines and the Biden administration’s announcement today about how it plans to distribute the first portion of the 80 million doses it will share by the end of this month, the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll finds that two-thirds of the public (66%) say that the…
As President Trump begins his second term, the public’s trust in health information from key health agencies has fallen over the past 18 months, continuing a decline that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, finds the new KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust.
This brief provides an explanation of Title 42 and its application in border regions, the impact of Title 42 on border expulsions and the health and well-being of migrants during COVID-19, and a discussion of the potential implications of reinvoking Title 42 restrictions for immigration and the health of migrants.
This Issue Brief reviews the federal role in setting U.S. water fluoridation policies, discusses current federal recommendations for water fluoridation, and summarizes the extent of water fluoridation across U.S. states.
This analysis uses data on “animal production workers” from the 2022 American Community Survey to examine characteristics of workers who may be at risk for exposure to H5N1 avian influenza, which has been found in dairy cattle herds in nine U.S. states as of May 14, 2024. The analysis compares characteristics of these workers to all U.S. workers, to all workers in the H5N1-affected states, and draws out some implications. Among the findings are that animal production workers are more likely than workers overall to be Hispanic and noncitizen immigrants, as well as to be uninsured.
This policy brief highlights areas in which HHS, FDA, and CDC have authority to shape U.S. vaccine policy with a specific focus on vaccine approvals and recommendations for the public. Ultimately, while there are limits, federal officials have significant authority to influence and alter vaccine policy, which could affect vaccine availability, views about vaccines, and vaccine use in the U.S. However, this does not include imposing mandates on or changing local vaccination requirements, as those authorities rest with state and local governments.
This issue brief gives an overview of the main systems used by the federal government to track vaccine safety and adverse events following vaccinations. The brief reviews the history of federal vaccine safety systems, describes the key systems and their strengths and limitations, and also discusses how vaccine safety issues have become the subject of more scrutiny under the Trump administration.
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