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.
This analysis provides insight into trends related to cases and deaths in long-term care facilities due to COVID-19. This piece provides state-level data on cumulative cases and deaths in long-term care facilities over time, trends of new LTC cases and deaths per week, and comparisons to national trends in cases and deaths.
With schools nationwide preparing for fall and the federal government encouraging in-person classes, key concerns for school officials, teachers and parents include the risks that coronavirus poses to children and their role in transmission of the disease. A new KFF brief examines the latest available data and evidence about the issues around COVID-19 and children and what they suggest about the risks posed for reopening classrooms. The review concludes that while children are much less likely…
As schools prepare for Fall, this brief examines what's known about children and COVID-19, including the risk the virus poses to children and the risk of children becoming infected and transmitting to others, and the experiences of other countries that reopened classrooms.
As the nation continues to struggle to contain the spread of coronavirus, there is considerable debate about when and how to reopen schools. This analysis finds that one in four teachers (24%, or about 1.47 million people), have a condition that puts them at higher risk of serious illness from coronavirus.
As local, state and federal official debate when and how to reopen schools across the nation, a new KFF analysis estimates nearly 1.5 million teachers have health conditions that put them at higher risk of serious illness if they were to contract COVID-19. This represents nearly one in four (24%) of all teachers around the country, creating challenges for schools trying to provide in-person classroom education safely for students and teachers alike. While children are…
This brief analyzes multiple COVID-19 metrics to determine which states the pandemic is moving in the wrong, or right, direction as an increasing number of cases could be the result of more testing or the result of increasing transmission, or a combination of both.
As countries around the world begin to reopen, those that waited for the right time to ease lockdown restrictions seem to be in better shape than those who reopened despite higher levels of coronavrius transmission and lower public health capacity. In an article for Foreign Affairs, KFF's Jen Kates and Josh Michaud discuss different countries' approaches to reopening after months of lockdown to mitigate the spread of coronavirus."Countries that proceeded cautiously, maintaining lockdowns until their…
As states continue to ease social distancing restrictions, Americans are leaving their homes more often to shop, visit close family and friends and go to work than they did in April in spite of their concerns about contracting coronavirus, the latest KFF tracking poll finds. The poll finds 9 in 10 (89%) adults say they left their home to shop for food, medicine, or essential household items in the past week, including 61% who say…
This month's tracking poll examines public attitudes toward and experiences with institutional racism and police violence, whether they have participated in recent protests, and perceptions related to health disparities, specifically with regard to coronavirus.
69.4 million adult American workers – approximately four in 10 – are potentially ineligible for emergency paid sick leave benefits. Approximately 25% of those workers (17.7 million workers) are in the health care industry. Seventy-five percent of excluded or exempted workers are women.
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