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 survey examines Americans’ experiences with gun-related incidents such as being threatened with a gun, having a family member killed by a gun, or witnessing someone being shot. The survey also explores worries about gun violence, precautions people report taking to protect their families, how gun owners say they store their guns, and discussions about guns with health care providers.
As we mark three years since the WHO characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic, here are 10 key data points that illuminate the challenges, and progress, made to date.
This weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed more U.S. cases of the latest international outbreak – coronavirus – which started in Wuhan, China. Josh Michaud, an Associate Director for Global Health Policy at KFF, offers perspective on the U.S. role and how response to this outbreak compares to others, such as SARS and the Ebola epidemic.
Governors, presidential candidates, and others have asked for military assistance for domestic coronavirus response, and President Trump has stated he is working with states and the Department of Defense to have the military provide additional resources and assets. This brief answers key questions about potential U.S. military engagement in the domestic response to the coronavirus.
In the midst of a sweeping national health and economic crisis sparked by the novel coronavirus pandemic, a new KFF coronavirus poll finds two thirds of the public (67%) say they are taking precautions as a result, and large shares worry about its impact on their family’s health and finances.
Based on current understanding of risk, forty-one percent of adults ages 18 and older in the U.S. have a higher risk of developing more serious illness if they become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, because they are older or have serious underlying health conditions, or both, according to a new KFF analysis.
As the COVID-19 pandemic grows, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health officials recommend that people who are sick should stay home. Benefits such as sick leave and family leave can help employees follow these guidelines; however, the U.S. does not have national standards on paid family or sick leave. The lack of a national policy means some employees are forced to take unpaid leave, or come to work when they are ill, which could have public health consequences.
This brief describes a range of steps states and the federal government could take to use Medicaid to expand coverage and access to care in the context of responding to COVID-19 as a public health crisis.
Fielded from March 11-15, this KFF Coronavirus poll provides a snapshot of the public’s experience, knowledge and views about the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, during the rapidly unfolding crisis. A majority of Americans say they are taking precautions to protect themselves by the novel coronavirus pandemic but the public worries about the health and economic consequences as the situation evolves in the coming months.
Few issues are likely to matter as much to voters in November’s presidential election as President Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis, which have left almost 200,000 Americans dead and prompted job layoffs and furloughs affecting tens of millions of Americans.
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