Public Health

KFF is pleased to announce that Kaiser Health News (KHN), its editorially independent health news service, won a top prize in the 13th annual Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Journalism.

On October 10, 2018, the Trump administration released a proposed rule to change “public charge” policies that govern how the use of public benefits may affect individuals’ ability to obtain legal permanent resident (LPR) status. This analysis provides new estimates of the rule’s potential impacts.

A new KFF/Washington Post survey probes in depth what Americans know and think about climate change, their personal involvement with the issue, and their willingness to accept trade-offs to reduce its impact. A parallel survey of teens ages 13-17 explores how they view the potential effects of climate change on…

This data note examines the public’s knowledge and concerns about antibiotic resistance and also gauges the public’s experiences using antibiotics and their interactions with doctor and health care providers.

This perspective highlights the important relationship between medicine and trust in news media and articulates three ways that clinicians, health care organizations, and journalists might begin to rebuild the foundation of trust on which both medicine and journalism rely. Co-authored by KFF’s David Rousseau, Vineet M. Arora of University of Chicago Medicine, and Gary Schwitzer of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, it appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Nearly a year after Hurricane Maria swamped their island, eighty-three percent of the residents of Puerto Rico say the storm affected their lives in major and lasting ways, from months-long power outages to employment losses, damaged or destroyed homes, drinking water shortages and new or worsening health problems, finds a…

Drew Altman compares residents’ views of hurricane-recovery efforts based on five surveys of residents affected by Hurricanes Maria, Harvey and Katrina.

This partnership survey from The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation explores how Puerto Ricans are faring one year after Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory. This face-to-face survey of those living in Puerto Rico examines the impact the hurricane had on their lives, including their housing situation, financial status, and mental and physical health. It also covers issues of access to water and electricity and Puerto Ricans’ views of the government’s response to the storm and its recovery. This is the first, and only, comprehensive, island-wide representative survey to assess a broad array of impacts from Hurricane Maria and hear directly from the people of Puerto Rico about what they experienced and what the ongoing needs are.

One in five Americans (22%) say they always or often feel lonely or socially isolated, frequently with serious consequences, finds a new Kaiser Family Foundation/Economist three-country survey examining loneliness and social isolation. Americans who feel lonely or socially isolated often report negative impacts on their mental (58%) and physical (55%) health, their…

To understand more about how people view the issue of loneliness and social isolation, the Kaiser Family Foundation, in partnership with The Economist, conducted a cross-country survey of adults in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The survey included additional interviews with individuals who report always or often feeling lonely, left out, isolated or that they lack companionship to better understand the personal characteristics and life circumstances associated with these feelings, the reported causes of loneliness, and how people are coping. More than a fifth of adults in the United States and the United Kingdom as well as one in ten adults in Japan say they often or always feel lonely, feel that they lack companionship, feel left out, or feel isolated from others, and many of them say their loneliness has had a negative impact on various aspects of their life. About six in ten say there is a specific cause of their loneliness, and they are also more likely to report experiencing negative life events in the past two years, such as a negative change in financial status. Those reporting loneliness in each country report having fewer confidants than others and two-thirds or more say they have just a few or no relatives or friends living nearby who they can rely on for support. Many in the U.S. and U.K. view the increased use of technology as a major reason why people are lonely or socially isolated, whereas fewer people in Japan say the same. But, for those experiencing loneliness or social isolation personally, they are divided as to whether they think social media makes their feelings of loneliness better or worse.