Latest KFF Health News Stories
Airports Step Up Mental Health Assistance as Passenger Anxiety Soars
As more people return to air travel, tension is mounting in airports nationwide. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson is among those that have responded to the pandemic-related stress and fear among passengers and employees by offering services such as meditation, chaplains and other help in their terminals.
As Demand for Mental Health Care Spikes, Budget Ax Set to Strike
Legislators in statehouses across the U.S. face the dual challenge of budgeting in a covid-crippled economy while planning for the pandemic’s long-term effects on mental health and substance abuse services.
Kids Already Coping With Mental Disorders Spiral as Pandemic Topples Vital Support Systems
Many children with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties depend on schools for access to vital therapies. When schools and doctors’ offices stopped providing in-person services last spring, kids became untethered.
‘Peer Respites’ Provide an Alternative to Psychiatric Wards During Pandemic
A growing number of “peer respites,” nonclinical settings for psychiatric recovery, can help people in distress who mainly need to talk to people who understand their problems.
Children’s Hospitals Grapple With Wave of Mental Illness
The disruption to daily life caused by the pandemic has increased the number of children seeking mental health care, further straining a system that already struggled to meet the need.
Health Officials Fear Pandemic-Related Suicide Spike Among Native Youth
Recent deaths on a small Native American reservation in Montana have underlined the heightened risks for Indigenous youths and how suicide prevention programs are struggling to operate during the pandemic.
Amid COVID and Racial Unrest, Black Churches Put Faith in Mental Health Care
Black Americans are less likely to receive mental health treatment than the overall population. But as needs soar this year, faith leaders are tapping health professionals to share coping skills churchgoers and the community can use immediately.
For Nurses Feeling the Strain of the Pandemic, Virus Resurgence Is ‘Paralyzing’
COVID-19’s toll weighs heavily on nurses, who can suffer stress and other psychological problems if they don’t believe they are able to help their patients sufficiently.
Family Mourns Man With Mental Illness Killed by Police and Calls for Change
Like almost a quarter of the 989 people killed by police in the U.S. in the past 12 months, Ricardo Muñoz had a serious mental illness. “Instead of a cop just being there, there should have been other responders,” his sister says.
For Each Critically Ill COVID Patient, a Family Is Suffering, Too
Because loved ones are often kept apart from critically ill COVID-19 patients, the families may be especially vulnerable to symptoms including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder that can be debilitating.
Sleepless Nights, Hair Loss and Cracked Teeth: Pandemic Stress Takes Its Toll
Reports are on the rise regarding excruciating headaches, stomach upsets for weeks on end, sudden outbreaks of shingles and flare-ups of autoimmune disorders. A common thread among the complaints, one that has been months in the making, is chronic stress.
‘You’re Going to Release Him When He Was Hurting Himself?’
Daniel Prude’s family knew he needed psychiatric care and tried to get it for him. Instead, his encounter with police hours after he was released from Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, proved fatal.
Feeling Anxious and Depressed? You’re Right at Home in California.
In a series of July U.S. Census Bureau surveys, nearly half of California adult respondents reported levels of anxiety and gloom typically associated with diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder, a stunning figure that rose through the summer alongside the menacing spread of the coronavirus.
For A Black Social Media Manager In The George Floyd Age, Each Click Holds Trauma
In communities of color, the decision to participate in this moment of collective trauma — whether by watching and sharing the video of George Floyd’s death, discussing racial injustice on social media, or protesting and speaking out in the 3D world — can be one rife with anxiety and profound mental distress.
How Those With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Cope With Added Angst Of COVID
During the coronavirus pandemic, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder and other serious anxieties may struggle to distinguish concerns brought on by their conditions from the fears shared by the general public. But some patients say successful treatment has armed them to handle COVID-19’s uncertainties.
In Hard-Hit Areas, COVID’s Ripple Effects Strain Mental Health Care Systems
In areas hit hard by the coronavirus, such as Detroit, behavioral health care workers have been overburdened and forced to scale back services at the same time people battling mental health disorders became more stressed and anxious.
Economic Blow Of The Coronavirus Hits America’s Already Stressed Farmers
At the start of the spring planting season, farmers across the U.S. heartland were already trying to recover from last year’s flooding amid worsening economic conditions when the pandemic struck. Farm bankruptcies and suicides continue to climb. A lack of mental health resources in rural America makes finding help more complicated.
Addiction Is ‘A Disease Of Isolation’ — So Pandemic Puts Recovery At Risk
People in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction have to weather a new storm of depression, anxiety and isolation during the pandemic, just as the social supports of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs move online.
Coronavirus Has Upended Our World. It’s OK To Grieve.
To weather uncertain times, it’s important to acknowledge and grieve losses — even if they seem small in the scheme of the global pandemic, psychologists and grief experts say.
As Youth Suicides Climb, Anguished Parents Begin To Speak Out
The suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 almost tripled in a decade and is still rising. As parents grapple with loss, some turn to activism.
