Local public health officials say they can get a better idea of what’s going on with youth using the Healthy Kids Colorado survey, which reaches about 100,000 teens compared with 80,000 nationwide in the CDC’s survey of Youth Risk Behavior.
Kaiser Health News
Posted inClimate
As summers heat up, Colorado changes how heat advisories are issued
National Weather Service in Colorado adopts HeatRisk index, which uses local climate data to determine what the hazards could be to people
Posted inBusiness, Health, News, Politics and Government
Despite a first-ever “right-to-repair” law for Colorado wheelchair users, there’s still no easy fix
By Markian Hawryluk, Kaiser Health News Robin Bolduc isn’t the type of person who takes “no” for an answer — particularly when it comes to fixing her husband’s wheelchair. Her husband, Bruce Goguen, 69, is paralyzed from multiple sclerosis. And without his chair, he would be stuck in bed, at risk of developing pneumonia or […]
Posted inHealth, News
Doctors are uneasy as Colorado collects providers’ diversity data
By Markian Hawryluk, Kaiser Health News Shaunti Meyer, a certified nurse-midwife and medical director at STRIDE Community Health Center in Colorado, doesn’t usually disclose her sexual orientation to patients. But at times it feels appropriate. After telling a transgender patient that she is a lesbian, Meyer learned the woman had recently taken four other trans […]
Posted inClimate, Health, News
Climate change may push Colorado, the U.S. toward the “Goldilocks Zone” for West Nile Virus
By Melissa Bailey, Kaiser Health News Michael Keasling of Lakewood was an electrician who loved big trucks, fast cars, and Harley-Davidsons. He’d struggled with diabetes since he was a teenager, needing a kidney transplant from his sister to stay alive. He was already quite sick in August when he contracted West Nile virus after being […]
Posted inHealth, News
The case of the $489,000 air ambulance ride from Colorado to North Carolina
By Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News Sean Deines and his wife, Rebekah, were road-tripping after he lost his job as a bartender when the pandemic hit. But while visiting his grandfather in a remote part of Wyoming, Sean started to feel very ill. Rebekah insisted he go to an urgent care center in Laramie. “‘Your […]
Posted inHealth, News
Calls in Denver, across U.S. to overhaul methadone distribution intensify, but clinics resist
By Markian Hawryluk, Kaiser Health News Days typically start early for patients undergoing opioid addiction treatment at Denver Recovery Group’s six methadone clinics in Colorado. They rise before dawn. Some take three buses to get to a clinic by 5 a.m. for a 15-minute conversation with a counselor and their daily dose of methadone, all […]
Posted inEquity, Health, News
Demand for service dogs unleashes a “Wild West” market
By Markian Hawryluk, KHN Jenni Mahnaz admits she’s not much of a dog person. She’s mildly allergic and the only pet she had as a child was a hermit crab. But once she learned that specially trained dogs could help her daughters with their medical needs, she was willing to do anything to make it happen. […]
Posted inHealth, News
Marshall fire and omicron surge prompt Colorado to offer special enrollment period for health insurance
By Markian Hawryluk, Kaiser Health Network A wildfire displaced thousands of Coloradans just as the omicron surge began sweeping through the state, so health insurance was likely not on many people’s minds when the regular enrollment period for the state’s health insurance marketplace ended Jan. 15. But now, because of those twin emergencies, everyone in […]
Posted inCOVID, Health, News
As hospitals fill up, paramedics — like those in Gunnison — spend more time moving patients, less on emergencies
By Helen Santoro, Kaiser Health News GUNNISON— The night after Thanksgiving, a small ambulance service that covers a huge swath of southwestern Colorado got a call that a patient needed an emergency transfer from the hospital in Gunnison to a larger one with an intensive care unit 65 miles away in Montrose. The patient — […]