Appalachian states have had some of the highest overdose rates in the country over the past decade. But officials have been slow to adopt some harm reduction efforts that could save lives.

The Kentucky Hospital Association supported the House version of what’s dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill,” but a top executive says Senate changes would devastate health care and create larger economic fallout.

Four unvaccinated Kentuckians have contracted the highly contagious measles, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) announced Friday.

The Kentucky Hospital Association says proposed Medicaid cuts in the Senate that would limit state-directed payments endanger thousands of Kentucky jobs and could force hospitals to close.

Congress is considering major cuts to SNAP food assistance benefits. They could have an outsized impact in Appalachian Kentucky, where more than one in five rely on the benefits.

More staff cuts are coming to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which announced that up to 650 people, or about 2% of its workforce, will be cut. The medical center is citing the Trump administration’s federal funding reductions, which have loomed over the institution and others like it for months.

For transgender youth in Kentucky, a new Supreme Court ruling ensures they'll remain unable to get gender-affirming hormone therapy in their home state.

Transgender kids in nearly half of all U.S. states will not be able to access gender-affirming care after the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s ban on the care for minors. The court ruled 6-3 along conservative/liberal lines in the landmark decision.

Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill” is estimated to kick millions of people off Medicaid, causing concern for health care providers in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, a region especially dependent on the federal program.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is allowing Kentucky residents use of its Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – known as D-SNAP – for those recovering from severe weather on May 16th.