Shots

Kennise Nevers holds her son, AJ, in her arms at home. Nevers' mother, Nancy Josey, looks on. Jesse Costa/WBUR hide caption

An unhoused individual sleeps under an American flag blanket in New York City on Sept. 10, 2013. In 2021, approximately 11% of Americans lived below the federal poverty line. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

Wanda Irving holds her granddaughter, Soleil, in front of a portrait of Soleil's mother, Shalon Irving, at her home in Sandy Springs, Ga., in 2017. Wanda is raising Soleil since Shalon died of complications due to hypertension a few weeks after giving birth. Becky Harlan/NPR hide caption

Paramedics at Ben Taub General Hospital speed a patient with a gunshot wound to the trauma team for further care. Ben Taub is the largest safety-net hospital in Houston. Gregory Smith/Corbis via Getty Images hide caption

Substitute teacher Crystal Clyburn, 51, doesn't have health insurance. She got her blood pressure checked at a health fair in Sarasota, Fla. Stephanie Colombini/WUSF hide caption

A vial of the Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, Bivalent. Though the shots are free to pretty much anyone who wants one in the U.S. as long as federal stockpiles hold out, the next update of the vaccine might be costly for some people who lack health insurance. RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

When Victoria Ferrell Ortiz had her daughter in 2017, she was covered by a limited form of Medicaid in Texas — which ended just two months after she gave birth. Losing insurance so soon was stressful. She supports a push for Texas to extend Medicaid coverage for a full year after childbirth. Yfat Yossifor / KERA hide caption

Research shows many hospitals in the U.S. aren't fully prepared to deal with a surge of sick children. John Moore/Getty Images hide caption

Jennifer Mitchell thumbs through her husband's medical records from his time at the Montana State Hospital. Records show doctors took Mitchell's husband off some of his congestive heart failure medications. Mitchell says she was never consulted. Aaron Bolton/Montana Public Radio hide caption

Lauren Miller at her home in Dallas, in January 2023. When she was 15 weeks pregnant, she traveled to Colorado to have a "selective reduction" abortion, after one of her twins was diagnosed with a fatal condition. Nitashia Johnson for NPR hide caption

Almost 60% of teen girls in the U.S. had depressive symptoms in the past year, according to new survey data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And nearly 1 in 3 said they'd seriously considered suicide. Radu Bighian/EyeEm via Getty Images hide caption

LaShonia Ingram was one of 28 Medicaid beneficiaries in Tennessee charged with TennCare fraud last year. The District Attorney dropped the felony charges. Brad Vest/WPLN hide caption

The COVID-19 dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering is displayed during a briefing on Capitol Hill in early March 2020, when only 245 confirmed cases had been reported in the U.S. Samuel Corum/Getty Images hide caption

Immunity Americans acquired through vaccination or via prior infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus may account for the lighter than expected COVID surge in the U.S. this winter, researchers say. David Ryder/Getty Images hide caption

A sign calling attention to drug overdoses is posted in a gas station on the White Earth reservation in Ogema, Minn.. A new study shows that early deaths due to addiction and suicide have impacted American Indian and Alaska Native communities far more than white communities. David Goldman/AP hide caption

More than 30 years ago, Johnnie Haire, grounds supervisor at Sunset Gardens of Memory cemetery in Millstadt, Illinois, set up a birdbath and purchased angel figurines for a special garden for deceased children called "Baby Land." He carefully painted each angel a hue of brown. He says he wanted the angels to be Black, like many of the children laid to rest here. Cara Anthony/KHN hide caption