Category: YOUR HEALTH
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Deaths from drug overdoses in Kentucky hit new high in 2010; more than half involved prescription drugs
Deaths from drug overdoses in Kentucky jumped to a new high in 2010, and “rose a staggering 296 percent from 2000 to 2010,” Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. “A...
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State Auditor Edelen faults Bluegrass mental-health agency for executive compensation, lax management and board oversight
The Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, a nonprofit agency that gets two-thirds of its money from taxpayers, “paid more than $2.8 million in executive-benefit contributions since 1997 to the...
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U.S. teens’ cigarette use drops to a new low, but use of alcohol goes up a bit and more 12th graders are smoking marijuana
Teenagers’ cigarette smoking dropped to a record low this year but alcohol use rose slightly after seven years of decline, according to a survey of 45,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-...
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Feds tell states it’s all or nothing on Medicaid expansion; Washington Post map shows Ky. is only state ‘leaning’ toward it
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News When the Supreme Court upheld federal health reform but said states could opt out of the expansion of Medicaid to people with incomes above...
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Managed-care doctor creates process to steer pregnant Medicaid recipients who are using dangerous drugs into treatment
When Dr. Jeremy Corbett of Lexington found that “nearly one in five pregnant women enrolled in the Medicaid managed-care program where he works were using narcotics or other harmful drugs,” he...
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Many Ky. parents don’t realize children are overweight, or won’t acknowledge it, but many report kids’ poor health behavior
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Many Kentucky parents don’t realize that their children are obese or overweight, or at least aren’t willing to acknowledge it. That is the obvious...
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Oregon may show the way for Kentucky in drug treatment
In facing up to its need for more drug-treatment facilities, Kentucky could learn some lessons from Oregon, Courier-Journal reporter Laura Ungar writes in the third and last part of her...
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In starting its sixth package in series on prescription drug abuse, The Courier-Journal shows treatment programs fall short of need
Brittany Crouch suffers through withdrawal in Frenchburgbefore leaving for treatment in Lexington, as daughterKaylee Adams, 3, cries. (C-J photo by Alton Strupp) “In a state plagued by one of the...
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Kentucky’s week-long brand of flu now called ‘widespread’
What started out early is now full-blown. The Kentucky Department for Public Health informed federal health authorities this week that data it has received from local health departments, hospitals, clinics...
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Health care decisions by and for Medicare patients differ widely by place; Lexington big in back surgery, low in mastectomy
All medicine involves decisions and, according to a new series of nine reports published by the Dartmouth Atlas Project, those decisions differ drastically by location for Medicare patients. In the...