HIV Outbreak Persists as Officials Push Back Against Containment Efforts

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Brooke Parker has spent the past two years combing riverside homeless encampments, abandoned houses, and less traveled roads to help contain a lingering HIV outbreak that has disproportionately affected those who live on society’s margins. She shows up to build trust with those she encounters and offers water, condoms, referrals to services, … Read more

What Germany’s Coal Miners Can Teach America About Medical Debt

PÜTTLINGEN, Germany — Almost every day, Dr. Eckart Rolshoven sees the long shadow of coal mining in his clinic near the big brownstone church that dominates this small town in Germany’s Saarland. The region’s last-operating coal shaft, just a few miles away, closed a decade ago, ending centuries of mining in the Saarland, a mostly … Read more

This Rural, Red Southern County Was a Vaccine Success Story. Not Anymore.

MEIGS COUNTY, Tenn. — At a glance, it seemed like a Southern pandemic success story in a most unlikely place. A small county northeast of Chattanooga, along the twisting banks of Chickamauga Lake, for much of the past year has reported the highest covid-19 vaccination rate in Tennessee and one of the highest in the … Read more