health

Nevada and New Mexico ranked among the worst in the nation for overall child well-being. Montana, Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming graded in the top half of states, while Utah ranked fourth.

Montana is an island of legal abortion, but three of the state's five clinics now restrict abortion pills from people in states with trigger bans to shield themselves and patients from legal attacks.

A panel of fire science experts convened at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno to discuss the extent of the devastation caused by climate-driven wildfires and their predictions for the 2022 fire season.

Following the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, those in Wyoming are wondering what happens next. During the last legislative session, Wyoming lawmakers passed a so called "trigger bill" that bans abortions in the state except in the case of rape, incest, or the possibility of death or serious bodily injury for the mother, which likely would have to be certified by doctors.

When Julie Burkhart learned about the Supreme Court draft opinion that would end abortion protections, she let out an involuntary shriek from her airplane seat. “Because it felt like such a gut punch,” Burkhart said. “And then after that, getting into the opinion and reading that — it was chilling.”

Early Wednesday morning, Julie Burkhart got a call she never really thought she was going to get. The building where Wellspring Health Access is located was set on fire. Police had arrived on the scene and extinguished it but there was substantial smoke damage.

In the past couple of weeks, the Memorial Hospital of Carbon County in Rawlins announced they will no longer be providing labor and child delivery services in June. That was the second hospital to make the decision within a month. South Lincoln Hospital District in Kemmerer also cut those services.

The state Department of Health helps about 11,00 eligible infants' families to buy formula through the Wyoming Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC).

The entirety of COVID-related healthcare – from testing to treatment to vaccines – has been offered free of charge to most Americans since the beginning of the pandemic. But now, the way we handle COVID could start to look more like the way we handle the flu – with less government support for testing and treatment, and a focus on “personal responsibility.”

Wyoming has some of the highest juvenile incarceration rates in the country and some of the highest teen suicide rates as well. Such data has a lot of Wyomingites looking for outside-the-box solutions for helping kids before they face these hurdles. Jonathan Updike grew up in Wyoming and ended up at Stanford, working on an innovative program called Allcove, which gets kids designing their own intervention strategies. Wyoming Public Radio's Melodie Edwards asked Updike about his own story of growing up in the state.