HPPR Health, Education & Welfare

WICHITA, Kansas — About 150,000 people in Kansas get their drinking water from private wells.

How clean, and safe, is that water? Short answer: It depends.

But new research suggests those wells deliver water tainted with a range of pollutants. Some leaked from dry cleaning operations. Yet far more wells soak up, and deliver to taps, fertilizer that’s been building up in Kansas soil and water over generations of modern farming.

Trinity Lewis, mother of the 11-month-old baby on life support at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, has filed an appeal to continue medical support for the child.

This flu season has turned out to be a tough one for children. There have been twice as many pediatric flu deaths so far this season than at the same time last year. Eight of those have been in Texas. 

Wichita is the latest — and largest — public school district in Kansas to announce plans to sue the popular vaping company Juul Labs.

Safety advocates worried about injuries at Colorado's ski resorts say months of talks with the state and industry about the hazards of riding chairlifts and other issues went nowhere. One group, concerned about children who fell out of lifts, says the state's Ski Lift Safety Working Group lacked focus and a mandate.

Sentencing is scheduled to begin on Monday in the criminal trial of top executives at Insys Therapeutics. This landmark case was the first successful prosecution of high-ranking pharmaceutical executives linked to the opioid crisis, including onetime billionaire John Kapoor.

TOPEKA, Kansas — Natalie Zarate entered state custody when she was 11 years old, removed from a physically abusive mother and placed in a group home for foster children.

Now 23, she trembles when she thinks about her time at EmberHope Youthville in Newton.

Jeffrey Hall is worried about our well-being.

"I think this is a really serious social concern. I think there are a lot of reasons to believe that loneliness is on the rise," says Hall, a communications professor at the University of Kansas.

The Trump administration has lifted a ban on public and press access to immigration hearings in tented courts in Brownsville and Laredo.

Back in mid-December, three children were hospitalized with measles after passing through the Denver airport and the emergency department of Children’s Hospital Colorado. The concern was that others might have picked up the disease at those locations. 

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — Chris Costantini lay in a cold sweat, his shoulder dislocated after slipping on a porch in Kansas City, Kansas.

He’d been out alone, knocking on doors and rustling up voters for the upcoming midterms in October 2018. Now he waited for an ambulance, full of anxiety about how the injury could hinder his next performance at the Kansas City Ballet.

Updated 6:14 p.m. ET

The Trump administration announced it will crack down on certain vaping products containing fruit, mint and other e-cigarette flavors to keep them away from kids. Manufacturers will have 30 days to take these products off the market before the Food and Drug Administration can take enforcement action.

Texans are below the national average when it comes to how often they exercise, according to a new study by FitRated.

The study found only 68% of people in the state exercised regularly in the last month, which is 5 percentage points lower than the national average. Texas also has just 5.5 gyms per 100,000 people, the third-lowest in the nation. This goes along with a 33% obesity rate. 

Kansas educators want lawmakers to act on health care, bullying and college credits when the Legislature convenes later this month.

For over a decade, the school funding battle has dominated any conversation about education in Topeka. But with a school funding plan in place, educators are no longer on the legal offensive. Instead, school lawyers have become watchdogs, making sure the Legislature keeps the education dollars flowing.

TOPEKA, Kansas — It typically took Walt Hill more than a year to recruit a psychiatrist to northwest Kansas. Now he doesn’t even bother.

Instead, the executive director of the High Plains Mental Health Center relies on out-of-state doctors willing to work remotely, treating patients through video conference.

For years, the center has used remote appointments with local psychiatrists to reach patients in far-flung corners of its coverage area, which spans 20 largely rural counties.

States can get a substantial return on investment if they help single mothers in college access child care, support services and financial aid, according to a new study from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

But even though about 10% of all undergraduates in Kansas and Missouri are single mothers, neither state makes significant investments in helping them persist to graduation. 

A nationwide campaign is looking for solutions to loneliness.

Dr. Max Self grabs a sanitary wipe and cleans off the small flashlight in his hands. More than 20 years as a family doctor in rural Fort Scott, Kan., has taught him a few tricks for dealing with little kids: "I've got my flashlight. See? Look, you want to hold it?"

Food pantry use is up in many Midwest communities, despite a reasonably strong economy and low unemployment rate. There can be several reasons for the increased need for free food.

A group of chemicals called PFAS are common in firefighting foams, as well as household products like rain jackets, pizza boxes and non-stick pots and pans. They've been in use since the 1940s and have come to be known as "forever chemicals" because they persist in the environment.

PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have made their way into watersheds around the world, and as a recent study found, even into raindrops. Some are considered a threat to human health. 

Researchers including Jens Blotevogel, an environmental engineer at Colorado State University, are studying ways to get rid of the compounds. 

A mental health crisis can be exacerbated by the challenges of aging. McKee Medical Center in Loveland plans to address this with a new unit specifically for seniors with behavioral health care needs.

The inpatient unit is for short-term, acute care and will serve people aged 55 and older.

Loveland has a lack of psychiatric inpatient beds, said Shelly Cox, behavioral health services director. Seniors will often travel to Denver or Fort Morgan to receive medical care.

Forget about licking the batter on the spoon or sampling raw cookie dough. Both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say you risk the chance of illness if you do.

When a child is diagnosed with a mental illness, parents can play a crucial role in their treatment, but what happens when those children become adults?