HealthConnections
Every Other Tuesday during Morning Edition and All Things Considered
The brainchild of University of Tennessee Nursing professor emerita Dr. Carole R. Myers, HealthConnections examines the intersections between people, health, and policy.
What constitutes health? What does it mean to have or lack access to healthcare services? What are our most vexing health and healthcare challenges and how are they influenced by public policies?
In this biweekly series, Dr. Myers and her guests sort through these issues and more, giving you tools for understanding what you hear on the news and for separating fact from fiction in the healthcare debate.
If you have questions, comments or topic suggestions, reach out to Dr. Myers via email.
-
34 million people in the United States, including 9 million children, are food insecure. In Tennessee, one in nine people face hunger. Children fare even worse as one in eight Tennessee children face hunger.Rural communities are especially hard hit by hunger and food insecurity. People from African-American, Latino and Native American communities have higher rates of hunger than other communities. Poverty is a common denominator in many instances of hunger and food insecurity. -
On this edition of HealthConnections, we look at some of effects on vaccinating children in Tennessee, following the latest law changes passed by the Tennessee Legislature this past May.
-
Dr. Carole Myers speaks with Dr. Shawn Hamm, a board-certified addiction medicine specialist affiliated with Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, on the drug Fentanyl, from addiction to overdose deaths related to the drug.
-
On this episode of HealthConnections, Dr. Carole Myers speaks with Oak Ridge native Marian Wildgruber about the condition Low Vision.
-
Dr. Carole Myers of the University of Tennessee College of Nursing speaks with Dr. Sarah Neller, Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, College of Nursing, about legacy letters.
-
In this episode of HealthConnections, we discuss the pros, cons, and more of expanding Medicaid in Tennessee. Dr. Carole Myers speaks with Dr. Matt Harris, Body Distinguished Professor of Health Economics at the University of Tennessee's Haslam College of Business. -
The cost of prescription drugs is a priority health care problem in the U.S. Dr. Carole Myers speaks with Dr. Brian Winbigler, a pharmacist and the Knoxville site manager for Alliance for Multispecialty Research. -
New mothers are subject to powerful emotions: excitement, anxiety, joy, apprehension, and depression. “Baby blues” or other altered moods are not uncommon. However, some mothers face more severe and prolonged symptoms, known as Perinatal Mood Disorders. Dr. Carole Myers speaks with Sarah McNamara, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who is certified in Perinatal Mental Health and the Clinical Director of Ready Nest Knoxville, a counseling practice that helps individuals, couples, and families transition through the life stages of conception, pregnancy, postpartum, infertility, or loss.
-
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, federal and state law required that the eligibility of all TennCare enrollees be redetermined, renewed, or verified annually. The purpose of the redetermination is to ensure that enrollees still qualify for coverage. During the pandemic, the annual redetermination was suspended by the federal government. Recently Congress announced the resumption of annual renewals, effective April 1, 2023. Dr. Carole Myers speaks with Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson about what TennCare enrollees can expect from the redetermination process and whether Medicaid expansion in Tennessee remains a possibility.
-
Dr. Carole Myers speaks with Dr. Whitney Wharton and Dr. Joel Anderson, who are leading a national study designed to improve age-related resources and to ensure that LGBTQIA+ patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) and LGBTQIA+ caregivers are included in ADRD research.
