Browsing: Health Disparities

In this 2026 midterm election season, health care ranks third on voters’ minds. That’s no surprise: U.S. life expectancy persistently lags those in comparable countries despite substantially greater spending on health care. As health and health care become increasingly political, we asked whether the leading drivers of mortality looked different by political geography in the…

Abdul El-Sayed doesn’t make headlines as the Senate candidate who wrote a book on applying systems science to public health, or who worked to rebuild Detroit’s health system, or who researched the ways social circumstances can impact maternal mortality. 

Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.

Americans have more trust in science than most of the rest of the world, according to a new survey of people in 140 countries, a finding that may seem difficult to explain in a country deeply divided by issues such as the benefits and harms of vaccines. 

Ovulation. Endometriosis. And especially: menopause. These once taboo words — among others — have become part of our daily vocabulary and conversations, a sign of greater interest in, and knowledge of, women’s health. 

A STAT analysis of National Institutes of Health spending shows that in the 2026 fiscal year, which ended Wednesday, the agency continued reducing grant awards involving health disparities, race, and ethnicity but made little progress toward other Trump administration priorities, including disbursing funds more evenly across the country and expanding support for early-career scientists.