内容摘要：Star, which had his own Facebook page, constantly got visitors to his pen, attracting tourists and locals alike. He got daily walks in downtown Anchorage, was featured in parades, was visited by schoolchildren and even appeared on reality TV shows.

Star, which had his own Facebook page, constantly got visitors to his pen, attracting tourists and locals alike. He got daily walks in downtown Anchorage, was featured in parades, was visited by schoolchildren and even appeared on reality TV shows.

“Despite my ill feelings or experiences I had in that environment,” said Alma Jean Thomas Carney, who described the hospital’s white staff as unwelcoming, “you have indigent people living in Haywood County who need to get to the closest facility available.”It’s more common for people in rural areas to die earlier than urban residents from things like heart disease, cancer and stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But hospitals have closed throughout rural America in the last decade, leaving some of the 46 million people who live in these areas fewer options to get

Advocates, hospital and health clinic administrators and rural residents say changing disparities inneeds to start at the local level — especially in communities of color that may lack trust in the medical field.It’s already happening in Brownsville, where the hospital fully reopened in 2022;

who lack permanent legal status after their work hours; and in California, where, who often work on farms or at meatpacking plants.

“We’ve learned that we have to go to people, we have to go to where they’re at, they’re not going to come to us,” said Mandip Kaur, the health director of the nonprofit Jakara Movement.

More than one-third of the nation’s rural hospitals — about 700 — are at risk of closing because of “serious financial problems,” according to a July analysis from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Harold Miller, the center’s president and CEO, said one hospital closure can ripple through a rural community.“That is extremely unusual,” said Griffis, who sat in on such briefings with the previous health secretary and said that none were held for Kennedy during his first month on the job. “I’ve never seen that before.”

In another irregularity, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation’s largest network of pediatricians, has not been tapped to work with the CDC on the outbreak, according to the organization’s officials. Historically, the CDC and AAP have convened for monthly or biweekly briefings during outbreaks to share updates, which include details about what doctors are seeing and questions they’re fielding from parents in exam rooms. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the health department’s response.The only updates provided widely to pediatricians by the CDC have come from a health alert network update sent on March 7, a week after the first U.S. measles death in a decade, and the letter sent to providers last week, which, according to the pediatric academy officials, was late in the outbreak.

Kennedy praised the CDC on Tuesday during an event in Indianapolis, saying it “had done a very good job controlling the measles outbreak.”Kennedy’s inconsistent and unclear message on the measles vaccines has also made the outbreaks difficult to contain, experts say.