A survey of patients receiving gender affirming care shows that commercial insurance pays for most of their treatments, they receive less care in the South than other parts of the U.S. and they deal with disproportionate levels of housing insecurity and trauma compared to others, according to a new study by researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The study, using data provided by Kythera Labs, a healthcare clearinghouse, examined millions of insurance claims by patients undergoing gender affirming care (GA) and those not. It also looked at social determinants of healthcare (SDOH), non-medical factors which affect a person’s quality of life.

The study was published today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

It showed that commercial insurance covered 72.8% of GA claims followed by Medicaid at 17.2 %, other insurance at 6.6% and Medicare at 3.5%. GA patients incurred more claims across all insurance and age groups, about 87% more overall.

First-of-its kind work led by Mount Sinai researcher supports reserving this technique for extreme cases

In North Carolina, one in four households relies on a private well as their primary source of drinking water. The state has the highest number of private wells in the nation, yet a lack of regulation poses serious public health concerns. Further compounding the problem, most private well owners are not getting their wells tested, leaving them vulnerable to the health impacts of consuming contaminated water. A new white paper published in the UNC Dataverse by researchers at the UNC Institute for the Environment (IE), in partnership with the UNC Superfund Research Program (SRP) in the Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Well Water Pro Bono Project at the UNC School of Law, offers three policy recommendations to protect community members who rely on private wells for drinking water and addresses policy gaps contributing to health inequalities across the state.