There’s an endless stream of advice online about how to make friends as an adult. The listicles and blog posts often mention that it’s harder for twentysomethings to form meaningful friendships. Making friends can be even harder if you’re on the autism spectrum, especially if you don’t live in a major city. But one group is trying to build those connections in rural America.
Rows of silver and pink plastic packages sit on the bathroom counter inside Bean, a Louisville coffee shop. Each package carries these words: emergency contraception. The medication? It’s called Preventeza, from the company that also makes Vagisil. It was on the market for less than a year and didn’t do well – pills worth $2 million were sent to advocacy groups in Kentucky, Indiana and other states.
Rural America has high rates of chronic disease – the more remote a community, the more heart disease, cancer and diabetes. And there are side effects many people don’t think about: depression, anxiety, even suicide.
About 100,000 Kentucky children are being raised by people other than their parents – a number that puts Kentucky above all other states. Many of these cases are because of issues stemming the opioid epidemic: incarceration, abuse or neglect; and a great number of grandparents are raising these children. This can put a grandparent in a difficult situation in a state where many people live in poverty and have big health issues.
Nearly half a million low-income Kentuckians lost their dental and vision insurance this month after a federal judge halted Kentucky’s Medicaid waiver program.
