Kaiser Health News opening a rural reporting desk for Midwest and Mountain West, supported by $3.9 million grant

Kaiser Health News is establishing a rural health reporting desk to cover the Midwest and Mountain West, planning to hire journalists and social-media experts to cover Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

KHN's parent organization, the Kaiser Family Foundation, is able to fund the expansion through a $3.9 million grant from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust., which aims to improve lives by promoting health- and place-based initiatives.

"The team of journalists will provide unbiased, accurate, and trusted reporting on a wide range of complex issues, including the ongoing pandemic, access to health coverage and care, the burden of health care costs on consumers, housing and education, the opioid epidemic, mental health, hospital closures, the lack of critical lifesaving equipment, and burgeoning changes in telehealth and medicine. KHN will partner with local media throughout the region to produce deeply sourced stories that shed light on underreported issues," according to the press release. "As with all its journalism, KHN stories produced by the Rural Health Desk will be made freely available for publication by media outlets across the country, published on khn.org and distributed through KHN’s social media platforms."