Sarah Fentem
Health ReporterSarah Fentem reports on sickness and health as part of St. Louis Public Radio’s news team. She previously spent five years reporting for different NPR stations in Indiana, immersing herself deep, deep into an insurance policy beat from which she may never fully recover.
A longtime NPR listener, she grew up hearing WQUB in Quincy, Illinois, which is now owned by STLPR. She lives in South St. Louis, and in her spare time likes to watch old sitcoms, meticulously clean and organize her home and go on outdoor adventures with her husband Elliot. They have a dog named Ginger.
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Proponents of the bill said it would relieve poor residents of a financial and mental burden. That's despite a recently released working paper by economists that shows the positive effects of medical debt forgiveness may be limited.
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Total solar eclipses occur every year or two, but it is exceedingly rare for the paths of two of them to intersect only a handful of years apart, as it has in a swath of southern Missouri and Illinois.
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Local officials said the planned facility on 60 acres in Wentzville could bring jobs and services to one of the state's fastest-growing areas.
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The Chesterfield-based Catholic health system submitted a letter of intent to build the $650 million facility to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which regulates the construction of new hospitals. The proposed 75-bed hospital would be where Interstates 64 and 70 meet in Wentzville.
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Leaders from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration visited St. Louis University on Wednesday to discuss what federal officials could do to reduce the state’s high rate of maternal and infant deaths. Community health workers, patients and government officials took part in a roundtable at St. Louis University with agency officials from Washington, D.C.
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IUDs have been used for decades, but many patients describe waves of pain when a nurse or doctor inserts them. Providers are now are now considering offering women the option of sedation to make the insertion less unpleasant.
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Since 2017, the percentage of Missouri's kindergarten-age children who have received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has dropped from 95% to around 90%, according to state health officials.
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A St. Louis aldermanic committee has given its approval to a bill that would use federal money to pay the medical debt of thousands of St. Louisans.
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At an event about pregnancy and maternal health convened by the St. Louis Department of Health on Thursday, a panel of health workers said quality pre- and post-natal health care provided by workers beyond clinical health settings is essential to reducing the state’s maternal and infant mortality rates.
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When Fontbonne University administrators announced last week that the school would close, the decision stunned students, alumni and others in the St. Louis region. Here’s how the school and its students will move forward during the school’s final months.
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EMS workers across the state are receiving training on how to give overdose victims a dose of buprenorphine, which manages cravings and withdrawal symptoms, after reviving them from an overdose with the overdose reversal drug naloxone.
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The board of the 101-year-old Catholic university voted Sunday to close the Clayton-based private school, officials said. Nearby Washington University has agreed to buy the 16-acre property.