Healthy Communities Online

Originally broadcast November 13, 2025 What if health care for moms and babies came with a cash prescription for them? In this Conversations on Health Care episode, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome back Dr. Mona Hanna, the Flint pediatrician whose research exposed the city’s water crisis and sparked a national reckoning on environmental justice. Now, Dr. Hanna returns to share powerful results from Rx Kids, the nation’s first community-wide prenatal and infant cash prescription program. By providing unconditional…

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Originally broadcast November 6, 2025 Intimate partner violence affects more women in the United States than breast cancer and diabetes combined. Health care providers can be a lifeline for survivors, yet many still struggle to know how to talk about it or where to begin. In this Conversations on Health Care episode, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Virginia Duplessis, associate director at Futures Without Violence and director of the National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Duplessis…

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Food insecurity could soon worsen for millions of families and result in devastating health outcomes. American Academy of Family Physicians CEO Shawn Martin joins hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter to discuss how the government shutdown is putting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in jeopardy. Beginning on Saturday, Nov. 1, food assistance could end for up to 22 million recipients. Martin and his 128,000 members are calling for bipartisan action to reopen the government and protect families from unnecessary…

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Originally broadcast June 5, 2024. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that several Southeastern states continue to report the highest rates of late-pregnancy fetal death in the country. This is the kind of research that energizes Nurse-Family Partnership supporters to build on their mission to positively impact and transform the lives of first-time moms and their babies through a proven home visiting model. The NFP model connects specially trained nurses with first-time mothers from…

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Veterans Day, which is less than a month away, is a time to honor and reflect on those who’ve served. Yet statistics reveal a troubling reality: Veterans are dying by suicide at 1.5 times the rate of the general population. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among veterans under 45. Craig Bryan, clinical psychologist, Iraq War veteran, and author of “Rethinking Suicide: Why Prevention Fails and How We Can Do Better,” joined hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret…

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Originally broadcast October 9, 2025 $44 billion in drugs that help Americans are purchased through a little-known federal discount program called 340B. The program is recognized for successfully helping hospitals, community health centers and others that fund care for low-income patients.   But that program is now facing big challenges from drugmakers, and the current government shutdown has brought new uncertainty. Reporter William Newton of 340B Report tells hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that the shutdown has delayed approvals…

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