Abortion access, COVID disruptions, health inequities – Side Effects’ top

The third year of a global pandemic. An uncertain future for reproductive health care. Persistent health care inequities.

This year, Side Effects Public Media reporters delivered high-impact, in-depth stories from across the Midwest and beyond, exploring 2022’s leading health concerns. Side Effects reporters and collaborators shed light on health care disparities, looked for solutions and broke down data to show trends.

Here were the top Side Effects stories of 2022:

Another year of COVID-19

The year started with a new wave of COVID cases spurred by the omicron variant. But slowly, contact tracing and testing efforts scaled back as vaccines, boosters and treatment became widely available. That includes in rural communities with sometimes hard-to-reach immigrant populations.

COVID disruptions rippled through the health care system, and physicians on the front lines of the pandemic expressed concerns about the impact of these disruptions, on early-career physicians in particular.

The fallout of reversing Roe v. Wade

In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court upended decades of health care precedent by reversing Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

The Midwest and surrounding states immediately felt the impact of the decision.

The types of procedures patients could access changed, sometimes from day-to-day. Requests for help from abortion funds skyrocketed. And providers in states restricting abortion worried about the impact on their careers, as well as what an end to legal abortion would mean for the most vulnerable Americans.

Abortion bans are still tangled in the legal system in many states. Side Effects will continue to report on the impact of the changing landscape of abortion care in 2023.

Investigations with national implications

Side Effects reporters tackled many tough subjects in 2022.

Jake Harper and Lauren Bavis continued the work started in the second season of the podcast Sick, with investigations about sexual abuse in prison and concerning suicide watch policies.

Carter Barrett investigated how youth treatment centers across the U.S. are suffering from staff shortages, in collaboration with WFYI education reporter Dylan Peers McCoy.

Natalie Krebs examined how shortages of home health aides create challenges for the growing number of seniors and people with disabilities that need in-home care.

Sebastián Martínez Valdivia explored why pediatricians are worried about the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, which has allowed children to receive continuous Medicaid coverage throughout the pandemic.

Aprile Rickert examined the link between high maternal mortality rates and restrictive abortion laws. Darian Benson explored the barriers to substance use treatment.

And Farah Yousry reported on the effects of systemic racism on sickle cell disease, as well as how Supreme Court case could end the right of millions of vulnerable Americans to hold states accountable when they do not receive benefits they’re entitled to.

Understanding health care ‘Tradeoffs’

This year, Side Effects partnered…