Jennifer Fernandez/NC Health News

The state plans to keep its childhood vaccination schedule, which includes required and recommended shots that are no longer part of federal guidelines.

Another nearly 100,000 students are likely missing out on SNAP benefits that they qualify for, but lack of knowledge, difficulty, stigma keeps them from signing up.

Young people are emphasizing youth-led solutions, saying that peers best understand and can effectively address their generation’s mental health challenges.

Whooping cough cases in North Carolina have risen sharply in 2024. There have been close to 600 reported cases — 6.4 times more than last year at this time. Nationally, cases are 4.8 times higher, federal data show.

“It is a problem that many policymakers have expressed concern over, and yet kids are still suffering,” said Corye Dunn, director of public policy for Disability Rights North Carolina.

Child care advocates have repeatedly sounded the alarm about how funding for child care centers will run out in July.

Accessing records has been difficult, hindering efforts, but child advocates hope lawmakers will craft legislation to ease the way for Guilford and any future review teams.

Several programs launched in North Carolina last year to help teens and young adults quit vaping or to stop them from starting.

Family members of victims are trying to educate people about the deadly drug and get the opioid reversal drug naloxone in more schools.

State health officials, alarmed by the growing number of cases, have launched a social media education campaign, a new website, and are working on other ways to reverse that trend.