Mountain News & World Report

Having access to life saving healthcare in the eastern Kentucky mountains as in all of rural Appalachia has always been a struggle. Obstacles to receiving proper healthcare are numerous including lack of doctors and especially specialty doctors, transportation issues, no insurance or low income, and no childcare. Because of these barriers, eastern Kentucky is among some of the poorest in the nation for health outcomes. In this episode of Mountain News & World Report, we examine how eastern Kentuckians have made a life within the limitations of this reality, and how sometimes we take our health into our own hands. Not only this, but we see how healthcare has been a support to the economy in eastern Kentucky and how our old and new ways of receiving it cannot be ignored for our future.