Laura Santhanam

Today we're featuring our newsroom's top 10 health-related stories of 2025. In the year ahead, we are keeping an eye out for further developments, especially those tied to social safety net programs.

Mississippi Today health reporter Allen Siegler and health editor Laura Santhanam give an update on the state's plan to spend its initial pot of opioid lawsuit settlement money.

Allen Siegler, mental health reporter at Mississippi Today, has been named a finalist for the 2025 National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Awards for his investigation into how Mississippi officials spent the state’s opioid settlement funds.

At the annual “Night of Storytelling” Wednesday, participants in the Magnolia Mother's Trust's Springboard to Opportunities shared how the program allowed them to shift their lives in radical ways. This year, their children took the stage to share their experiences.

The Mississippi Public Health Laboratory is temporarily outsourcing some services to neighboring states after building repairs forced the facility to pause roughly a third of the tests it performs, including those for HIV, flu, COVID-19, whooping cough and measles.

The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on healthcare issues, released a report Wednesday that provided a nationwide look at how health outcomes, access to care, and quality of care differ based on racial and ethnic identity. The report shows that, compared to national rates, a higher number of Mississippians die from avoidable deaths, lack health insurance, and have less preventative care such as cancer screenings. These trends are heightened for Black Mississippians.

The future of the 25-bed Greenwood Leflore Hospital, which has treated patients in the Mississippi Delta for more than a century, hangs in the balance amid its steadily worsening financial situation.

The Health Department does not have the resources to provide home visitation services to expectant mothers and their infants in all 82 counties, State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney told reporters recently.

One transmasculine student was then publicly outed on May 17, when D’Iberville High School’s Facebook page posted what appears to be a digitally altered version of his senior portrait while congratulating him as this year’s salutatorian. The post highlights Jonas Hole’s “hard work, dedication, and commitment to excellence.” It also repeatedly uses his former name, also known as a deadname.

On May 17, D’Iberville High School published a Facebook post that used Jonas Hole’s former name and allegedly edited his photograph to appear more feminine.