Author

Christina Saint Louis

Christina Saint Louis

Christina Saint Louis, Correspondent, covers rural health care. Based in Minneapolis, she reports primarily on the Upper Midwest. She joined KHN from the Star Tribune’s public safety team, where she reported on policing and crime in Minneapolis. Originally from Stuart, Florida, she was previously an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald after having become the first recipient of its Esserman-Knight Investigative Journalism Fellowship. She received her master’s degree from the Toni Stabile Program in Investigative Journalism at Columbia University.

Alyssa Klugman, a dental therapist, commutes an hour to the Apple Tree Dental center in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where she mainly treats underserved patients. (Christina Saint Louis/KFF Health News)

States turn to dental therapists to fill care gaps, including in underserved rural areas
By: - June 7, 2023

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — All six of Michelle Ehlert’s children have Medicaid plans that should cover their dental care. But for years, she and her husband paid for dental care out-of-pocket — sometimes thousands of dollars a year. They couldn’t find a dentist near their home in Wilkin County, Minnesota, who accepted Medicaid. When a […]

Beverly Swenson (right) invited her neighbor Mary Swanson to the fall-prevention program after Swanson shared that she was looking for a fitness class because she was “getting kind of wobbly.” (Christina Saint Louis/KHN)

Rural seniors benefit from pandemic-driven remote fitness boom
By: - January 17, 2023

MALMO, Minn. — Eight women, all 73 or older, paced the fellowship hall at Malmo Evangelical Free Church to a rendition of Daniel O’Donnell’s “Rivers of Babylon” as they warmed up for an hourlong fitness class. The women, who live near or on the eastern shore of Mille Lacs Lake, had a variety of reasons […]

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