Author

Aneri Pattani

Aneri Pattani

Aneri Pattani is a senior correspondent for KFF Health News. She reports on a broad range of public health topics, focusing on mental health and substance use. Her work spans text and audio stories, and she has been heard on NPR and Science Friday. Her stories have received national recognition, including a 2021 award from the Institute for Nonprofit News for reporting on the flawed oversight of addiction treatment facilities in Pennsylvania. She was also part of a team that received the News Leaders Association’s 2021 Batten Medal for Coverage of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Before joining KFF Health News, Pattani wrote for Spotlight PA, a collaborative newsroom investigating the Pennsylvania state government. She was a 2019 recipient of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.

A rural county’s choice: Use opioid funds to pay off debt, or pay them forward to curb crisis
By: - May 26, 2023

Over the past two years, rural Greene County in northeastern Tennessee has collected more than $2.7 million from regional and national settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors. But instead of helping people harmed by addiction, county officials are finding other ways to spend it. They have put $2.4 million toward paying off the county’s debt […]