No.

An email response from the Office of Vital Records at the Minnesota Health Systems Bureau confirms that birth certificates are the jurisdiction of the state where an individual was born. Because of this, Minnesota’s Office of Vital Records can only work to help people amend birth certificates if they were born in Minnesota. Other states have varying requirements for amending a birth certificate, along with filing fees.

If someone was born in Minnesota and wanted to change the gender on their birth certificate, they must have a letter from a physician indicating that they are receiving care associated with gender transition, or a court order to change gender on the document. Some other states, including neighboring Wisconsin, only allow a gender marker change to someone’s birth certificate if they have undergone gender-affirming surgery. Kansas and Tennessee do not currently allow gender to be changed on birth certificates.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

MinnPost partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs.

Sources

• Minnesota Office of Vital Records: Email correspondence
• TotalLegal.com: How Do I Make Changes to or Amend My Birth Certificate?
• Kansas Department of Health and Environment: Can I amend my birth certificate to align with my gender identity?
• Advocates for Trans Equality: ID Documents Center
• Advocates for Trans Equality: Tennessee Identity Documents
• Minnesota Department of Health: Change a Birth Record
• Minnesota Department of Health: How Do I Make Changes to or Amend My Birth Certificate?

The post Is it possible to change the gender on your birth certificate in Minnesota if you were born outside the state? appeared first on MinnPost.

One in five Minnesota households face food insecurity.

Twenty-six percent of Minnesota households with one or more children under 18 were also food insecure. For households with at least one school-age child from 5 to 17 years old, the percentage of food insecure households jumped to 28%. The results of Second Harvest Heartland’s statewide hunger survey, conducted with help from Wilder Research, were evocative. 

Households of color – defined in the methodology as households where at least one member is  Black, Indigenous or from another community of color – were also disproportionately affected by food insecurity. Karen Spitzfaden, director of consumer insights and digital strategy at Second Harvest Heartland, noted that 40% of Minnesota households of color were food insecure compared to 20% of households overall. Fifty-two percent of Minnesota households with at least one Black member, along with 52% of American Indian and Alaska Native Indigenous households in the state, were also food insecure. 

Food insecurity is where households were unable to get enough food with or without help from the emergency food system. 

Even Minnesotans who were food secure based on survey data have concerns about affordability. Allison O’Toole, chief executive officer of Second Harvest Heartland, said 30% of all Minnesotans are “worried they won’t be able to afford food in the next year.” For households of color in Minnesota, that number is 47%.

“People are living paycheck to paycheck. Grocery prices are about 30% higher than they were in 2019. The same goes for energy prices; the cost of rent (and the cost of) childcare. When you put all those (together), it’s a confluence of events,” added O’Toole. 

Though she noted that federal and philanthropic assistance helped her organization provide Minnesotans with food during the height of the pandemic, food insecurity went back up after those supports sunsetted. By the end of 2023 the Food Group, which tracks visits to food shelves in Minnesota, had recorded around 7.5 million visits according to O’Toole. 

“I’ve heard now that it is 9 million or more (visits in) 2024,” said O’Toole. “What that tells me is the status quo isn’t working.”

In response to the survey, Second Harvest Heartland gathered 300-400 partner organizations at its first Make Hunger History summit on Jan. 31 – an opportunity to promote collaborative solutions. Though Second Harvest Heartland’s mission to get 90% of Minnesota households to food security by 2030 was announced last year, more recent uncertainty around federal funding was a topic of discussion. 

In the midst of federal uncertainty, Gov. Tim Walz emphasized the state’s resilience and willingness to tackle the problem of hunger, noting that Minnesota’s “superpower” is how Minnesotans act collaboratively, building ecosystems of support between federal and state governments, local nonprofits and faith-based organizations. 

“I’ve been using a phrase I heard somewhere, ‘Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare,’” said Walz. “I think we possess both of those in Minnesota. We are enthusiastic, but we will not back off.”

Speakers on a panel at the event on the topic of food as medicine also voiced concerns around federal funding. Lisa Lane, chief external affairs officer of Open Arms of Minnesota, which sends nutritionist tailored meals to critically and chronically ill people, said her organization receives federal funding through the Ryan White CARE Act and the Older Americans Act. As this funding may be in jeopardy, Open Arms is looking to philanthropy to help fill in the gap. 

Abby Gold and Terese Hill work for the University of Minnesota and Fairview Health Services, respectively and receive federal funding from the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program. One part of this funding allows the organizations to participate in produce programs, where health systems work with farmers to provide freshly grown produce to patients. This service isn’t just about providing food to people who are ill, but about preventing illness. 

“Yes, we want funding for food for people (who) need it,” said Hill. “But also there’s a whole amount of work around prevention and how we can keep people well, rather than treating the illness.” 

“One of the reasons we’re talking about food as medicine is because we have to frame it (that way) so that we get those resources from a medical system that sucks up so much of the oxygen,” added Dr. Nathan Chomilo, medical director of Minnesota’s Medicaid and MinnesotaCare programs. “This is a decision we’ve made as a country. It’s a decision that’s rooted in our health care system being founded in capitalism. There is no real reason that we shouldn’t have created a system where everyone doesn’t need to worry about food.”

Deanna Pistono

Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at dpistono@minnpost.com.

The post Nearly 1 million Minnesotans could be going hungry appeared first on MinnPost.

No.

The two “sacred settlements” currently operating in Minnesota — Sacred Settlement Mosaic in St. Paul and Sacred Settlement: Prince of Peace in Roseville — do not require that residents believe in a particular religion or attend religious services to live in the community. 

These settlements of tiny houses, built on church property, are set up to provide housing and support to people who are unhoused. Residents live alongside  “intentional neighbors,” who have moved into the settlements to provide community. The idea of sacred settlements is the brainchild of Settled, a Minnesota nonprofit. 

According to Settled, it is up to individual churches to define residency requirements for their tiny houses. Currently, however, all intentional neighbors in these settlements are people of faith. 

Another sacred settlement, associated with the Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, is set to open in 2026, and it’s not yet known what its requirements will be.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

MinnPost partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs.

Sources

• Settled email correspondence: Questions about Sacred Settlements
• Settled: FAQ
• Settled: Family of Settlements
• Settled: Full Community
• Church of the Open Door: Sacred Settlement Open Door

The post Do ‘sacred settlement’ tiny houses in Minnesota have a religious requirement for residents? appeared first on MinnPost.

While European life and identity is often associated with whiteness, the Black Europe Film Festival is set to share a different set of experiences. 

Screenings of various films from Thursday to Sunday in the Twin Cities will offer Minnesota audiences windows into Black European life – from historical presence to modern reality. Prior to the festival’s opening, I spoke with four directors about their films and what audiences can expect to see. 

An untold history 

While Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, founding director of the film festival, is an Italian filmmaker, his piece “We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe” focuses on an entire continent. The documentary examines the lives of historical Africans and people of African descent living or traveling through Renaissance Europe, including nobility, artists, a diplomat and a saint. This festival marks the film’s U.S. premier; its European debut having taken place during the 2024 Venice Biennale. 

During the documentary, historical reenactments put actors in the roles of various Black figures during the Renaissance depicted in art, such as Duke Lorenzo de Medici and Juan de Pareja. Ninety percent of the historical reenactment cast, Kuwornu estimates, are migrants who attend a theater workshop in Bologna.

Related: Black Europe Film Festival debuts in Minneapolis

As migration from West Africa to Sicily involves traversing a desert and potentially working “as (a) slave for two (or) three months to repay the last mile of travel from Libya to Sicily,” the acting workshops provide a way for participants to familiarize themselves with the Italian language, along with an avenue to heal from their journeys to Italy, said Kuwornu.

“For me, (this film) is a way to challenge those who (claim) European roots in terms of whiteness (and) not in terms of continent,” said Kuwornu, whose father is from Ghana and whose mother is Italian. “I want to challenge (that and) say, ‘Yeah, you have European roots, but there are a lot of people who are not white that have the same.” 

A healing journey 

While Daniela Yohannes is quick to say she’s not a filmmaker, Julien Beramis, her partner and co-director, cheerfully contradicts her each time – “She is.”

Their short film, “Atopias: The Homeless Wanderer” is the second “Atopias” film the couple have made together. Yohannes, a painter whose series of paintings on diaspora and migration, “I Surrender My Body to Water and Fire” lent its colors to the film, said making the film was healing. Through the film, Yohannes was able to explore diasporic “tensions that (she felt) internally”, while also creating a space to “exist without boundaries (or) limitations.” 

Filmed on the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the work features Yohannes wandering through natural landscapes. She is covered in a mixture of cane sugar molasses and charcoal. This mixture – a pitch-black substance – was said to have been used by enslaved people as camouflage during escapes from slavery in the Caribbean. Yohannes said while a historian told Yohannes there was no record of this occurring, the way the tale has persisted in Caribbean culture indicates that the story is true “within the people.” 

“The molasses felt like a shield,” said Yohannes, “Even though there’s hardship, by the end of filming, I felt I could just live out here (in nature) forever.” 

A quiet rebellion

“Girl,” writer and director Adura Onashile said the film is “quietly subversive” in its focus.

“How far are we prepared to watch a Black woman do nothing (and) just be?,” said Onashile, who noted that there is a tendency to have Black characters’ on-screen and on-stage existences “justified by (their) trauma,” as though “suffering entitles them to be on screen.”

“Although there is trauma in this film, I started calling it halfway through the process of writing it a kind of meditation on (the) relationship (between mother and daughter),” said Onashile. “What I wanted to really hone in on was a kind of intimacy that is a world all of itself. It might be affected by trauma but isn’t necessarily solely defined by it.” 

Set in Glasgow and focusing on the lives of single mother, Grace, and her daughter, Ama, the film is about the inevitable “growing up and growing apart” of a child from her mother. Onashile, who is based in Glasgow, is excited to be part of the film festival, noting that the United Kingdom does not have a festival with a particular focus on Black European filmmakers. 

“Obviously, it goes without saying that Black European film is not a monolith,” added Onashile.

“What’s wonderful is that although we’ve all come together under the banner of this film festival, it’s so diverse. It’s important to remember that our stories are as diverse and as interesting and as dynamic as any other peoples’ making film.”

A program of screenings and director Q&As can be found here for the Black Europe Film Festival.

Deanna Pistono

Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at dpistono@minnpost.com.

The post Writers and directors show the diversity and complexity of Black Europeans through the medium of film appeared first on MinnPost.

Yes.

Dave Arneson (1947-2009) was born in Hennepin County and attended the University of Minnesota. In 1969, Arneson met E. Gary Gygax at a tabletop games convention, at which Gygax shared the rules of “Chainmail” – a medieval war game he developed – with Arneson. Arneson took the rules back to the Twin Cities and focused on emphasizing characters and improvisation along with combat. 

The first edition of D&D, written by Gygax and Arneson, was published in 1974 by Gygax’s company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). In this edition, there were only three different classes — magic-user, fighting-men and cleric — and only four playable races — human, elf, dwarf, and halfling. 

Arneson sued TSR in 1979 after the release of “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” for failing to pay him royalties and representing Gygax as the sole author. The suit was settled out of court and Arneson was paid royalties and credited as co-creator.

Read more

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

MinnPost partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs.

Sources

• MNopedia: Arneson, David Lance
• The Internet Archive: Original Dungeons & Dragons – White Box by Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson
• The Guardian: David Arneson

The post Was one of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons a Minnesotan? appeared first on MinnPost.

No.

Minnesota law allows for children to be exempt from vaccination based either on medical reasons or the beliefs of their parents and/or guardians — which are not limited to religious beliefs. A notarized statement must be submitted for all exemptions, with non-medical exemption statements sent to the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health.

In Minnesota, multiple vaccinations are required for children to enter childcare or attend school depending on their age, unless an exemption is present. Some childcare centers, per Minnesota law, are allowed to not enroll children over 2 months old who do not have required vaccinations for their age. 

One vaccination that children may receive or be exempt from is for pertussis, or whooping cough. In 2024, Minnesota’s recorded pertussis cases increased from 61 confirmed and probable cases in 2023 to 3,217. Most of these cases were found in children aged 5-17.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

MinnPost partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs.

Sources

• Minnesota Legislature: 121A.15 HEALTH STANDARDS; IMMUNIZATIONS; SCHOOL CHILDREN.
• Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Vaccine Exemptions
• Minnesota Department of Health: Are Your Kids Ready? Child Care and Early Childhood Programs Immunization Law
• Minnesota Department of Health: Are Your Kids Ready? Minnesota K-12 Immunization Law
• Minnesota Department of Health: Pertussis Diseases Statistics, 2023
• Minnesota Department of Health: Pertussis Diseases Statistics, 2024
• Minnesota Department of Health: Distribution of Probable/Confirmed Pertussis Cases By Age Group Minnesota 2024 (updated through 12/31/2024)

The post Are religious exemptions the only way children can avoid getting vaccinated in Minnesota? appeared first on MinnPost.

Yes.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, bird flu viruses (including H5N1) can be transmitted to humans and animals through contact with infected birds, which shed the virus in their saliva, waste and mucus. Humans and animals can come into contact with the virus by interacting with infected birds and contaminated surfaces, breathing in air containing the virus and eating undercooked birds and eggs. Animals that are infected with the virus can also spread the virus to humans via bodily fluids and meat, including raw milk and beef.

While the CDC notes that human-to-human transmission of bird flu viruses is rare, it has happened in previous outbreaks in other countries. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the H5N1 bird flu virus was found in dairy cattle in Minnesota in June 2024. No human cases or human-to-human transmissions have yet been reported within the state.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

MinnPost partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs.

Sources

• Minnesota Department of Health: Current Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Outbreak
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Prevention and Antiviral Treatment of Avian Influenza A Viruses in People
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: What Causes Bird Flu Virus Infections in Humans
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Past Examples of Probable Limited, Non-Sustained, Person-to-Person Spread of Avian Influenza A Viruses

The post Can bird flu be transmitted to humans through contact with infected birds? appeared first on MinnPost.

Yes.

Minnesota allows for the sale of raw milk — milk that has not gone through pasteurization — with caveats. Per Minnesota Statute 32D.20, unpasteurized milk must be purchased from the farm of origin for personal use. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture also states that farmers are not allowed to bottle raw milk, so customers must bring their own containers for pickup. A U.S. directory from The Campaign for Real Milk, affiliated with the Weston A. Price Foundation, lists 75 locations in Minnesota that sell raw milk. 

On a related note, the Department of Agriculture announced Jan. 8 that 15 more states, including Minnesota, had enrolled in the National Milk Testing Strategy to test raw milk samples for H5N1, or avian flu. Reporting from MPR, however, indicates that only milk that will later be pasteurized will be tested when tests begin. Milk sold raw will not be tested for the virus.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

MinnPost partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs.

Sources

• Minnesota State Statute: 2024 Minnesota Statutes
• American Dairy Association North East: What is Pasteurization and Why is it Important?
• Minnesota Department of Agriculture: What is Raw Milk?
• U.S. Department of Agriculture: U.S. Department of Agriculture Announces 15 Additional States Onboard With National Milk Testing Strategy for H5N1, Shares Update on Vaccination Efforts
• MPR: Milk from Minnesota dairy farms to undergo mandatory testing for bird flu
• The Campaign for Real Milk Raw: Milk Finder

The post Can you buy raw milk in Minnesota legally? appeared first on MinnPost.

“I am a refugee and I came to this country when I was five,” said Ka Vang, Meet Minneapolis’ vice president of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Access.“We came to the Chicagoland area, had no clothes, came in the winter, no shoes, nothing that would prepare us for the harsh Midwestern winters.” 

Vang and her family, who arrived in 1980 from Laos, benefited from various clothing closets and pantries where they were able to find items that would keep them warm in a new country. Later, in November 2022, Vang connected with Paula Wilhelm at Hennepin Healthcare and began the annual Meet Minneapolis Warm Winter Clothing Drive – where Meet Minneapolis’ partner businesses work to donate warm clothing to Hennepin Healthcare. 

Many of those who need winter clothing for their hospital discharge are people facing housing insecurity, said Geoffrey Roe, the nursing manager of Hennepin Healthcare’s emergency department. The department is the busiest in the state and cared for more than 100,000 patients in 2024, of which about a third self-reported housing insecurity according to Roe. 

Other patient populations who may need clothing after discharge include people who have been in accidents that lead to their clothes being cut off their bodies in order to treat them. As a Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center – the highest designation for trauma services – Hennepin Healthcare also receives patients transferred from nearby states who are in need of specialized and immediate care.

“It has been a frigid couple of weeks, and so we know now more than ever the importance of making sure people are clothed appropriately,” said Jennifer DeCubellis, CEO of Hennepin Healthcare. “We’re seeing frostbite. We’re seeing hypothermia, as the state’s largest safety net hospital. We see an incredible amount of trauma come in.”

The cold can also negatively affect those with pre-existing health conditions. According to the American Heart Association, because the cold causes blood vessels to constrict and raises blood pressure, people who are at risk of heart disease have a higher risk of stroke or heart attacks in cold weather. People with respiratory diseases like asthma may also be affected by cold air constricting airways leading to “wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, or a burning feeling in the chest.” 

Sending patients out in appropriate clothing is not just a matter of preserving their health, but also their dignity. 

“Realistically, I feel like half of our job is providing comfort and dignity and half of it is providing (patients) safety from the weather,” said Roe, who noted that the emergency department has a clothing closet of its own, but shares that closet with other departments, such as inpatient units and pediatric units, to ensure that anyone who arrives at Hennepin Healthcare and says they need clothing for outside weather is able to receive something appropriate for the weather and for their own dignity (such as headcoverings for religious reasons and clothing items for trans and nonbinary people), along with assistance from Hennepin Healthcare’s social work team or referrals to outside services as needed. 

When temperatures feel like they are below 30 degrees (wind chill, etc.), the emergency department makes sure patients have somewhere to go or stay indoors. 

“We work to try to make sure those patients are somewhere in a shelter or something before 11 p.m.,” said Roe. “If we can’t find some place for them, we try to hold on to them until at least 4 a.m.” 

“Yesterday, as donations were coming in for today’s event … our team members were in the emergency clothing room looking for items for a patient,” said DeCubellis. “That patient was discharging in 15 minutes and did not have appropriate clothing to get out of here. And one of our team members in the room knew this event was happening today, said, ‘Give me that 15 minutes. I’m gonna run across campus. I’m gonna make sure that they leave safely and they leave with respect and dignity.’”

Over the course of their first two years, the network of hospitality businesses partnering with Meet Minneapolis were able to collect more than $15,000 in new winter clothing and associated items, such as boots and hats, for children and adults. At a press event on Thursday, however, it was announced that more than $22,000 in donations had been received for this particular drive, which ran from Nov. 18 2024 to Jan. 6. Vang later added that with clothes still coming in that the drive would likely result in more than $23,000 worth of donations. 

Some of Meet Minneapolis’ partnered businesses, according to Vang, were very creative in their approach to soliciting donations. 

“The Marquette (Hotel) and Windows at Marquette, what they did was they hosted some watch parties in their lounge,” said Vang. “What they asked people to do was just to give a dollar tip or a few dollars tip to the Warm Winter Clothes Drive in a little jar. And they collected over $800.”

“If anybody hears about this (event) I want them to know that Minneapolis cares,” said Vang. “For so long, I think people have told other narratives about what Minneapolis is and what Minneapolis isn’t. I wanted to tell a different narrative.”

Deanna Pistono

Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at dpistono@minnpost.com.

The post Hennepin Healthcare offers clothing for unhoused patients appeared first on MinnPost.

As the year draws to an end, a lot of us are likely reviewing it – what went well for us, what didn’t, what we accomplished and what we wish we’d accomplished. For me, part of looking back is looking at the topics I was able to cover . In no particular order, here’s some health stories I’m looking back at as we leave 2024: 

A ride-along in ‘Thrivey,’ part of Twin Cities harm reduction efforts serving those experiencing homelessness

There are times when you have to get details secondhand from people over the phone or through virtual interviews, but real shoe-leather reporting is always going to hold value. So when the Aliveness Project invited me onto Thrivey to see their harm reduction work in action, I jumped at the chance. Though I left some details of those visiting the van out of the story for their privacy, the stories I was able to gather from staff and volunteers had insights both from working in harm reduction and from lived experience.

Unraveling election misinformation on gender-affirming care, kids and Minnesota’s law

Part of being a journalist today and in the past is combatting misinformation and disinformation – a lot of which was being spread in the case of gender-affirming health care. For this article I identified myths about gender-affirming care and interviewed medical professionals and advocates to get at the truth of how this care actually works.

How therapists are helping marginalized communities cope when identity politics flood the airwaves

It’s become almost trite now to say that “mental health matters”, but at its core, it’s still a message I agree with. It was certainly the case for myself and many others during the tension of this election cycle – especially when they were affected by rhetoric about their identities coming from the Trump campaign.

Rainbow Health was as much life care as it was health care for LGBTQ+ community

The sudden closure of Rainbow Health in July left their clients without access to health care and essential services, and was reported on by multiple outlets. My own contribution linked above took a thorough look at the closure’s impact and what was going to happen next for providers and patients.

North Minneapolis nonprofit Appetite for Change publishes cookbook

Food insecurity and nutrition were a central issue this year in my health coverage – from the article above on Appetite for Change’s cookbook to how food insecurity may lead to eating disorders and how data analysis can provide new insights for food shelves. Not surprising, given that we all have to eat to live.

The Black church can play a role in improving health outcomes

Throughout the year, I attended a couple different health events, but one of the most memorable in many ways was the Balm in Gilead’s Roadmap Tour stop at the Capri Theatre in June. The variety of presentations on various aspects of health, along with the emphasis on self-advocacy and reaching out to community members were, in this reporter’s opinion, very impactful.

Twin Cities residents push for environmental justice; combatting the effects of environmental racism

This is one of my earliest articles at MinnPost, but was something I was drawn to cover because (as I’ll tell anyone) health is impacted by everything around us, including where we live. As I spoke with people and did my research – on the HERC, Smith Foundry, the destruction of Rondo and the arsenic in Hiawatha Avenue – that idea only solidified. I also was able to speak with students at Macalester College about this particular article and share my insights as a health reporter – a conversation that I hope was valuable to them.

It’s not just puppy love: The important bond between humans and pets

Last for now, but not least, I had the opportunity to write about pets and their impact on our health and wellbeing – something suggested by my editor Harry Colbert Jr., who, like myself, shares his home with an animal (though I will say his dog, Cruz and my cat, Apollo have somewhat significant differences!). 

There are so many other stories I’ve done that I’m proud of, but I thought I’d keep it to health right now, since that’s my primary beat. Throughout my work at MinnPost this year, the one thing I’ve always kept in mind is to not take for granted the trust people have placed in me. While it’s not really for me to say if I’ve been successful there, it’s something I’m going to keep telling myself as I move into 2025. I’ll see you there, and happy holidays!

Deanna Pistono

Deanna Pistono is MinnPost’s Race & Health Equity fellow. Follow her on Twitter @deannapistono or email her at dpistono@minnpost.com.

The post Digging deeper to cover the Twin Cities health stories that mattered in 2024 appeared first on MinnPost.