2018 National Fellows

Here are the 2018 National Fellows, along with summaries of their proposed projects:

 

Jonetta Rose Baras of Capital Community News reported on the successes and failures of trauma-informed education in three Washington, D.C. communities where there is documented evidence of high poverty, extensive violence and low academic achievement.

 

Amanda Curcio of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette will report on how incarceration affects Arkansas children and youth and disparities between counties in supports offered to help them re-enter society.

 

Lee Hawkins of HarperCollins Publishers and the Wall St. Journal will explore how adverse childhood experiences, including corporal punishment, homicide, gun violence and the death of parents and relatives, have disproportionately affected black families in America.

 

Jayne O’Donnell and E. Mabinty Quarshie of USA Today investigated the impact of domestic violence on children, including increased risk for physical and mental health problems, and courts' willingness to order visitation with their parental perpetrators despite the history of violence against their spouses and sometimes the children as well.

 

Lee Romney of KALW public radio in San Francisco looked into how the San Francisco schools are helping students cope with adversity.

 

Neena Satija of the Texas Tribune and Reveal will investigated Texas’ failure to provide consistent and quality legal advocates for vulnerable kids and what it means for the kids.

James Causey of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explored the roles that mass incarceration and untreated trauma play in the collective psyche of African Americans in Milwaukee.

Paul Demko of Politico took an in-depth look at three states that are likely to pursue divergent paths under the new ACA landscape.

Katy Burnell Evans of the Richmond Times Dispatch looked at the legacy of the deinstitutionalization of mental patients, which left thousands of mentally ill Virginians in jail, in expensive hospital beds or on the streets because of the states' failure to provide community-based treatment and supportive housing.

 

Michael Hill of NJTV News (public TV) and WGBO FM (public radio) explored the role that unaddressed trauma played in the lives of former prisoners.

 

Amy Linn of New Mexico Searchlight will investigate how crumbling infrastructure adversely affects the health of residents of the Navajo reservation.

 

Luann Rife of the Roanoke Times reported on the impact of poor access to health care in Virginia's coal counties, whose residents are among the poorest and least healthy in the U.S., and what a planned merger of two health systems and a mandate from two states to focus on prevention might mean.

 

Mc Nelly Torres of Centro de Periodismo Investigativo de Puerto Rico (and Miami Herald, Latino USA and the Investigative News Network) will investigate the ability of Puerto Rico's struggling community health clinic network to serve the health needs of Puerto Ricans following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria.

 

Bailey Loosemore of the Louisville Courier Journal identified Louisville’s hot spots for food insecurity and highlight promising solutions.

 

Binghui Huang of the Allentown Morning Call reported on how isolation, poverty, struggling hospitals and weak health infrastructure contribute to poor physical and mental health in rural Pennsylvania.

 

Erika Carrillo and Maria Sosa of Univision Miami investigated how women in South Florida, mostly Latino, are being harmed by plastic surgery performed by unqualified doctors who don't carry malpractice insurance.

 

Dana Ferguson of the Argus Leader investigated the systemic failure of the Indian Health Service in the Great Plains, where patients, families and inspectors continue to report cases of botched or negligent care.

 

Linda Jacobson of Education Dive explored what difference California’s tobacco tax, dedicated to funding programs benefitting children 5 and under, has made 20 years after enactment and what direction it will take under a new governor.

 

Marina Riker of the Victoria (TX) Advocate investigated how last year’s hurricane disproportionately hurt the region's low-income residents, who were already struggling in a region with severe income inequality.

 

Ke (April) Xu of Sing Tao Daily will look into the health needs of undocumented Chinese immigrants in New York City and the ability of local organizations to meet them.