The construction of a dam near an Indian reservation on the Missouri River forced residents to less fertile land and put an end to their farming habits. Since then, American Indians have experienced a lack of nutrition, leading to diabetes, hypertension and obesity.
Whooping cough is still a major concern for California kids, tainted tomatoes are recalled, and more from our Daily Briefing.
Some good news (finally!) about whooping cough, and a hospital mystery: why was a California hospital named as one of the nation's best when it's being investigated for patient safety problems?
The Future of Music Coalition conducted a survey in 2010 showing that 33 percent of musicians responding had no health insurance. It's a problem that resonates with freelance journalists or those who do not receive health benefits from their employers. Broader concerns about health access in the
During my reporting on organ donation for my fellowship project, one source’s quote stood out. “I’m a living example that organ donation works,” Vicky Mai Nguyen told me. She’s a 26-year-old woman who’s in good health and thriving. Had it not been for a liver transplant, she likely would never have made it to 2.
When we think about how to get eyeballs on our reporting these days, we talk a lot about Twitter and Facebook and online branding. Tracy Weber, senior reporter at ProPublica, took California Health Journalism Fellows back to the basics of getting and keeping readers: great writing.
As 2011 unfolds, I’d like to share some of my favorite health journalism – much but not all of it policy-related – from 2010. This is definitely not a best-of list, but rather journalism that can inspire and teach us.
Here are my first five picks, in no particular order of importance. I’ll share the next five next week.
Happy New Year!
Soaring rates for obesity, diabetes and hypertension are fueling a serious gap between the need for kidney transplants and the availability of those organs, impacting Latinos and other Los Angeles patients who are in renal failure.
This piece focused on Los Angeles’ ethnic communities: How they are key to increasing organ donations and, on the other side, how they benefit from these life-saving procedures. I wanted to establish a human connection right away — to show how a donated organ can help an individual who is very ill, almost to the point of dying. Through my reporting, I’ve also learned that donation helps the donor family by providing consolation for the loss. As a number of donor families have told me: “My loved one lives on, helping another person to stay alive.” With the help of OneLegacy, the organ donation agency for the L.A. area, I made contact with a donor’s parents and the recipient of a donated kidney that brought him back to health. That gave me my lead. Then, I described how OneLegacy is working to raise awareness about organ donation in the area’s three primary ethnic communities: Latino, Asian and African American. Together, these groups make up more than 60% of the population served by OneLegacy in Southern California. With the help of OPTN media specialists, I determined that these groups also make up about the same proportion of organ donors and organ recipients. The piece was posted on LA Beez, an online collaboration of ethnic media outlets. It was a pleasure to work with editor Jerry Sullivan and website specialist Kevin Chan.
Last week, I started listing Antidote’s 10 favorite stories of the past year, in no particular order. Here is the rest of the list.
“Dialysis: High Costs and Hidden Perils of a Treatment Guaranteed to All,” Robin Fields, ProPublica, November 2010
