North Carolina has one of the worst records in the nation for the deaths of children a year or younger. The rate of black babies’ deaths is a big reason.
Two years since the creation of Ballad, the state has yet to release quality, access and financial reports with the public.
In Texas, a mother’s chance of delivering her child by cesarean section and a baby’s chance of experiencing health problems early in life have a lot to do with the place she gives birth.
Research shows that as hospitals fall under fewer ownership umbrellas, prices can rise — and at significantly higher rates than their more modestly sized competitors.
Flossie Horace said she would have been too nervous to care for her grandson without the seemingly simple-looking equipment that allowed her grandson’s nursery to become a sophisticated communication center linked with doctors at the University of Virginia.
“I think the common thread connecting these various actions that are happening largely out of the public eye is limiting supports for certain people — and for immigrants and families of color in particular.”
The first 72 hours after a person is booked into jail is when they’re at the highest risk of death, according to the director of health care for Los Angeles County’s jails.
“You understand you can’t change a culture on a dime," a CEO of a local health system told me. "You have to transform a culture over time."
For the past six months Luanne Rife has been spending time in Virginia’s coalfields learning about why people living along Virginia’s western border are among the least healthy in the nation.
A few days before Christmas in 2015, a 54-year-old immigrant named Jose Manuel Azurdia Hernandez began vomiting in his cell at a detention center in Adelanto, California.