When I was selected to be part of The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship program back in June 2010, I had three story ideas I wanted to develop for my fellowship projects. They involved three major health problems affecting the Latino community in the United States: health disparities of Latino women, diabetes and obesity among Mexican immigrants and Latinos affected by HIV/AIDS.
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.
United by a common mission, they work to raise awareness about saving people's lives through a selfless act: the donation of human organs. And, true to their name in Spanish, they have become the ambassadors for organ and tissue donation to the Latino community of Los Angeles.
Eight weeks without food. Five days without water. Three minutes without air. In the world of survival math, breathing is at the top of almost every equation. But here in the L.A. Basin, we inhale much more than life-sustaining oxygen, drawing in a mix of ozone, carbon
This feature story describes how the effort to better inform Latinos about organ donation is being carried out.
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.
Dozens of organ and tissue donors will be honored on a float sponsored by Donate Life America in the 2011 Tournament of Roses Parade.
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.
Health care, education, politics, and pride take a back seat when you have no shelter.
"It's the alcohol hangover," Gerardo Cuapio thought five years ago when he woke up thirsty and with blurred vision. National Health Journalism Fellow Pedro Frisneda tells the story of a man who was on the verge of death without knowing he had Type 2 diabetes. It's a cautionary tale for what happens to many Latin American immigrants who move to the United States, adopting a new lifestyle and diet that can contribute to developing the disease. "The Big Apple is confronting one of the worst diabetes epidemics in the nation and health authorities have declared it an emergency," with Hispanics suffering disproportionately.
