Valley fever infects more than 13,000 people a year in Arizona and California and kills more than 100. Yet they spend less annually on public awareness than one school district's monthly lunch milk budget and a parks and recreation department's yearly janitorial supplies.
Now that President Trump has officially declared the opioid crisis a national emergency, data can inform how to properly tackle the problem, community by community.
In Southern California’s Eastern Coachella Valley, "promotoras" are part of a growing effort to address environmental hazards and survey residents about their other health and housing needs.
As the Salton Sea slowly dries up, an environmental health disaster is brewing. In response, the Desert Sun found new ways to report on the rising health threat to local communities.
If heat is the enemy, Marcela Herrera thought she was ready for battle last summer at her family’s north Los Angeles apartment.
Parents of undocumented children who qualify for California’s Medicaid program have asked to be unenrolled or have their information scrubbed from databases.
U.S. spending on health care alone is large enough to make it the world's fifth largest economy. A more thoughtful, evidence-driven approach to delivering care could curb such staggering statistics.
For reporter Giles Bruce, it wasn't until he jettisoned all his preconceived notions about what was driving Indiana's high infant death rate that he found his real story.
There is a bizarre paradox in the culture of medicine: The system generates more data than ever, but questionable priorities are limiting our ability to effectively use it.
This series was produced as a project for the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism's National Fellowship.
Other stories in the series include:
Fort Wayne, Ind. mom shares tragic story of losing baby
In Indianapolis, a baby dies every 3 1/2 days
