Insights

<p>Decision makers in Sacramento have 4 months to settle their differences about the state's chemical regulations</p>

<p>Before we get to prescription drugs, Noozhawk is fixing the city of Santa Barbara's budget</p>

<p>Natomas is the largest and, at one time fastest-growing, neighborhood in Sacramento, California. This master-planned community was designed with healthy living in mind: centrally located shopping, smaller neighborhood schools, ample bike and walking trails, and longterm plans for a public transportion network. Then the people moved in - thousands and thousands of them.</p>

<p>Last summer, Paul Balcerak slept on the Internet, and experience that showed him new ways that social media can be useful to journalists. This week at <em>Career GPS</em>, Balcerak answers questions about what he learned. Also find new health media job opportunities.</p>

<p>It takes a certain kind of stubbornness and stick-to-it-ness to develop a successful online news site or a popular blog, especially if you are writing about the civic life of your community — not fashion tidbits or celebrity gossip. We are working with these news innovators to expand their health reporting.</p>

<p>Using New Tools to have New Conversations, Noozhawk hopes to establish a New Framework on our community's most pressing issues.</p>

<p>Are community health experts and policy makers looking in the right places as they analyze America's health woes? A team of interviewers took to the streets in Philadelphia, cameras in hand, to find out what ordinary people think about health in their neighborhoods.</p>

<p>In Lake County, Calif., the top health risk factors are underage drinking, accidental death and smoking. But why those and not others, like obesity or heart disease?</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Wildfires are a yearly occurrence in the Sierra Nevada. Low fuel moisture, high temperatures and human impacts in the wildland-urban interface combine into the ideal conditions for fast-moving fires. At the same time, ozone pollution levels regularly approach unhealthy levels. The area itself does not generate the pollution, but prevailing winds push pollution out of the Bay area and Sacramento corridor against the foothills and peaks of the region. U.S. EPA and the American Lung Association have consistently ranked Nevada County among the dozen most ozone-polluted counties in the nation.</p>