Our fellows and grantees produce ambitious, deeply reported stories in partnership with the Center for Health Journalism on a host of timely health, social welfare and equity topics. In addition, the center publishes original reporting and commentary from a host of notable contributors, focused on the intersection of health and journalism. Browse our story archive, or go deeper on a given topic or keyword by using the menus below.
<p>This story is Part 14 of a 15-part series that examines health care needs in Gary, Ind.</p><p class="body.text">When Shantray Hooks, of Gary, lost her job as a restaurant cook in August, she didn’t know how she would pay for doctor visits.</p> <p class="body.text">“I had no health insurance and I couldn’t afford to pay a doctor,” said Hooks, 29, who was diagnosed with diabetes several years ago.</p> <p class="body.text">A doctor referred her to the Community Health Net of Gary, a federally qualified community health center that provides comprehensive primary care health services and charges on a sliding fee scale for services.</p>
<p>This story is Part 13 of a 15-part series that examines health care needs in Gary, Ind.</p><p class="body.text">The health of a city’s residents is inextricably linked to its economic vitality, according to historians, and the business and political leaders of Gary.</p> <p class="body.text">They said the high rates of chronic disease and infant mortality plaguing Gary did not occur in a vacuum, but resulted from 40 years of urban decline, generations of poverty and high unemployment, a lack of access to health care providers, poor lifestyle choices, historic racism and an evolution in American manufacturing that collectively have decimated industrial urban America.</p> <p class="body.text"> </p>
<p>When 11-year-old Shania Lape sees an overweight classmate struggle to keep up, she's filled with sympathy. "They can't run as fast, they can't play the games at school because they're not healthy," said Shania, a fifth-grader at Kenly Elementary in Tampa. Worse yet, not being able to
<p>It's 6 p.m. You're tired and hungry. Food is the No. 1 thing on your mind.Your favorite fast-food restaurants line the roads home – McDonald's, Taco Bell, Domino's. So what's for dinner?</p>
<p>At 364 pounds, Dawn Walton found her breaking point, literally, when she sat down for a meet and greet at her son's kindergarten class. "I felt the chair start to break beneath me," Walton, 35, said. "I knew it would kill him if I broke that chair." She made a bargain with God that day
<p>In Salinas, organic farmers struggle to build businesses in the epicenter of industrial agricuture.</p>
<p>Some lawmakers say they're disappointed that Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin slashed funding to fight substance abuse and to improve end-of-life health care.</p>
<p>Administrators of a hot line that helps West Virginians find treatment for prescription drug abuse are worried the program will be forced to close. The Mountain State has the nation's highest rate of fatal drug overdoses, and most of those deaths involve prescription drugs. But officials with the <a href="http://www.wvrxabuse.org/" target="_blank">West Virginia Prescription Drug Abuse Quitline</a> say state leaders have not shown concern for their funding problems. The hot line launched in September 2008 with the help of $1 million from a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, maker of the painkiller OxyContin. That money will run out next year, said Laura Lander, the program's clinical supervisor.</p><p> </p>
<p>In the past few years, in fact, school lunch reform has become a cause célèbre in many school districts in the Bay Area as concerns mount about children’s health. And the Oakland school district, along with the West Contra Costa County Unified School District, is among the pioneers in injecting healthier food choices into their menus despite a paucity of resources and the challenges of re-educating taste buds.</p>
