Sara Kassabian
reporter
reporter
Sara joined the San Luis Obispo Tribune in September 2021 after working as a freelance reporter covering health and science news from her home in Oakland. She has contributed articles about COVID-19, the unanticipated consequences of a ban on flavored tobacco in Oakland, and ongoing conflicts between workers and administrations in Alameda Health System (AHS), the county's public hospital system, to community news outlets The Oaklandside and Berkeleyside. She was a 2020 Center for Health Journalism Data Fellow. Sara graduated with her Master's in Global Health Sciences at UCSF where her research focused on preterm birth and global health policy and completed her Bachelor's in Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she was editor-in-chief of the student-run news publication, the CU Independent. Sara has also worked in marketing and communications roles in tech companies and at the Public Library of Science (PLOS).
I set out to learn whether smoke from distant wildfires made childhood asthma worse. Turns out, the problem was closer to home.
Families, health and housing experts, and tenants’ attorneys say improving housing conditions is an uphill battle.
For years, East Oakland residents were told the air they breathe is safe. New data suggests that’s not actually the case.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and a summer of wildfire smoke, children living in East and West Oakland had a hard time breathing.