This is part one in a series from KRCB, in collaboration with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism 2022 California Fellowship, looking into the harsh wildfire conditions agricultural workers in Sonoma County face.
Chronic Disease
From providing accurate COVID-19 information to advocating for testing and vaccination with cultural sensitivity, these community healthcare workers were key to serving marginalized Hispanic populations.
Although the upgrades at Cottage Gardens are ongoing, emergency department visits have dropped significantly.
Long-term exposure to the particulate matter released by open agricultural burning has been associated with a suite of health problems, and the communities most affected are majority-Latino.
Nearly two decades of postponing a ban on burning have left clean air advocates dubious that local air regulators will follow through.
Clean air advocates hope the EPA will step in to strengthen regulations of polluting industries.
A California senator set out to ban agricultural burning in the San Joaquin Valley nearly 20 years ago. What happened?
Even with $220 million in financial incentives, growers are wondering how they’ll afford whole orchard recycling in the long term – especially small farmers, who have fewer resources to begin with.
In their new plan to ban agricultural burning, air regulators are using outreach and financial incentives to convince growers to adopt an alternative known as whole orchard recycling.
One in five Indigenous Chamorros in the Northern Mariana Islands has diabetes, and the demand for dialysis is growing. But the only dialysis centers are on the capital island of Saipan.