Environmental Health

A new study on tuberculosis in wake of the devastating 2010 Haitian earthquake offers a number of health policy lessons that hold true far beyond the tiny island nation. The country's robust approach to HIV testing is one of them.

While the media focuses on the negotiations surrounding Greece's deepening debt crisis, another angle of the story has received less attention: A country on the financial brink is on the verge of a health crisis, too, with medicine shortages a real possibility.

Twenty-one journalists from around the nation will receive reporting grants from the new Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being, the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and the National Health Journalism Fellowship.

Less than a decade ago, Native Hawaiians represented about a third of the children in Hawaii’s foster care system. Today, they comprise half the state’s foster population of 2,200. Why is that? And what initiatives show the most promise in helping reduce the disparity? A new series will investigate.

Every day as I drive to my office at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I pass homes with yard signs stating “Black Lives Matter and “I heart Ferguson,” but also, “We must stop killing each other,” a nod to the constant human stress, trauma and, ultimately, shortened life expectancy in these communities.

The East End community in Lexington, Kentucky has long had its struggles. Nearly two decades ago, officials unveiled major new plans to revamp a neighborhood suffering from high crime, housing shortages, poor schools and other urban ills. But the plan didn't go as expected. What happened?

In Texas, alarmingly high rates of babies have been born with syphilis. It's since become clear that one of the causes is lack of sufficient prenatal care among some communities. The women receiving the least amount of proper medical care are often the ones who need it the most.

An epidemic of neglected tropical diseases is bubbling just beneath the surface in the United States, trapping the impoverished in a cycle of sickness and poverty. In Texas, infection with the cysticercosis tapeworm is now a major cause of epilepsy among poor residents.

In Florida, only one in three children receive adequate preventive care, and the state ranks 50th out of 51 states and D.C. in per-child spending. Reporter Maggie Clark will look into what happens when the nation's third-largest state starts "nickel-and-diming preventive care for children."

When it comes to health outcomes, Johnson and Wyandotte counties in the Kansas City metro area might as well be in different countries. Radio reporter Alex Smith sets out to explore what's behind the health disparities, and what might work best to reduce them. Community engagement will be key.