When LA Times reporter Soumya Karlamangla started looking into health care policies affecting immigrants, she had no idea how fast the California policy landscape was about to change. Reflecting on her reporting journey over the past year, Karlamangla offers key tips for staying ahead of the story.
Immigrant and Migrant Health
While Americans tend to think of sex trafficking as a problem that happens overseas, the United States is a major sex trafficking hub for obvious reasons—it's a rich country. An estimated 100,000 children in the U.S. are forced into the sex trade every year.
Last year, more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed the Mexico-U.S. border looking for their parents or better opportunities. But the journey north can entail serious trauma and suffering. What are the long-term mental health issues such children face?
The concept of "toxic stress" has rapidly gained currency in recent years to explain the damaging effects sustained stress and instability can have on young children. Reporter Daisy Rosario is exploring how such stress impacts underserved communities, and how it might be addressed through services.
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.
Reporter Liza Gross was seeking a fresh way to convey the risky environmental conditions facing California farming communities. But after running into a series of data swamps, she turned to experts for help and unexpectedly found her story in the strawberry fields of Oxnard, Calif.
With Biomonitoring California, state health and environmental officials have hit an early milestone in their efforts to discover which industrial chemicals are making their way into the bodies of residents. Research has shown that chemical exposure can seriously disrupt cellular function over time.
California leads the nation when it comes to fostering the health of undocumented immigrants, according to a recent report. Meanwhile, state legislators are considering legislation that would expand coverage to undocumented residents.
A recent report found big differences in how counties are handling California’s estimated 3 million uninsured. Some county safety net programs are serving very few residents, raising questions of whether such counties are adequately adapting to meet the needs of the remaining uninsured.
A new survey based on text messages finds that most Californians with health insurance are satisfied with their coverage and ability to get appointments. But the survey also found the coverage sign-up process poses big hurdles for the majority of uninsured respondents.