Race and Equity

Differences between the two sides of Coachella Valley in California are stark, but one has a particularly harsh health impact: access to clean water. While westsiders have pools, golf courses and sprawling lawns, parts of the east have up to ten times the safe levels of arsenic in the water.

Birth attendants can positively affect outcomes for mothers and infants. But access to them is often out of reach for low-income and minority women, who have the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality.

Research shows that working in retirement presents both financial and health advantages. What keeps some people from reaping these benefits and can companies do more to retain older workers?

Reporters Kameel Stanley and Ed Williams discuss ethics in journalism, with a focus on communities in crisis. They emphasize how taking the time to understand a community can lead to more compelling reporting.

A group of reporters visits L.A.’s Homeboy Industries and learns what second chances mean for young survivors of gang life.

"To what extent do you give a fair voice to the uninformed opinion?" one reporter asked. “But who am I to say that they don’t have a voice? That’s always been a bit of a challenge to me.”

“A lot of people think that these were poor African Americans moving out, but they were actually middle-class people, because the poor people had nowhere to go," one Georgetown researchers says of the city's rising number of displaced residents.

While many policymakers still think of concentrated poverty as an issue afflicting the nation’s big urban centers, smaller cities are increasingly home to those Americans with the greatest needs and the least resources. Take East St. Louis, for example.

Many immigrants are now afraid to leave their homes for work or school for fear of being arrested and deported. This climate of fear has made children in these familes newly vulnerable to what psychologists call "toxic stress."

Kentucky’s juvenile justice system has long been one of the most prolific in locking up youth on minor offenses and a recent reform has lessened — but not eliminated — the problem.