State programs and efforts by private organizations have reduced North Carolina’s infant mortality rate to its lowest ever, but the state still has a stubborn problem with high levels of black infant mortality.
Children & Families

Several states are now leading the way to ensure doulas are available to the low-income and underserved women who need them most.

Deaths of African-American babies declined most quickly in states that expanded Medicaid coverage, researchers have found. North Carolina isn’t one of those states.

This story was produced as part of a larger project led by Will James, a participant in the 2019 National Fellowship.
Other stories in this series include:
Introducing: Outsiders, a story about homelessness
Episode 2: What Happened Here

How researchers discovered radon’s toxic trail.

Ignorance is not bliss, choose to take action now.

Asthma is on the rise across the United States, and the problem is particularly grave on reservations.

In California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, an estimated 1 million residents don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. Many water districts are facing huge challenges.

Low wages and a stagnant housing market have pushed Salinas families to the margins. Advocates say the city’s low-income farmworker community bears the heaviest burden.

Gov. Tom Wolf is proposing a $5.1 million funding boost to the state’s oversight of residential juvenile programs, after Inquirer investigations into child abuse at the nation’s oldest reform school and the state’s failure to detect or stop it.