Community & Public Health

At her home studio in Westwood, Kansas, instructor Marilyn Pace leads a class of 5-to-8-year olds through yoga positions. But just six blocks from the yoga studio — where Wyandotte County begins — the picture of health is quite different.

Dr. Seema Yasmin’s reported this story as a National Health Journalism Fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center for Health Journalism.

Advocates have been urging the FDA to allow corn masa to be fortified with folic acid for years, with the goal of curbing rare birth defects among Hispanic children. The FDA hasn't budged so far, but that could change as the agency reviews new research.

Like many streets in Houston’s Greater Fifth Ward, Worms Street offers the perfect environment for the spread of tropical diseases. Many of these infections aren’t new, but rising temperatures and poverty create a perfect storm for their spread.

Sexually exploited minors are often arrested on prostitution charges and put behind bars. But in one LAPD unit, officers are trained to recognize exploited teens and put them in touch with social services, instead of juvenile court.

It's tempting to assume that another article on smoking's harms would be a non-story. But while smoking rates among African Americans are lower than national levels, this ethnic group continues to suffer disproportionately from chronic, preventable diseases caused by smoking.

For her three-part series on the health effects of rising violent crime in Merced County, reporter Ana Ibarra interviewed victims and family members struggling with pain and raw emotion. Here she shares a few of the reporting lessons she learned along the way.

In roughly two-thirds of Arkansas counties last year, children went to youth lockups for skipping school, disobeying their parents or running away from home. In the other 27 counties, children who did the same things remained free.

Every year, thousands of kids appear before Arkansas judges, having broke laws that apply only to children. The courts are expected to treat them differently from children who commit adult crimes. Yet hundreds of these kids end up in the same lockups as those who've raped, robbed and murdered.

Victims of childhood sexual abuse are far more likely to become obese adults. New research shows that early trauma is so damaging that it can disrupt a person’s entire psychology and metabolism.