It started as a series of reports on the dangers Latino children face when they're not placed in car seats. It bloomed into a full-scale public awareness campaign. Here’s how one dogged reporter made it happen.
Community & Public Health
Zika virus has been generating a lot of news lately. But the reports haven't always been accurate. Dr. Seema Yasmin offers a quick primer and dispels a couple of myths for reporters filing stories on the epidemic as it spreads through the Americas.
In California's Sonoma County, an alarming number of tenants live in housing so run down that it poses a risk to their health and safety. For Karla Orozco's family, the hazards included mold, rats and cockroaches, a broken heater, and sewage backups.
“If you’re not able to provide food, it makes it difficult to feel like you’re living a dignified life,” researcher Darcy Freedman said. “It’s a basic need and the mental health implications are very real. ‘If I can’t provide food for my kids or partner, who am I?’”
The effect of squalid housing on people’s health is difficult to determine in California's Sonoma County, since there is no study, stockpile of data or government agency that tracks illness in connection with living environments.
This week brought news of a compromise in the battle over new school lunch standards. It comes quick on the heels of new research that questions critics' claims of tossed food and lost revenues.
In reporting her series on mental illness in Shasta County, Alayna Shulman didn't find the data she was hoping for. Instead, she highlighted that lack of data in her story. It was one of several lessons she took away from working on the project.
Thousands of babies are born every year in Bexar County, Texas, to mothers who receive no prenatal care. Those women are more likely to give birth prematurely, increasing the odds that their newborns will develop immediate and long-lasting health problems that can be both costly and fatal.
Take a Saturday morning bike ride along the Kansas side of the state line and you’ll see plenty of people playing tennis, soccer and jogging in Johnson County. Ride a bit farther north to Wyandotte County, though, and it’s clear that outdoor recreation is a much rarer phenomenon.
Johnson County’s high income and education levels are typically associated with health-promoting activities like exercise, preventive care and nutritious diets. But alcohol abuse is another aspect of life in the county, often tucked away from view.