This article was produced as a project for the National Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the Center for Health Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Other stories in the series include:
Philly's shame: City ignores thousands of poisoned kids
Children who have been exposed to lead poisoning have access to the Early intervention program that offers resources ranging from speech therapy to nutrition services.
Children who were poisoned by lead are now suffering the effects as young adults. The question many parents are asking is how will the school system help these students?
While the government banned lead-based paint in 1978, more than 75 percent of houses in Chicago were built before 1970, affecting children with lead poisoning.
Drinking water have been contaminated with lead. Chicago residents and property owners are expected to deal with the problem. Experts are pressing the city to make some changes and take action.
In Philadelphia, thousands of children are newly poisoned by lead year after year — at a far higher rate than those in Flint, Michigan.
"There exists a class of hyper-polluters — the worst-of-the-worst — that disproportionately expose communities of color and low income populations to chemical releases," researchers write in a 2016 paper.
Bad housing has emerged as a key issue in California's Sonoma County races for elected office since The Press Democrat published a four-part series investigating the prevalence of substandard housing across the county.
As researchers and policymakers seek ways to stop the damage wrought by toxic stress and early trauma, a leading thinker in the field suggests we need smarter approaches that take inspiration from precision medicine.
"I had fair warning that gathering data on blue-green algae toxins in California was going to be an uphill battle," writes reporter Stephanie Baer. Her effort started with records requests to each of the state's 58 counties.
