Health Equity & Social Justice

When reporter S.E. Ruckman set out to tell the story of how the ACA rollout was faring among Native American communities, she found little help and few resources. But she pushed forward, and found value in persistence and serendipitous connections.

In Baltimore, violence has marred countless lives. But Baltimore Sun reporter Andrea McDaniels wanted to explore the deeper, long-lasting effects of violence. Her extended reporting crystalized in an award-winning three-part series. Here she shares the challenges she faced and lessons learned.

"Sure, I knew hundreds of residents died in homicides or were hurt and even disabled during assaults,” said McDaniels. "But I wondered if there was something deeper going on that needed to be explored.”

Leah Beth Ward's sustained reporting in The Yakima Herald-Republic on the impacts of Washington’s dairy industry has helped spur important changes. In the second half of our Q&A, Ward discusses the reaction to her series, both from the industry and the broader community.

An updated look at youth suicides recently found that suicide rates in rural U.S. counties are double those of urban areas. Figuring out the causes behind the widening disparity is more difficult, but lack of access to mental health services is a big part of the problem in rural areas.

Homelessness has long been a serious problem in Anchorage, Alaska. The challenge for two reporters at Alaska Dispatch News was to find new ways to cut through old perceptions and debates to tell stories that showed their subjects’ enduring humanity. Here's how they did it.

Even with all the changes in the health care landscape, there are still more not-for-profit hospitals in the U.S. than profit-driven organizations or government-run hospitals. Finding out information isn't always easy, but using IRS 990 forms can offer a powerful window into their workings.

“Health care is what happens when things go wrong,” Dr. Anthony Iton says. “Health care doesn’t actually make you healthy — it prevents you from deteriorating rapidly.” The broader forces that really shape health, he argues, are what journalists and policymakers should really be focusing on.

The 2015 California Health Journalism Fellowship kicked off with a wide-ranging conversation between Gerald Kominski of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research and Anna Gorman of Kaiser Health News on the past and future of health reform.

My project will look at current research into cancers that disproportionately affect ethnic minorities, specifically Jewish and African-American communities. I will examine medical discoveries and ongoing clinical trials that hope to shed light on breast and ovarian cancer, male breast and prostat