For three months this year, I spent time with some of the sickest, most expensive patients in America — the so-called "super-utilizers." During that time, I’ve learned about the great promise of programs to help such patients, and why innovations that both improve health and save money are so rare.
Infants use about 240 diapers per month. A year’s supply of diapers costs $936. That means a single mother mother working full time at the minimum wage can expect to spend 6 percent of her annual pay on Pampers alone.
What happens to at-risk children whose parents die prematurely, leaving them orphaned? It's a vital question, since health disparities can cause early deaths in some populations, leaving children in precarious emotional, educational and financial straits.
A casual observer watching the preschool-aged children bounce around the outdoor playground at the Children’s Institute wouldn’t immediately notice anything amiss. Except that these kids wouldn’t be here had something not already gone very wrong in their young lives.
While Americans tend to think of sex trafficking as a problem that happens overseas, the United States is a major sex trafficking hub for obvious reasons—it's a rich country. An estimated 100,000 children in the U.S. are forced into the sex trade every year.
Five of the worst schools in Florida are clustered in a 15-square-mile area in Pinellas County’s black neighborhoods. Behavior problems are rampant. Teacher turnover is constant. Michael LaForgia of the Tampa Bay Times investigates how and why these schools are failing kids.
In Arkansas, judges make frequent use of their authority to lock up children known as "status offenders," despite the fact that they haven't broken any laws. Few people outside the juvenile justice system know how easy it is for a child to end up behind bars. Even fewer see the long-lasting impact.
How can we keep abuse and neglect from occurring in succeeding generations? Florida judge Cindy Lederman offers a vision of juvenile court as a crucial opportunity to turn around the lives of both parents and young children, before it's too late.
The U.S. has a much higher rate of child maltreatment deaths than other rich countries, and studies are beginning to show that early child abuse can spark changes that are linked to later-in-life health issues. But how do you get poor, stressed parents to be kinder and more engaged?
Twenty-one journalists from around the nation will receive reporting grants from the new Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being, the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and the National Health Journalism Fellowship.
