- What’s the e-cigarette ingredient to really fear? Nicotine
- Using data to deepen the policy conversation on California’s uninsured
- Honesty and an open mind go a long way in reporting on food scarcity
- Trump visa ban targets those without proof of valid health coverage
- Health Media Jobs & Opportunities: This week’s listings
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Children are uniquely vulnerable to climate change |
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Children are especially vulnerable to the direct and indirect health consequences of climate change, according to a growing body of studies in recent years. Health disparities, already glaringly present for poor children and children of color, are projected to intensify nationally and globally. In this piece for Children’s Health Matters, contributor Fran Smith tours an exhaustive new analysis in The Lancet that amplifies those findings. “Without significant intervention, this new era will come to define the health of an entire generation,” states a brief accompanying the report.
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“There’s a rush to ban a dangerous ingredient in e-cigarette products,” writes contributor William Heisel. In this Investigating Health column, Heisel argues that while people blame vitamin E acetate for the recent crop of e-cigarette injuries and deaths, they’re missing the truly deadly ingredient in these electronic drug-delivery devices – nicotine. “So while you are writing about vitamin E acetate or other relatively unknown ingredients that may be contributing to the sudden spike in deaths and injuries in e-cigarette users, spend a little time also writing about nicotine, which, by way of tobacco products, contributes every year to the loss of 10 million healthy years of life in the United States and 182 million healthy years of life globally,” Heisel writes.
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In this Field Notes column, Sacramento Bee reporters Michael Finch and Sophia Bollag of the USC Center for Health Journalism News Collaborative share how they used data to explore how California’s ambitious health care initiatives could shape the lives of working class residents already strained by the state’s high cost of living. Through the Collaborative’s “Uncovered California” series, the pair reported on how the state’s tax penalty for forgoing health insurance would largely punish lower-income residents, and looked at the role of school-based health centers in providing care to uninsured and underserved children.
When 2019 California Fellow Jessica Cejnar of the Wild Rivers Outpost began her Fellowship project on food scarcity in the Yurok tribe near Klamath River in Northern California, many residents were already wary of negative press. “I was prepared for Klamath residents to be slow to warm to me,” writes Cejnar. “But I learned that although my impression that they felt ignored was correct, I needed to throw any other assumptions I had out the window.” By ridding herself of fixed assumptions when reporting on the community’s lack of a grocery store and access to healthy food, Cejnar learned that the Yurok tribe’s relationship with food, and their practices to ensure that neighbors have enough to eat, was where the real story lay.
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CAREER GPS: In this week’s Health Media Jobs and Opportunities, State of Reform is looking for a health policy reporter in the Southwest. Depression Alliance is seeking an editor-in-chief in San Francisco, California, but it can be a remote position.
2020 California Fellowship
Got a great idea for a substantive reporting project? Let us fund it, and bring you to Los Angeles for five days of intensive training as well! California Fellows will receive $1,500-5,500 in reporting and engagement grants, plus six months of mentorship. The deadline to apply is Dec. 19, 2019. For more information and to apply, click here.
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Your tax-deductible contribution to the Center for Health Journalism will advance our mission of helping journalists investigate health challenges and solutions in their communities –serving as a catalyst for change.
You can donate through the USC web portal at this link: https://bit.ly/2gBPtNa
Pressed for time? You can also text to donate! No amount is too small; just send a text to 41-444 and type the message CHJ for further instructions.
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Michelle Levander, Director
Center for Health Journalism
USC Annenberg School of Journalism
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