The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships Blog

Education Is Key Predictor of Health Outcomes

If you could do one thing to ensure that you had a long, healthy life, what would you do? If you have less than a high school degree at 25, you can expect to live another 44 years, on average. Those with a graduate degree, however, can expect to live another 60 years, on average.

Gregory Warner Gets Creative with Health Care Stories

How can a reporter make those urgent stories on complicated health care topics feel urgent to the uninitiated? A compelling personal story isn't always enough to help the audience understand the deeper trend or causes. Sometimes the best solution is to find unusual sources or framing devices.

Day 1 of the fellowship

Tonight's keynote speaker Gregory Warner has opened my eyes to a different way of reporting. It broke away from the tradition "personalizing" a story by including views from officials, experts, and even innamite objects. Very interesting to me and I look forward to applying this approach....

Alaska Native medical center a model for curbing costs, improving health

The fifth and final story in my series, "Invisible Nations, Enduring Ills," on health disparities affecting Native Americans in the Portland area ran today on the front page of The Sunday Oregonian. Today's story focuses on the dramatic success and efficiency of an innovative Native American health organization in Anchorage, Alaska, called...

Exploring the power of place

After several years on the health beat, I've learned that covering health more comprehensively means paying more attention to how people’s health is affected by where they live.

Doctor discipline in Wisconsin

During heated protests over collective bargaining last year outside the state Capitol in Madison, several doctors wrote sick notes to excuse protesters from school or work. Their action sparked significant debate.

The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships program awards $57,750 in reporting grants

The fellowship projects range from the causes and consequences of America’s childhood obesity epidemic to the health impacts of environmental pollutants on low-income communities.

Fellow Experience Working on "Imprisoning Communities" Project

Californians foot the bill for one of the largest prison systems in the world. This series looked beyond the tremendous financial costs of incarceration and examined the collateral damage to individuals, families and whole communities in Oakland.

Taking an in-depth look at health issues affecting the Latino community in North Texas

I will be reporting on three health issues that affect Latino families in North Texas, as part of my National Health Journalism Fellowship.

Examining Montana's struggle with mental health care

Montana is a vast, frontier state with many small towns scattered in rural counties. A few of those counties don’t have a single doctor or even a pharmacy. For Montanans suffering with mental health issues, those distances can be especially devastating.