The California HealthCare Foundation has awarded a new three-year grant to the CHCF Center for Health Reporting. The $3.725 million grant will allow the center to continue its in-depth reporting on health issues in California.
The Center, which got its start three years ago, has been a partnership between the foundation, the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and more than 60 news outlets in the state.
The center recently won a California Journalism Award, from the Center for California Studies, for reporting by freelance writer Jocelyn Wiener and senior writer Emily Bazar about severe access problems for poor children seeking dental care.
The center’s coverage has included a look at how Health Policy will affect the state, reporting on uninsured children and baby boomers, hospital-acquired infections and the cost and quality of certain cardiac procedures.
One series, “Home Alone,” looked at the impact of planned cuts to a program that funds California adult day care centers, which provide “transportation, meals, exercise, medication management, physical and occupational therapy, as well as robust social programs.” The Center worked with nine community and ethnic media partners to report and publish stories on the topic. The state eventually reached a legal settlement that will allow adults most at risk of institutionalization to continue to receive services previously provided by adult day health centers.
In 2010, the center won an Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism from AHCJ for the series “A Burning Issue,” about the health effects of wood-burning stoves in California’s Central Valley that was published in the Chico (Calif.) Enterprise-Record.
