Tag Archives: poverty

Reporter looks at how diseases of poverty flourish in the U.S.

Photo: Bill Rix via Flickr

Neglected tropical diseases, a group of parasitic, bacterial and viral infectious diseases that primarily affect the poorest countries in the world, also can spread in some of the most impoverished communities in the United States.

Vice News reporter Arielle Duhaime-Ross brought attention to this little known fact in “Scientists think Alabama’s sewage problem has caused a tropical parasite. The state has done little about it,” which won the National Association of Science Writers’ 2019 Science in Society Journalism Award. Continue reading

New report paints a grim picture of older women in poverty

Photo: MartinHots via Flickr

A significant percentage of older women are struggling to stay out of poverty, according to a new issue brief from Justice in Aging.

The report looks at reasons more women are aging into poverty than men, discusses the support systems that are in place to help older women, and recommends ways to strengthen and expand those support systems. Continue reading

For children born with or without heart conditions, social factors play a clear role in their cardiovascular outcomes

When it comes to health care disparities and cardiovascular disease (CVD), the divide widens early. A spate of studies published recently illustrates how social factors influence CVD outcomes from our earliest years.

For example, a report published in Pediatrics found that the increased obesity prevalence among U.S. adolescents is happening almost entirely among those in low- and middle-income families. Smoking, diet quality, and physical activity levels also tracked with household socioeconomic status for these children, based on the NHANES data used in the study. The only equal-opportunity metabolic derailment among teens in the United States appears to be prediabetes and diabetes. Risk factors for CVD overall declined for adolescents from 1999 to 2014, but significantly so only for those from high-income households. Continue reading

Klein expands on award-winning work on access to care

Photo: Len Bruzzese/AHCJAHCJ President Ivan Oransky, M.D., presents Kerry Klein with an Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism during Health Journalism 2018.

Kerry Klein, from Valley Public Radio, won first place for Health Policy (small outlet) in the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism for her series “Struggling for care,” looking at the physician shortage in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Health coverage has vastly expanded in California through the state’s concerted effort to support the Affordable Care Act, expand Medicaid, and get people signed up. But it hasn’t solved access problems in places like the Valley. Continue reading

U.N. official’s tour explores impact of extreme poverty in the United States

Photo: Omar Bárcena via Flickr

During a two-week U.S. fact-finding tour, Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said he observed scenes of suffering from coast to coast: in homeless encampments in California, in storm-ravaged enclaves in Puerto Rico, and in marginalized communities of the deep South and West Virginia.

A shortage of healthcare, infrastructure and sanitation services in low-income and minority communities are taking a serious toll, Alston said during a Dec. 15 press conference in Washington, D.C., at the conclusion of the tour. Continue reading