Tag Archives: race

Telling the community health story beyond police shootings

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Pia Christensen

About Pia Christensen

Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates AHCJ's social media efforts and edits and manages production of association guides, programs and newsletters.

Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio

Often, when a police officer shoots an unarmed black man, news coverage is confined to the echoes of debate over who is right and who is wrong.  If journalists fail to advance the story beyond this narrative, they risk becoming unwitting accomplices in numbing the public to these tragedies.

This does a disservice to readers, viewers and listeners who seek better understanding of the full impact of what, in recent years, has become a public health crisis in our nation. Continue reading →

How the ACA may be helping to close the ‘race gap’

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Joanne Kenen

About Joanne Kenen

Joanne Kenen, (@JoanneKenen) the health editor at Politico, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform and curates related material at healthjournalism.org. She welcomes questions and suggestions on health reform resources and tip sheets at joanne@healthjournalism.org. Follow her on Facebook.

Chris Flavelle of Bloomberg View points out an unheralded achievement of the Affordable Care Act: It’s narrowing the race gap in health insurance.

In a recent opinion column summarizing research on insurance disparities and the ACA by Algernon Austin at the Center for Global Policy Solutions, Flavelle wrote: Continue reading →

Recent headlines examine impact of racial disparities on cancer, longevity

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Susan Heavey

About Susan Heavey

Susan Heavey, (@susanheavey) a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on social determinants of health and curates related material at healthjournalism.org. She welcomes questions and suggestions on resources and tip sheets at determinants@healthjournalism.org.

Photo: MEC Toronto Race Four 5K 10K The Summer Classic 2014 via photopin (license)Recent headlines have taken another look at black women and rising breast cancer rates, worsening health among middle-aged whites, and other race-related health issues.

Photo: MEC Toronto Race Four 5K 10K The Summer Classic 2014 via photopin (license)Recent headlines have taken another look at black women and rising breast cancer rates, worsening health among middle-aged whites, and other race-related health issues.

First there was the “dubious milestone,” as The New York Times called it, of black women for the first time facing an equal rate of breast cancer as white women. Then last week, a headline on the sharp uptick in the death rate among middle-class, white Americans, a finding startling enough to merit front-page treatment in The Washington Post.

It’s no secret that there are racial disparities in cancer rates, longevity and other areas, so why the recent headlines? Continue reading →

Study indicates that frailty differs by region, income, race

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Liz Seegert

About Liz Seegert

Liz Seegert (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic editor on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News, the Connecticut Health I-Team and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

Photo: Vee via Flickr

Photo: Vee via Flickr

Geography, race and income matter when it comes to frailty, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Women and the poor are more likely to be frail, and older people in southern states more that three times likely to be frail than those in western states. Additionally, blacks and Hispanics were nearly twice as likely to be frail than whites, researchers concluded. Continue reading →