MORE ON: public health

For nearly four years, Cassandra Martin lived in West Oakland, a few blocks from two freeways and the city’s port. This has made her an accidental expert on air pollution. “I used to wonder what that black stuff was on the windowsill,” said Martin, who was diagnosed... + read more

On Kate Marr’s first day practicing law at The Children’s Clinic in Long Beach last week, she met with the mother of an asthmatic 7-year-old. Health clinic workers sent the woman, a Mexican immigrant, to Marr's office because they suspected there was a connection between the boy... + read more

Two quirks in California law run counter to the efforts of public health officials who are hoping to put a lid on the rapidly spreading whooping cough epidemic in the state. California is one of 11 states that do not require children to get a booster when they enter middle school, which is... + read more

Preliminary data from state public health officials show that the state’s richest and one of its poorest counties are leaders in the number of whooping cough cases, as cases of the illness are mounting to epidemic proportions. (See the data in a spreadsheet below.) The reasons for the... + read more

One week after Medicare announced that it will stop reimbursing two Riverside hospitals for care, state public health officials sent a letter yesterday telling executives that they plan to take the hospitals’ license away (in this case, two hospitals operate under one state license). ... + read more

Medicare officials do not take the decision they face in coming weeks lightly. They are weighing whether to offer two troubled hospitals additional chances to improve or to give up and “decertify” them. That's Medicare-speak for cutting off their funding, a move that's devastating to a... + read more

Today the California Watch team brings you an updated, interactive graphic showing how many residents of each California county have died or been hospitalized due to the swine flu. To complement their work, I rounded up some of the most interesting and enterprising reporting that I've seen on the... + read more