Center for Health Journalism

12/05/2025

Fund journalism that changes lives!

This year, the Center for Health Journalism provided training and support to nearly 100 journalists through our grants and fellowship programs.

Altogether, these journalists produced nearly 300 stories in 2025. Some of the topics covered include the mental health toll of deportation scares on children in immigrant families, the harmful effects of the affordable housing crisis on families, transportation insecurity as a driver of health inequity, and more.

⬅️ Swipe through to see more stories from this year. Can we count on your help to power more health reporting stories like these?

🔗 Visit bit.ly/GivetoCHJ to donate or text "CHJ" to 41444 to support the Center for Health Journalism.

Thanks to NewsMatch, donations up to $1,000 will be matched, doubling your support for journalism that can make a difference, expose inequity, and highlight issues faced by underserved communities.

Slide 2: “‘We see a lot of helplessness’: At a Detroit clinic, transportation barriers put chronic disease, injured patients at risk” by Eleanore Catolico for Planet Detroit

Slide 3: “Growing up in fear: Immigration enforcement fuels mental health crisis among children of immigrants” by Jennifer Chowdhury for Prism

Slide 4: “For Sikhs In ICE Detention Centers, Faith Represents Hope” by Tanay Gokhale for India Currents Magazine

Slide 5: “Sacramento’s Concrete Roses” by Russell Stiger for The Sacramento Observer

Slide 6: “An ‘Áo Dài’ of Her Own: One Trans Woman's Path to Family Acceptance” by Nhien Tra Nguyen for Nguoi Viet Daily News

12/03/2025

ICYMI: What will AI mean for health equity? Read some insights below by expert panelists who led yesterday’s webinar and watch the recording here bit.ly/InfoEquityAgeofAI

Yesterday’s webinar featured expert panelists Dr. Joseph R. Betancourt, President of The Commonwealth Fund; Dr. Tina Hernandez-Boussard, professor of medicine at Stanford University and Katie Palmer, health tech correspondent at STAT.

Dr. Betancourt said: When we are talking about health equity, fundamentally what we're saying is we aspire to high-quality healthcare for everyone. And in doing so, we should make sure that our systems, our providers, our technology are geared to do just that.

Dr. Hernandez-Boussard said: We need to ask ourselves, is there bias in the underlying clinical data, clinical information, that's being accumulated? The first piece of the AI lifecycle is the data origination, and bias can be embedded in that original data. So then when we select that data and take it to the next step of the AI lifecycle, that bias is already there.

Reporter Katie Palmer said: Artificial intelligence is deployed at almost every healthcare practice in some form. You just kind of have to ask. Patients aren't always aware when AI is impacting their care.

We are on the cusp of what promises to be a tech-driven revolution in medicine. Join us for a forward-looking and thought-provoking conversation about keeping equity front and center in an era of rapid technological advances.

12/02/2025

Support us and give a gift today!

Since the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism was founded in 2004, we’ve made it our mission to empower and equip journalists to tell in-depth stories that improve the health and well-being of families and communities.

This year, we supported nearly 300 stories. Swipe through to see some of them. With your help, we can continue to expand our important work and support more ambitious health reporting stories like these.

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵, 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗴𝗶𝗳𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿, 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 $𝟭,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹, 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗗𝗲𝗰. 𝟯𝟭, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱. Your donations go twice as far.

🔗 Visit bit.ly/GivetoCHJ to donate or text "CHJ" to 41444 to support the Center for Health Journalism.

Slide 2: “Three-generation West Side family fights to overcome Chicago’s vast life expectancy gap” by Kristen Schorsch for WBEZ Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times
Slide 3: “Long hours, tough calls for crews at rural Missouri EMS stations” by Susan Szuch for the Springfield News-Leader
Slide 4: “How stigma and limited access to mental healthcare affect L.A.’s Thai community” from a 4-part series on Thai mental health by Phi Do for the Los Angeles Times
Slide 5: “The FDA has warned against this ‘natural remedy’ for joint pain. San Francisco immigrants still trust it” by Mariana Duval, published by El Tecolote and The Guardian
Slide 6: “Wiped Out: Student Absenteeism in New Jersey” by Mary Ann Koruth for The Record

12/02/2025

Happening TODAY at 11am. There's still time to register!

🔗 Register at bit.ly/RegEquityAgeofAI

A tech-driven revolution in medicine is underway, with AI and gene editing heralding major breakthroughs. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about how we keep equity front and center in an era of rapid technological advances.

12/01/2025

⏰ Happening TOMORROW!

Don’t miss this chance to hear directly from three leading voices shaping on the future of AI and health equity.

Join Dr. Joseph Betancourt, president of The Commonwealth Fund, Dr. Tina Hernandez-Boussard, professor of medicine at Stanford University, and Katie Palmer, health tech correspondent at STAT, for a live conversation on how AI is transforming health care — and what it will take to ensure these advances don’t deepen existing health disparities.

🎙️ Live Webinar: The Coming Revolution: Equity in the Age of AI
📅 Tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 2 at 11 AM PT
🔗 Register now: bit.ly/RegEquityAgeofAI

11/26/2025

Artri King is a 'natural remedy' for joint pain that the FDA has warned against. Why do San Francisco immigrants still trust it?

Read the full story by Mariana Duran: https://bit.ly/NaturalRemedyArtriKing

This story was co-published with El Tecolote as part of the 2025 Ethnic Media Collaborative, Healing California.

11/25/2025

2025 National Fellow Susan Szuch covered medical service challenges in rural Ozarks.

Read the full story here bit.ly/3Kdvtij and view the full series of stories on her feed!

Rural EMS faces lean funding, a churning workforce and sicker patients, but the solutions to those issues may be right next door. See link below ⬇️ bit.ly/3Kdvtij

11/21/2025

🚨 NEW WEBINAR ALERT 🚨
The Coming Revolution: Equity in the Age of AI
📅 Tuesday, Dec. 2 • 11 AM PT

🔗 Register at bit.ly/RegEquityAgeofAI

AI and gene editing are ushering in a new era of medicine — one filled with breakthrough therapies and transformative tools. But as innovation accelerates, so does the urgency to ask: Will these technologies advance equity, or amplify existing health disparities? How do we ensure vulnerable patients aren’t left behind?

Join leading voices in health and technology for a timely, forward-looking conversation:
✨ Dr. Joseph R. Betancourt, President, The Commonwealth Fund
✨ Dr. Tina Hernandez-Boussard, Professor of Medicine, Stanford University
✨ Katie Palmer, Health Tech Correspondent, STAT

They’ll explore how to keep equity at the forefront of AI-driven change — and offer journalists story ideas, critical context, and fresh insights for covering the tech innovations reshaping health care.

Don’t miss this essential discussion on the future of medicine.

A tech-driven revolution in medicine is underway, with AI and gene editing heralding major breakthroughs. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about how we keep equity front and center in an era of rapid technological advances.

11/18/2025

Disparities in income, race and access to care mean that some communities bear far greater health burdens from disasters than others.

Last week, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism and Center for Climate Journalism and Communication kicked off our first Health and Climate Change Reporting Fellowship with a panel on how to report on the unequal toll of climate-driven crises, with speakers Keerti Gopal, reporter on health and justice at Inside Climate News; Andy Horowitz, Ph.D., author of “Katrina: A History, 1915 to 2015”; and Ruben Juarez, Co-founder and Director, Maui Wildfire Exposure Study (www.mauiwes.info). Here are some of their insights.

11/14/2025

As our Health and Climate Change Reporting Fellows embark on their investigative projects, Michael Kodas (michaelkodas.com), senior editor of Inside Climate News and author of "Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame," had this advice.

11/13/2025

The Center for Health Journalism and the Center for Climate Journalism and Communication are proud to announce our inaugural Health and Climate Change Reporting Fellows. Congratulations to: Ethan Bakuli, Brett Chase, Katherine Davis-Young, Katharine Gammon, Mike Kropf, Katie Myers, Yereth Rosen, Alexandra Villarreal and Jess Zhang. They will be joining us on campus starting today.

These fellows will receive mentorship, intensive training and reporting funds to produce ambitious investigative and explanatory news projects. Stories they will report in partnership with us over the next five months will investigate the lasting health aftereffects of wildfires, the ways a warming planet can fuel disease threats, the community impacts of rising sea levels, the mental health and cultural impacts of climate displacement, the long-term health effects of repeated flooding, and efforts to protect people from extreme heat in their home and work environments.
Read the press release at bit.ly/USCHealthandClimateChangeFellows and follow this week and in the months to come for updates and stories throughout the year.

08/11/2025

⏳ Last call! Tomorrow is the last day to apply to our Data Fellowship!

If you’ve been thinking about applying, now’s the time! Our Data Fellowship application closes tomorrow, August 12. This is your opportunity to join a cohort of innovators, gain access to mentorship, and develop the skills and network you need to bring bold ideas to life.

The fellowship offers journalists a stipend to defray reporting costs and five months of training in data reporting.

Don’t let the deadline pass you by! Apply today 🔗 👉 bit.ly/2025DataFellowship