Journalists Receive Grants to Report on Child Health Issues in California

PALO ALTO – Two veteran journalists have won grants from a newly established fund designed to encourage investigative and explanatory reporting on children’s health and health care policy issues in California.

Elaine Korry, a Bay Area-based freelance reporter, and David Danelski, a reporter for The Press Enterprise in Riverside, are the first journalists to receive awards from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health Journalism Fund at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication. The new fund, supported by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, is part of the USC Annenberg/California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships program.

Korry will receive $4,000 from the USC Annenberg School to report for The California Report, a show produced by KQED, on the package of essential health benefits that will determine children’s health care coverage in California under the Affordable Care Act. Danelski will receive $3,000 to probe how inland Southern California’s increasing truck and train traffic affects children’s health, and the ongoing costs of air pollution-related harm to children.

“We’re pleased to support reporting on the real-world effects of health policy on children and their families, particularly children who are living with complex, chronic conditions,” said David Alexander, M.D., foundation president and CEO. “Our hope is that these stories will generate public interest in developing a health care system that supports families and allows all children to reach their highest health potential.”

Korry and Danelski also will participate in Annenberg’s National Health Journalism Fellowship, a series of seminars, workshops and a field trip that runs from July 22-26. Since 2005, the Health Journalism Fellowships program has educated more than 500 journalists on the craft and content of health journalism.

“The health issues that our fellows will tackle cry out for journalistic attention,” said Michelle Levander, director of the USC Annenberg/California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships. “Our fellows will bring to light environmental justice issues that have been neglected; policy decisions that contribute to ill health in local communities; and ways that communities are tackling chronic ills.”

About the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health: The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health works in alignment with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and the child health programs of Stanford University. The mission of the Foundation is to elevate the priority of children’s health, and to increase the quality and accessibility of children’s health care through leadership and direct investment. The Foundation is a public charity, founded in 1997.