In Orange County, older adults die of Alzheimer’s disease at a higher rate than their peers in most of the country — it’s the third leading cause of death for the group, compared to the sixth nationwide.
Becoming a new mom is stressful for the best-prepared women; struggling with addiction on top of that can lead to danger for them both.
“Access varies quite dramatically depending on where you are,” said Kim Lewis of the National Health Law Program. “There isn’t a lot being done to ensure accountability in each county.”
It was a vexing data riddle: Were opioids leading seniors to commit suicide? Or did they have major health problems that led them to take their lives?
The effort is bringing together civic leaders, police, educators, community groups and religious leaders. The goals are to curb gang-related crime, help children stay out of gangs, and deal with emotional aftermath of violence.
Orange County has the second highest number of opioid-related deaths in the state after Los Angeles, and the epidemic is hitting hardest among people in their golden years.
In many Asian communities, mental illness remains mired in stigma. A reporter in Orange County, Calif. explores how members of Korean, Vietnamese and Arab communities are affected by this barrier to care.
The shocking call came a decade ago from campus police at UC Berkeley. Kwang Ho Kim's son, a straight-A student, had dumped all his clothes on the bed and set them on fire.
Hospitals across Orange County and around the country are making mistakes that can be harmful, even deadly, to patients, but the public rarely finds out about them. Details of conditions inside Mission Hospital were hidden by the federal government for six months.
Jenna Chandler is a health reporter at the Orange County Register, where she has also covered breaking news, education and transportation. This story was produced as a project for The California Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism....
