Environment & Climate

New research on lead's negative effects on IQ and class makes a brutal irony even clearer — lead is a lifelong disaster, particularly for poor children already facing serious disadvantages.

In California’s Merced County, residents are more likely to be exposed to tobacco, suffer from poor air quality, or die of heart disease. At the same time, the region faces a long-running shortage of doctors.

The shortage of doctors in California’s San Joaquin Valley has long impacted Central Californians in a very real way. Will efforts to combat the shortage make a difference?

Record temperatures aren’t just threatening cracks in distant polar ice — they’re raising questions about how well California’s most vulnerable city dwellers are coping with urban heat impacts.

Castulo Estrada grew up in Oasis, a mobile home community on the east side of Coachella, Calif. The way he describes it, Coachella is divided in two parts: the west side and the east side. On the west side, there are beautiful homes with large front and backyards. Fifteen percent of all golf courses

Why nearness is a problem, what schools can do and how parents have led the way.

Bay Area refineries are gearing up to receive and process a growing volume of tar sands and heavy crude oils. What does this mean for the health of residents in the region?

Across the country, in big cities and small towns, kids attend schools so close to busy roads that traffic exhaust poses a health risk.

Hopkins reported this story with the support of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and the National Fellowship, programs of the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism.
Other stories in the series include:
America’s super polluters
The invisible hazard afflicting th

Data recently made public by Philadelphia's school district showed that nearly 15 percent of water samples taken from school drinking water outlets had lead higher than the legal level for home tap water. This needs to change.