A Tale of Two Towns: Can a federal grant make a real change for the poor in Ventura County? | Reporting on Health

For an upcoming fellowship in health reporting at USC's journalism school, I'm working on a couple of long-form stories. This is the first of them — a look at how a federal grant aims to balance the scales of health for poor people in Ventura County. Hope it's of interest. 

Here's an excerpt: 

 

In Ventura County, which lies just north of Los Angeles in the sprawl of Southern California, great wealth — in towns such as Thousand Oaks or Ojai — can be found not far from great desperation, in towns such as Oxnard or Santa Paula.  

Some of the contrasts startle. In Santa Paula, for example, about 14 percent of married couples live in poverty. In Ojai, a comparable in size community less than twenty miles to the north, 0 percent of married couples live in poverty, according to Census Bureau numbers. 

Overall the statistics — from a report backed by the Centers of Disease Control — show that wealthy Ventura County residents eat better, they have better access to exercise, their lives are less stressful, and they live longer – almost nine years longer on average.  

And a chart — the heart of the piece in some ways. [Click to enlarge]: