By Jaymie Baxley Small purple boxes have become a promising tool in Wilson County’s fight to lessen the deadly toll of the opioid epidemic.  ONEbox is a first aid-like kit that contains doses of naloxone, a nasal spray that can rapidly reverse the effects of opioid overdose. When the kit is opened, a screen embedded in the lid plays a video of a paramedic giving step-by-step instructions for administering the drug. “Let’s take a deep breath,” says the woman in the video, speaking in either English or Spanish, depending on the language selected. “Step No. 1 is to check to see if somebody r ..read more

By Jennifer Fernandez Guilford County has been tracking infant deaths for decades, yet officials there continue to struggle with high death rates and no answers. Jean Workman and Leandra Vernon with Every Baby Guilford hope to change that with the formation of North Carolina’s only Fetal and Infant Mortality Review program. “As time goes on, the more we learn, the better we can change things and learn what’s affecting our families,” Vernon told NC Health News. Fetal and Infant Mortality Review programs exist in more than two dozen states. While they are not all set up the same, one aspect is k ..read more

By Rachel Crumpler Almost six years ago, Tomeka Isaac said she came very close to joining a list no one wants to be part of — the tally of Black women who have died related to pregnancy. In May 2018, Isaac’s pregnancy took a turn at 35 weeks when she passed out. She was rushed to a small hospital in Pineville, North Carolina, and admitted to the emergency room. Tomeka Isaac, executive director at Jace’s Journey, shares her personal experience of losing her son and nearly losing her life which turned her into a fierce advocate working to spread awareness and eliminate disparities in maternal an ..read more

By Rachel Crumpler “Daddy, look at what I painted.” “You need to watch Stranger Things.” “Dad, I made the honor roll.” These are pretty run-of-the-mill things kids tell their dads at the dinner table, on the couch or during a car ride from place to place. But on a recent Saturday, the setting for these comments was not all that ordinary: Parent Day at Orange Correctional Center, a state-run minimum security prison in Hillsborough.  The event allowed five fathers and one grandfather to spend four uninterrupted hours with their children and grandchild. It was a rare opportunity to play boar ..read more

By Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez In Matthew Roach’s two years as vital statistics manager for the Arizona Department of Health Services, and 10 years previously in its epidemiology program, he has witnessed a trend in mortality rates that has rural health experts worried. As Roach tracked the health of Arizona residents, the gap between mortality rates of people living in rural areas and those of their urban peers was widening. The health disparities between rural and urban Americans have long been documented, but a recent report from the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research ..read more

By Will Atwater  One thing that stood out during Monday’s solar eclipse was the shift in light quality as the moon crept across in front of the sun, shielding the Earth from its rays momentarily before retreating.  Three days later, some North Carolinians, especially those living in Cape Fear River Basin communities and people across the country, may be considering whether their quality of life could start shifting — for the better — now that the Biden administration has enacted federal standards aimed at shielding Americans from a group of “forever chemicals.” On Wednesday, a host o ..read more

By Jaymie Baxley In September 2023, Sara Nichols went before the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the continuation of a federal program that has provided more than 900,000 low-income North Carolinians with help paying for internet access.  Created through a sweeping infrastructure package approved by Congress in 2021, the Affordable Connectivity Program offered high-speed internet at little to no cost for families who earned less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($51,640 for a family of three) or were e ..read more

By Jaymie Baxley In September 2023, Sara Nichols went before the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the continuation of a federal program that has provided more than 900,000 low-income North Carolinians with help paying for internet access.  Created through a sweeping infrastructure package approved by Congress in 2021, the Affordable Connectivity Program offered high-speed internet at little to no cost for families who earned less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($51,640 for a family of three) or were e ..read more

By Will Atwater If you’ve lived in North Carolina for the past seven years, especially in regions that get water from the Cape Fear River Basin, you’ve likely become familiar with the acronym PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. More than likely, you also know the term can trigger a strong reaction if mentioned in conversation. “You know, [the conversation], it’s tough in this space because it’s complicated. I try to tell folks there’s more we don’t know than we do about PFAS,” said Jeff Warren, executive director of the North Carolina Collaboratory. Established in 2016 ..read more

Editor’s Note: Some readers may find images of bodies in this story disturbing. By Michelle Crouch In a nondescript office building near the Charlotte airport last month, adults clad in blue gowns crowded around the body of a woman who had died of cardiovascular disease. An instructor gently pressed her gloved finger against the woman’s lung and invited the others to do the same. “If you’ve never felt a lung, you need to feel a lung,” she said. “Most people think lungs are like a balloon, but they are more like a kitchen sponge. They have millions of tiny air sacs.” Later, the class felt the ..read more