Journalist
Shuka Kalantari is a San Francisco Bay Area journalist whose reports have taken her to Turkey, Cambodia, Canada and across the US. She was born near the Caspian Sea in Iran and raised in Northern California. Shuka primarily reports on refugee and immigrant communities in California and internationally. When she's not doing interviews, she likes to be outdoors or go dancing. Also, one day she will write a magical realism children's book.
<p>Climb aboard the Teen Health Van, a free traveling clinic serving homeless and uninsured youth in the Bay Area.</p><p>Click here to view an audio slideshow of <a href="http://www.kqed.org/assets/slideshow/teenhealthvan/" target="_blank" title="Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Teen Health Van">Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Teen Health Van</a> in action.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><em>Teen Health Van slide show produced by Shuka Kalantari</em></p>
<p>Most unaccompanied refugee minors arrive in the U.S. with basic health issues that need to be addressed. Many are malnourished, having nearly starved on their journey to the States - and many have untreated and/or undiagnosed illnesses. These children also come with severe psychological scars that need addressing. A minority of the refugee minors arriving in Northern California are formally diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.<br />
<p>See a slideshow our trip to a San Francisco Safeway, where janitors and members of <a href="http://www.seiu.org/" title="SEIU">SEIU</a> rallied to demand <a href="http://www.kqed.org/assets/slideshow/seiurally/" target="_blank" title="SEIU Rally">safer cleaning supplies</a>.</p><p>Photographs by me, Shuka Kalantari. Web producer <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/users/nick" target="_blank">Nick Vidinsky</a></p><p> </p>
Comprehensive immigration reform hasn't happened since 1986, when the Immigration Reform & Control Act (IRCA) was passed. Now immigration reform is in the air once again - with President Obama saying the issue will be tackled next year. What is it like for undocumented and seasonal workers to get health care under the current system? Will immigration reform change things?
<p>A first-person account from a woman who hesitated to seek health care because of her immigration status.</p><p>Click here to listen: <a href="http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R910222000/c">http://www.califo…;
As Congress considers a major overhaul of the U.S. health care system, Health Dialogues examines how the new state budget will affect health care closer to home. Will kids in low income families be able to get basic services? What about drug treatment programs mandated by Proposition 36? And how may where you live affect the care you'll get?
Healthy Families Long-Term Stability in Question: Find out what it's like to be a 15 year-old girl without health insurance, as Health Dialogues hears from one of nearly 80,000 children on the Healthy Families waiting list backlog.
<p>Original post on KQED's <a href="http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2009/08/20/food-safety-with-health-d… Area Bites</a> blog.
Spinach, alfalfa sprouts, peanut butter, beef...almost weekly, FDA and USDA alerts fill my inbox with notices about food recalls due to Salmonella or E. Coli. How does our food supply get contaminated? And what safeguards exist to ensure that the foods we eat are produced in safe and sanitary conditions? </p>
Trudy Lieberman is the president of The Association of Health Care Journalists board of directors, and she is the director of the health and medicine reporting program at the Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York. Ms. Lieberman is also a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review, and a contributor to The Nation. Below is her blog post on how health care reporting is possible - and necessary!
<p>Serving Skid Row: Evans Clark used to count himself among the thousands of homeless people addicted to drugs and living on the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles. Now recovered, Clark still finds himself on the streets of Skid Row every day. But now, he's there to help.</p><p>
Click here to launch the audio slideshow: <a href="http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R907232000/b">http://www.califo…;
Web Extra: Saved by Homeless Health Care Los Angeles</p>
