Health Journalism Fellowships program helps produce car-crash article

An Oct. 27th article in Lake County News, "Hazards Ahead: Vehicle crash rates among Lake County's chief health issues," was produced as a project for USC Annenberg's California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships. "The 2010 Lake County Health Needs Assessment identified vehicle crashes as a significant health concern for county residents, pointing to evidence that the rate of fatal vehicle collisions in Lake County was well above state and national averages,"  states the article. The article delves into the factors that have contributed to the above-average numbers of car accidents in Lake County, which lies north of Napa County above the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the issues referred to in the article point to dated road infrastructures and higher-than-average rates of drug and alcohol abuse. "Hazards Ahead" marks the first of the series of articles on road safety supported by USC Annenberg's California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships.