How two neighborhoods shaped by racial segregation became hotspots for sickening heat

_CPI, MOTHER JONES, THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, AZ CENTRAL

The investigation I’ve been working on for the last months as a reporting fellow at the Columbia Journalism Investigations’ team is out (read it here). It is a tale of two cities (Phoenix, AZ and Fort Pierce, FL), two neighborhoods shaped by racist policies, where poor residents bear the brunt of the rising temperatures.

By looking at patient-level data from hospitals and emergency rooms in both states with my colleague Elisabeth Gawthrop, we identified the zip codes where people are getting sick by the heat the most. The top hotspots, not coincidentally, share a long history of racial segregation and disinvestment that, in part, continues today.

We looked at the authorities’ actions and inactions in these places and possible solutions for the problem, that will only worsen with climate change. It was a challenge to report remotely (due to the pandemic) but I encountered great and cooperative sources (not all of them, obviously) that made it possible.

The story is part of the Hidden Epidemics project from Columbia Journalism Investigations in partnership with The Center for Public Integrity, under the inspiring leadership of Kristen Lombardi. It was published on CPI’s website, Mother Jones, The Orlando Sentinel and AZ Central. Local versions of the story, based on our data, were also published by Erin Stone at the Arizona Republic and Naseem Muller at the Orlando Sentinel.