Christine Spolar

Author's posts

Fearing the Worst, Schools Deploy Armed Police To Thwart Gun Violence

Officials reason that vigilance and familiarity with campuses would speed responses to shootings. But there is scant research about armed police in schools — and some studies suggest that racial bias in policing offers cause for caution.

These Vibrant, Bigger-Than-Life Portraits Turn Gun Death Statistics Into Indelible Stories

With pop-up art shows in Philadelphia and beyond, Zarinah Lomax’s mission is to show what is routinely lost to gun violence in America: “This is somebody’s child. Somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter who was working toward something.”

Meet the public health researchers trying to rein in America’s gun violence crisis

After the 1996 Dickey Amendment halted federal spending on gun violence research, a small group of academics pressed on, with little money or support. Now a new generation is taking up the charge.

Why Even Public Health Experts Have Limited Insight Into Stopping Gun Violence in America

After the 1996 Dickey Amendment halted federal spending on research into firearms risks, a small group of academics pressed on, with little money or political support, to document the nation’s growing gun violence problem and start to understand what can be done to curb the public health crisis.

Centene, Under Siege in America, Moved Into Britain’s National Health Service

A nine-minute public hearing gave the U.S. insurance giant a foothold in Britain’s prized National Health Service. One doctor called it “privatization of NHS by stealth.” And critics worry that business efficiencies will degrade the quality of care.

Britain’s Hard Lessons From Handing Elder Care Over to Private Equity

Four Seasons Health Care collapsed after years of private equity investors rolling in one after another to buy its business, sell its real estate, and at times wrest multimillion-dollar profits from it through complex debt schemes. The deal-making failed to account for the true cost of senior care.

What Are Taxpayers Spending for Those ‘Free’ Covid Tests? The Government Won’t Say.

Inquiries lead from one federal office to the next, with no clear answers. At one Army Contracting Command, a protocol office employee says that “voicemail has been down for months.” And the email address listed for fielding media inquiries? “The army stopped using the email address about eight years ago.”

Data analysts proved what Black Pittsburgh knew about COVID’s racial disparities

Community leaders saw early in the pandemic that the city’s residents of color were being hit hard by COVID-19. They worked with data analysts to show just how hard, where and why.

Data Science Proved What Pittsburgh’s Black Leaders Knew: Racial Disparities Compound Covid Risk

Inside the Black Equity Coalition’s novel effort to share community health intel and scrape government data to understand — and document — the life-threatening differences between white and Black Pittsburgh.

The Hard Realities of a ‘No Jab, No Job’ Mandate for Health Care Workers

Despite a hearts-and-minds campaign and millions spent in incentives, managers struggle to get staffs vaccinated against covid. Some workers have threatened to quit over the pressure to get a shot, which employers can’t afford.