Sick and Alone
Most of America’s county jails escape lawsuits seeking reforms for inmates with serious mental illness. Now Arizona’s Cochise County has joined hundreds of other small counties innovating ways to keep people with serious mental illness out of their jails. But it comes too late for Adrian Perez, who has spent the past 13 years cycling in and out of jail, and solitary confinement, which only makes him sicker.
Babies born exposed to opioids grew fivefold in ten years in Arizona
In 2016, the last complete year for which data is available, 790 Arizonans died of an opioid overdose. The drugs’ spread has been several times more dramatic for a small and vulnerable population: pregnant mothers and newborns. The number of infants born with opioid withdrawal symptoms in Arizona has increased almost five-fold during roughly the same period.
Massive spill highlights outdated water quality standards, government oversight
Editor’s note: This report is part of an AZCIR collaboration with KPBS’ Fronteras Project, a regional news collaborative that produces reports on the changing culture and demographics of the American West and Southwest. The reporting was funded in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. By Valeria Fernández | Arizona Center for […]
Impacts to health, livelihood continue 1 year after toxic mine spill in Mexico
On Aug. 6, 2014, nearly 11 million gallons of a copper sulfate acid solution poured into the Bacanuchi and Sonora Rivers from the Buenavista del Cobre copper mine, which is owned by Grupo México. The spill impacted an area almost 200 miles along the Sonora River Basin, which is home to more than 22,000 people.