The USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Impact Fund for Reporting on Health Equity and Health System

Application Deadline: November 30, 2021.

The USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism is launching a new Impact Fund for Reporting on Health Equity and Health Systems.  This fund will provide reporting grants of $2,000-$10,000 and six months of mentoring by veteran journalists to five to eight competitively chosen journalists from around the country. The Fund will support ambitious investigative or explanatory projects on systemic racism in health care policy and practice and inequity in treatment, patient experience, and health outcomes for Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.Grantees will benefit from online trainings focused on the interplay between health systems and health equity and participate in monthly meetings with other participating reporters. 

Journalists can play an important role in highlighting systemic and structural forces and how they impact individuals, families and communities. As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, there is a pressing need for journalism that calls attention to chronic inequities and offers up paths for change. The Center for Health Journalism invite you to take advantage of this unique moment of racial reckoning in our country’s history to produce deep reporting with our support. 

The Center invites proposals for investigative and explanatory explorations of the consequences for people of color and of policy or practice reforms that could lead to more positive outcomes. Each applicant must propose an ambitious reporting project that would illuminate the role that health systems play in creating or perpetuating racial disparities in reproductive health and maternity care and birth outcomes; cancer prevention and treatment; diabetes, kidney failure and amputations; heart disease prevention and treatment; drug treatment; mental health care and  more. 

Eligibility

• The  2021 Impact Fund for Reporting on Health Equity and Health Systems is open to professional journalists who work for or contribute to print, broadcast and online media outlets based in the United States.
• Applicants do not need to be full-time health reporters, but should have a demonstrated interest in health issues. 
• The Impact Fundprefer that applicants have a minimum of three years of professional experience; many have decades.
• Journalists writing for ethnic media and journalists of color are strongly encouraged to apply.
• Proposals for collaborative projects between mainstream and ethnic news outlets receive preferential consideration, as do projects produced for co-publication or co-broadcast in both mainstream and ethnic news outlets.
• Freelancers are welcome, but need to have a confirmed assignment and should earn the majority of their income from journalism.
• Applicants must be based in the United States. Students and interns are ineligible.  

How to Apply

All applications must be filed through our online application. by November 30, 2021.  We suggest that you begin preparing your application in Word or another text-based format so that you can cut and paste the components into the online application.

 The application asks for the following:

• A  statement of purpose
• A project proposal
• A statement of impact
• A proposed budget
• Three samples of professional work
• A current resumé
• A letter of reference
• An Editor’s Checklist signed by a supervising editor and confirming the media outlet’s intent to publish or broadcast the project

For More Information: Impact Fund for Reporting on Health Equity and Health System