The Missouri Public Health Association awarded KBIA a Media Award for the special series, "Shortage in Rich Land."
The award recognizes "significant contribution to public health education in Missouri," and was presented during an awards luncheon at the state's Public Health Annual Conference in Columbia.
The series - reported by KBIA's Harvest Public Media reporter Kristofor Husted and Bram Sable-Smith from the KBIA Health & Wealth Desk - spotlighted economic and health disparities in the six-county region in southeast Missouri known as the "Bootheel," because of its shape.
Home to some of the country's most valuable and productive farmland, the Bootheel also has some of the highest rates of premature birth and infant mortality in the U.S. and is considered a health professional shortage area for primary care, mental health care and dental care - every category for which the distinction exists.
For two weeks in January 2015 Husted and Sable-Smith set up a makeshift bureau set up in the center of the Bootheel and criss-crossed the region to report on these disparities. Their five-part series aired the week of March 23rd.
To see all of the stories in the series Shortage in Rich Land, including a video and community event KBIA hosted in the Bootheel, click here.
