Tag: General News

by Cara Anthony,  KFF Health News

At a swim meet just outside St. Louis, heads turned when a team of young swimmers walked through the rec center with their parents in tow.

A supportive mom kept her eye on the clock while the Makos Swim Team athletes tucked their natural curls, braids, and locs into yellow swimming caps. In the bleachers, spectators whispered about the team’s presence at the pool in Centralia, Illinois — as they do at almost every competition.

“They don’t know that we’re listening,” Randella Randell, a swimmer’s mom, later said. “But we’re here to stay. We’re here to represent. We’re going to show you that Black kids know how to swim. We swim, too.”

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Randell’s son, Elijah Gilliam, 14, is a member of the Makos’ competitive YMCA and USA Swimming program based in North St. Louis. Almost 40 athletes, ages 4 to 19, swim on the squad, which encourages Black and multiracial kids to participate in the sport. Coached by Terea Goodwin and Torrie Preciado, the team also spreads the word about water safety in their community.

“If we can get everybody to learn how to swim, just that little bit, it would save so many lives,” said Goodwin, a kitchen and bathroom designer by day who is known as Coach T at the pool. “Swimming is life.”

But just like mako sharks, such teams of Black swimmers are rare. Detroit has the Razor Aquatics, Howard University in Washington, D.C., has a team that’s made headlines for winning championships, and some alums from North Carolina A&T’s former swim team created a group to offer water safety classes.

In the past, Black Americans were barred from many public swimming pools. When racial segregation was officially banned, white Americans established private swim clubs that required members to pay a fee that wasn’t always affordable. As a result, swimming remained effectively segregated, and many Black Americans stayed away from pools.

The impact is still felt. More than a third of Black adults report they do not know how to swim, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, more than twice the rate for adults overall.

Seeing a need in their community, the parents of the Makos swimmers formed the Black Swimmers Alliance at the end of 2023 with a goal of “bridging the gap in aquatic skills,” according to its website. But the group, which offers swim lessons to families of color, is concerned about the flow of grant money dwindling because of the recent federal backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Even so, they are fundraising directly on their own, because lives are being lost.

In late January, a 6-year-old died at a hotel pool in St. Louis. A boy the same age drowned while taking swim lessons at a St. Louis County pool in 2022. And across the river in Hamel, Illinois, a 3-year-old boy drowned in a backyard pool last summer.

Drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 through 4, according to the CDC. Black children and Black adults drown far more often than their white peers.

Members of the Black Swimmers Alliance discussed those statistics before their advocacy work began. They also had to address another issue — many of the adult volunteers and parents with children on the Makos team didn’t know how to swim. Even though their children were swimming competitively, the fear of drowning and the repercussions of history had kept the parents out of the pool.

The Makos athletes also noticed that their parents were timid around water. That’s when their roles reversed. The children started to look out for the grown-ups.

Joseph Johnson, now 14, called out his mom, Connie Johnson, when she tried to give him a few tips about how to improve his performance.

“He was like, ‘Mom, you have no idea,’” the now-55-year-old recalled. “At first, I was offended, but he was absolutely right. I didn’t know how to swim.”

She signed up for lessons with Coach T.

Najma Nasiruddin-Crump and her husband, Joshua Crump, signed up, too. His daughter Kaia Collins-Crump, now 14, had told them she wanted to join the Makos team the first time she saw it. But among the three of them, no one knew how to swim.

Joshua Crump, 38, said he initially felt silly at the lessons, then started to get the hang of it.

“I don’t swim well enough to beat any of the children in a race,” he said with a chuckle.

Nasiruddin-Crump, 33, said she was terrified the first time she jumped in the deep end. “It is the only moment in my life outside of birthing my children that I’ve been afraid of something,” she said. “But once you do it, it’s freedom. It’s pure freedom.”

Mahoganny Richardson, whose daughter Ava is on the team, volunteered to teach more Makos parents how to swim.

She said the work starts outside the pool with a conversation about a person’s experiences with water. She has heard stories about adults who were pushed into pools, then told to sink or swim. Black women were often told to stay out of the water to maintain hairstyles that would swell if their hair got wet.

Bradlin Jacob-Simms, 47, decided to learn how to swim almost 20 years after her family survived Hurricane Katrina. She evacuated the day before the storm hit but said one of her friends survived only because that woman’s brother was able to swim to find help.

“If it wasn’t for him, they would have died,” she said, noting that hundreds did drown.

“That’s the reason why swimming is important to me,” she said. “A lot of times, us as African Americans, we shy away from it. It’s not really in our schools. It’s not really pushed.”

Makos swimmer Rocket McDonald, 13, encouraged his mom, Jamie McDonald, to get back into the water and stick with it. When she was a child, her parents had signed her up for swim lessons, but she never got the hang of it. Her dad was always leery of the water. McDonald didn’t understand why until she read about a race riot at a pool not far from where her dad grew up that happened after St. Louis desegregated public pools in 1949.

“It was a full-circle moment,” McDonald said. “It all makes sense now.”

Now, at 42, McDonald is learning to swim again.

Safety is always a priority for the Makos team. Coach T makes the athletes practice swimming in full clothing as a survival skill.

Years ago, as a lifeguard in Kansas City, Missouri, Coach T pulled dozens of children out of recreational swimming pools who were drowning. Most of them, she said, were Black children who came to cool off but didn’t know how to swim.

“I was literally jumping in daily, probably hourly, getting kids out of every section,” Goodwin said. After repeated rescues, too many to count, she decided to offer lessons.

Swim lessons can be costly. The Black Swimmers Alliance aimed to fund 1,000 free swim lessons by the end of 2025. It had already funded 150 lessons in St. Louis. But when the group looked for grants, the alliance scaled back its goal to 500 lessons, out of caution about what funding would be available.

It’s still committed to helping Black athletes swim competitively throughout their school years and in college.

Most of the time, the Makos swimmers practice in a YMCA pool that doesn’t have starting blocks. Backstroke flags are held in place with fishing wire, and the assistant coach’s husband, José Preciado, used his 3-D printer to make red, regulation 15-meter markers for the team. Once a week, parents drive the team to a different YMCA pool that has starting blocks. That pool is about 5 degrees warmer for its senior patrons’ comfort. Sometimes the young swimmers fuss about the heat, but practicing there helps them prepare for meets.

Parents said white officials have frequently disqualified Makos swimmers. So some of the team parents studied the rules of the sport, and eventually four became officials to diversify the ranks and ensure all swimmers are treated fairly. Still, parents said, that hasn’t stopped occasional racist comments from bystanders and other swimmers at meets.

“Some didn’t think we’d make it this far, not because of who we are but where we’re from,” Goodwin has taught the Makos swimmers to recite. “So we have to show them.”

And this spring, Richardson is offering lessons for Makos parents while their children practice.

“It’s not just about swimming,” Richardson said. “It’s about overcoming something that once felt impossible.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Written by Ayurella Horn-Muller for Grist

Just four West African countries are the foundation of an industry worth more than $100 billion. In the tropical nations of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria, rows of cacao trees sprout pods bearing dozens of seeds. Once harvested, these humble beans are dried, roasted, and processed into something beloved worldwide.

Chocolate has been coveted for millennia and, particularly on Valentine’s Day, is an unmistakable token of love. But as increasingly erratic weather continues driving up the costs of confectionery, the sweet treat has become a symbol of something much less romantic: climate change, Grist reports.

Two reports published in February found that warming is pushing temperatures beyond the optimal range for cacao growth in the countries at the heart of the world’s supply, particularly during primary harvest seasons. The research reveals how burning oil, coal, and methane is roasting the planet’s cocoa belt and skyrocketing chocolate prices.

“One of the foods that the world most loves is at risk because of climate change,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at the nonprofit Climate Central, which wrote one of the two reports. “I would hope that by hearing that human activity is making it harder to grow cocoa, it might cause people to stop and think about our priorities as a species, and whether we can and should be prioritizing actions to limit future climate change and future harms to this food that we love so much.” 

About 70 percent of the world’s cacao is grown in West Africa, with Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria the biggest producers. The bulk of the rest is grown in places with similar climates not far from the equator, such as Indonesia and Ecuador. The trees grow best in rainforest conditions with high humidity, abundant rain, nitrogen-rich soil, and natural wind buffers. Exposure to temperatures higher than 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit prompts water stress, hinders plant growth, and erodes the quality and quantity of seeds the trees yield. 

Last year, warming added at least six weeks’ worth of days above that threshold in nearly two-thirds of cacao-producing areas across Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria, likely contributing to a disastrous harvest, according to the Climate Central report. 

The researchers examined temperature data for the region and estimates of what might have been experienced over the past decade in a world without human-induced warming. They found that between 2015 and 2024, climate change increased the number of days each country experiences temperature ranges above the ideal for cacao growth by an average of two to four weeks annually. Most of those hotter days came during the main crop cycle, when the plants bloom and produce beans. Warming is also altering rain patterns, accelerating droughts, facilitating the spread of devastating diseases like pod rot, and contributing to soil degradation. Another new study found low rates of pollination and higher-than-average temperatures in Ghana have combined to limit yields. 

But teasing out just how much of an impact climate change has had on production and consumer prices remains largely unchartered by scientists and economists. Dahl also said it’s unknown which weather phenomenon is behind the largest impact on production, nor is it clear what influence El Niño had on last year’s harvests. 

Emmanuel Essah-Mensah, a cocoa grower in Ghana, described climate change as one of the most serious problems affecting production throughout West Africa. “The drought means we are losing 60 percent of our cocoa plants. I have seen a drastic decline in income, as have all the farmers in my farming cooperative,” Essah-Mensah told Grist. 

Droughts, floods, and plant diseases thrashing the region last year contributed to record cocoa prices, which in turn caused the cost of chocolate to jump, according to a report by the nonprofit Christian Aid, which works toward sustainable development and economic justice. Global cocoa production fell by about 14 percent in the 2023-24 season, and ahead of Valentine’s Day last year, the soaring price of cocoa on the futures market shattered a 47-year record.

Kat Kramer, co-author of the report and a climate policy consultant for the nonprofit, said the findings, and those of Climate Central, expose the industry’s vulnerability to climate change. “Chocolate lovers need to push companies and their governments to cut greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kramer, “otherwise chocolate supplies will tragically be at increasing climate risk.”

The implications of this go beyond what it means for this delectable delicacy. Cocoa also is used in other goods like cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, which account for a significant piece of the global market. Yet chocolate remains king, with the U.S. importing around $2.8 billion worth of it every year — over 10 percent of the world’s supply.  

Federal Reserve data suggests that global cocoa prices rose 144 percent in December, more than doubling from the year before, said Alla Semenova, an economist at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. This is known as the producer price, or what global chocolate manufacturers pay those who process the raw beans. Still, that cost is often absorbed by confectionary customers. “When producer prices rise, when the costs of production rise, consumer prices rise,” said Semenova.

Yet even as prices go up, the farmers raising cacao don’t always see any of that profit. Josephine George Francis, who produces the crop alongside coffee on her farm in Liberia, said farmers throughout West Africa actually lose money due to the rising cost of growing crops in a warming world. “We need a different approach that puts sustainability and farmers at its heart,” said George Francis. “We do not benefit from increased prices on world markets.”

Of course, cocoa isn’t the only ingredient in confectioneries threatened by warming. Early last year, sugar, another essential ingredient, sold at some of the highest prices in over a decade after extreme weather constrained global sugarcane production. 

“It is not just the quantity of cocoa production that is affected by the acceleration of climate change,” said Semenova. “The type and the quality of the ingredients that go into the production of chocolate will change.” 

All of this has led many chocolatiers to adapt. Some, like Mars and Hershey, have been quietly reducing the amount of cocoa or even introducing new treats that eliminate it entirely. As prices continue to rise, analysts expect to see demand wane, a trend even Valentine’s Day can’t stop. 
 

Written by Sandra Lindsay for Northwell Health

When a well-read, analytical, and endlessly curious friend recently confessed ignorance to what period poverty is, I became aware of how widespread it is for this problem to be overlooked. You see, my friend is also a brilliant physician. We have rich, open-ended, insightful conversations that always leave me thinking.  

I told him about my recent trips to Jamaica, where I met with women undergoing hysterectomies due to severe fibroids. Burdened by debilitating health issues, these women told me how heavy menstrual bleeding had caused them years of emotional and financial stress. They faced a “choice” between purchasing food and other family essentials or purchasing period products. Unable to afford the latter, they missed work, lost jobs, lost social connections, and faced deep isolation. The ripple effects of period poverty had taken a devastating toll on their lives and livelihoods.

I finished sharing my experience when my friend leaned back and, genuinely puzzled, asked, “What is period poverty?”  

At first, I thought he was joking. But as I began to explain it to him, I heard both shock and empathy in his voice. I know he considers himself to be a proud, well-informed, and aware “girl dad.”

His response was a reminder of how wide the informational gap is regarding menstrual equity and how deep the roots of this problem run. Silence around menstruation is a social norm fed by a lack of knowledge, systemic failures perpetuated by cultural taboos, and overall societal silence. It has created an unacceptable blind spot.

It’s unacceptable because period poverty affects millions of women and girls globally, including 2 out of 5 women in the United States. In Jamaica, where I grew up, 44% of the female population are affected and 20% of girls miss school because they lack access to period products.

In many societies, menstruation is treated as a private, almost shameful, experience. Stigma discourages open conversations, especially between genders. Schools often fail to include menstrual health in their curriculum and, if they do, content focuses on girls and leaves boys uninformed. Government policies and educational programs often exclude menstrual equity, reinforcing the idea that the issue is not a priority. The added assumption and ignorance around menstruation being solely a “female issue” keeps men from engaging with the topic, further perpetuating the longstanding, painful silence.

After doing his own research, my friend returned to me apologetic and embarrassed. His ignorance was not malicious, but a product of societal shortcomings. Since our conversation, he has become an avid supporter and promoter of my Dignity for All initiative, which addresses period poverty in my homeland and ensures menstruation is not an obstacle to getting an education.

Men need to be more than supporters; they must become allies. Those men who occupy positions of influence and critical decision-making about funding, policy, and education have a responsibility to speak openly about menstruation. I’m asking men to normalize conversations about periods and menstrual poverty to reduce the senseless shame associated with it. Every father, brother, uncle, partner, and friend can help unburden women who may be living with that shame, or with period poverty.  

My friend’s transformation from ignorance to advocacy is proof that men can be effective allies when they are informed and empowered. Menstruation is not a “female” issue, but a societal one.  

I encourage all men and boys to educate themselves as my friend did so bravely, to ask the women in their lives about their experiences and advocate for menstrual equity in their communities and workplaces. Let’s challenge the silence so we might transform ignorance into action and period poverty into menstrual equity.

Sandra Lindsay, DHSc, MBA, RN, is the vice president of public health advocacy for Northwell Health.