Housing

A partnership between Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio and community organizations that treated an ailing neighborhood as a “patient” helped improve housing and quality of life in the area.

The findings of this effort, called the Healthy Neighborhood, Healthy Families Initiative, were published in the journal Pediatrics in August 2018.

News of immigrant families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border has sparked outrage among the American public. Community leaders and private citizens alike have expressed concerns about undocumented children being placed in shelters or with foster care families while their parents face prosecution for entering the country illegally.

In the anticipation and aftermath of natural disasters, those in their path face difficult choices: To stay, or to leave? To relocate, or to rebuild in areas prone to the risk of property damage, which is predicted to become more acute as climate change progresses?

Communities around the country grapple with what to do with their vacant and abandoned buildings, which, over time, can become eyesores. Not only are dilapidated buildings ugly, they can hurt the value of surrounding property and become hangouts for drug dealers, prostitutes and the homeless. Elected leaders know they are also major barriers to revitalizing urban areas such as downtown shopping districts and low-income neighborhoods.

Journalists rely on three types of research papers most often in their work: White papers, working papers and peer-reviewed journal articles.

How are they different? And which is best?

Below, we explain each, pointing out its strengths and weaknesses. As always, we urge journalists to use care in selecting any research to ground their coverage and fact-check claims.

Peer-reviewed article

Airbnb hosts who are Asian or Hispanic charge 8-10 percent less than white hosts on similar rental properties in San Francisco, new research finds.

It can be expensive making your home or business conform to local building codes. Ensuring a building does not get blown down in a storm or toppled in an earthquake can require costly materials. Adding confusion to the cost, states and many municipalities have unique requirements for builders and contractors.

So the city you cover is considering raising property taxes and your editor wants a story today. If you’re like many journalists, you didn’t get a lot of training in college on municipal budgets. Where do you begin? We’re here to give you some pointers.

Writing about property taxes, a main revenue source for local government, can be complicated. But we can get started by asking these three questions: