Watchdog groups say chickens used by Costco are bred to grow so quickly, many of them cannot stand under their own weight, and recent lawsuits against the company have put the spotlight once again on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. There are more than 3,000 such poultry operations in North Carolina, growing hundreds of millions of chickens a year. Chris Heaney, associate professor of environmental health at Johns Hopkins University, said breeding cheap chickens comes with a host of negative public health impacts. .
As more farm and food cooperatives pop up across North Carolina, advocates say they are creating a new model for food distribution and landownership that addresses long-standing inequities. Today, white Americans own and operate 94% of all U.S. farmland. .
A new internship program is looking to investigate health disparities among Massachusetts immigrant population. The Immigrant Scholar Internship Program at the Leah Zallman Center for Immigrant Health Research is designed to have scholars examine the health of immigrants. According to a 2021 report, residents in the city of Chelsea, 45% of whom are foreign born, said fear of immigration repercussions prevented them from seeking critical health care. .