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Historic redlining and high asthma rates intersect in neighborhoods in Cleveland and Akron

Brenda Lee Elkins-Wylie stands on the sidewalk near the home she rents in Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood with her cat and two dogs. [H.L. Comeriato/Ideastream Public Media]
Brenda Lee Elkins-Wylie stands on the sidewalk near the home she rents in Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood with her cat and two dogs. [H.L. Comeriato/Ideastream Public Media]

 

People who live in certain neighborhoods around Northeast Ohio, places like Hough and Slavic Village in Cleveland or North Hill in Akron, are more likely to suffer from asthma than the national average, which is about 8% among adults, according to data from the University of Richmond and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One other shared trait between these neighborhoods? They were redlined more than a century ago.  Redlining is the historically discriminatory lending practice used to refuse home loans to communities of color. 

The intersection of asthma and redlining is the focus of new reporting from Ideastream's Connecting the Dots series, which looks into how racism contributes to poor health outcomes in the Greater Cleveland area. 

This hour on the "Sound of Ideas," we're going to spend some time digging into this topic with the two journalists who reported the story, H.L. Comeriato,  who is also a Staff Writer for The Buckeye Flame. Also with us is Conor Morris, who worked on this story before becoming Ideastream's new Education Reporter. And we'll hear from a few more voices during this conversation, including a woman who has asthma and lives in Slavic Village, as well as Cleveland's public health director and the manager of the Akron Regional Air Quality Management District. 

This project is part of Connecting the Dots between Race and Health, a project of Ideastream Public Media funded by The Dr. Donald J. Goodman and Ruth Weber Goodman Philanthropic Fund of The Cleveland Foundation.

Later this hour, we bring you another episode of WKSU's music podcast Shuffle. This week we hear from psychedelic rockers - Oregon Space Trail of Doom. 

-Conor Morris, Reporter, Ideastream Public Media 

-H.L. Comeriato, Staff Writer, The Buckeye Flame

-David Margolius, M.D., Director, Cleveland Department of Public Health 

-Sam Rubens, Manager, Akron Regional Air Quality Management District 

-Brenda Lee Elkins-Wylie, Slavic Village resident with asthma

Rachel is the supervising producer for Ideastream Public Media’s morning public affairs show, the “Sound of Ideas.”