Environmental journalists are well aware of the multiple connections – sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle – that link the subjects they cover to other issues and other beats. There's often a wholly understandable inclination, however, to focus strongly on the environmental aspects of a story. In a recent series, the Chronicle demonstrated the benefits of a more multifaceted approach. Investigating the phenomenon of neighborhoods with high infant mortality rates, the newspaper examined a theory emerging among some health specialists, which posits that combined stress from factors such as pollution, crime, poverty, an absence of grocery stores and racial discrimination may be to blame. For example, San Francisco has been cited as having the lowest infant mortality among large U.S. cities, but one neighborhood's rate is so high it's comparable to those in countries such as Bulgaria and Jamaica. It's a place, writers Erin McCormick and Reynolds Holding report, that is "beset by poverty, joblessness, crime and environmental issues." The reporters are duly cautious in reporting new findings suggesting that the risk of infant mortality "is dramatically higher for women who live amid heavy pollution," portraying them in the broad context of other neighborhood "stressors." They round out their series with installments that look at medical-system problems and programs that offer hope as possible models.

See:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/03/MNINFANTMO.DTL