Quality of Life

The story of one immigrant family, common in this region, is four generations deep

Experts say the key to rebuilding trust is skilled crisis management, but that’s not happening in Flint, at least not yet.

In the aftermath of two grisly deaths, some cities defend laws restricting pit bulls, even as a bill in Lansing would strip local governments from being able to ban specific breeds.

A national study finds rising death rates for midlife whites without a college education, even as mortality rates for other groups fall. So it is in Michigan, with stress and poor health leading to drug and alcohol overdoses and suicide.

Flint has seen roughly 30 percent of its blighted homes demolished since 2014, exceeding the city’s goals when it received federal funds to fight blight.

Cities are turning to this perennial plant as a low-mow solution for maintaining abandoned or vacant properties.

Medicaid expansion and innovative programs are giving more low-income Michigan children a shot at healthy dental care. But access still lags in some rural and urban areas, and impoverished adults continue to suffer from lack of preventative care after years of uncertain funding.

Concern over fluoride’s effect on the human body – and some anti-government sentiment – is forcing dentists and scientists to defend the longstanding practice of putting fluoride in water systems to improve dental health.

The state is on the front lines of detecting head injuries. Yet Bridge found that Michigan allows high school football teams anywhere from four to six times as much full-contact hitting at practices as states like Ohio, Alabama and Texas.

A lawsuit claims that youth football led to brain damage and the suicide at age 25 of an Upper Peninsula football player.

With new legislation on the horizon, advocates for expanded practice rights for highly trained nurses say the move would lower costs and improve access to health care, particularly in rural Michigan.

In this rural Upper Peninsula family, one doctor, one nurse practitioner and two opinions on giving some nurses more autonomy to treat patients.

Should a law that protects rural farmers also allow urban farmers to raise goats in city neighborhoods?

An interest in locally grown food is raising the profile of women farmers in Michigan, particularly on small-scale farms.

Supporters see a potential $1 billion industry for Michigan, while conservation and sport fishing groups cite the risks of pollution and disease.

With 23 million gallons of oil and gas passing beneath the Straits of Mackinac each day, Bridge weighs the evidence on the safety of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline.

Enbridge Energy has historically kept inspection data about the Straits of Mackinac pipeline to itself.

This year’s bloom promises to be bigger, slimier and more trouble for marine life than past years. While experts are calling for tougher regulation of industrial farming, the state says Michigan’s current conservation efforts are working.

Fifteen years after landowners along the Mississippi River were asked to help reduce conditions for blooms, there has been no reduction in a marine dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. One expert suggests tougher regulation.