“Unnatural Causes” Wins Top Journalism Award

UNNATURAL CAUSES: is inequality making us sick?; the groundbreaking documentary PBS series won a 2009 duPont-Columbia Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. The prestigious honor is considered the equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize.  This documentary crisscrossed the country exploring how the social conditions in which Americans are born, live and work profoundly affect health and longevity, even more than medical care, behaviors and genes.

This four-hour television and DVD series challenges fundamental beliefs about what makes Americans healthy – or sick – and offers new remedies for an ailing society. The series sifts through the evidence suggesting that there’s more to our health than bad habits, health care, or unlucky genes. The social environment in which we are born, live and work profoundly affects our well-being and longevity.

The series was funded in part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and produced by California Newsreel in association with Vital Pictures, Inc. It was presented by the National Minority Consortia of public television Public Engagement Campaign in association with the Joint Center Health Policy Institute.