The Data Fellowship program offers training on data acquisition, cleaning, analysis and visualization led by some of the most skilled data reporters and journalism practitioners in the nation.
Donor Name: Center for Health Journalism
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Fellowship
Deadline: 07/22/2026
Size of the Grant: $1000 to $10,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
They teach journalists how to “bulletproof” their data, ensuring accuracy in reporting. New program components focus on how to use AI in data journalism. Following the training week, Senior Fellows mentor reporters as they pair original data analysis with compelling narratives on long neglected or underexplored issues.
Themes
- The Center for Health Journalism seeks Data Fellowship project ideas for the National Track that celebrate successes and bring accountability when it comes to the economic circumstances, structural barriers and policies that can fracture families and communities or help keep them together. Some of the best journalism to emerge from this initiative has revealed hidden costs and barriers that inspire or provoke innovation and reforms.
- Themes include:
- Effectiveness of preventive approaches to improving outcomes for vulnerable children and families
- The impact of chronic stress, poverty and childhood trauma on child development and family stability
- Economic and social forces and government policies that strengthen or weaken families and communities
- Food scarcity and the effectiveness of school and other programs to serve children and families
- The impact on child well-being of school discipline policies, especially for at-risk children contending with instability and hardship
- The impact of housing insecurity for children and families — are systems to ensure safe and adequate housing working to help support families?
- Safety net programs, their effectiveness and their impact on family stability
- Health care policies and access to care for children and families and the impact on family stability
- Unmet mental health needs of children or parents and access to lack of services
- The intersection between partner violence and child abuse
- The intersection of race/ethnicity and/or class in child and family outcomes
- Solutions-focused explorations of the impact of government systems on children and families, including foster care and child protective services
- The Center for Health Journalism seeks Data Fellowship project ideas for the California Track that highlight promising interventions or explore inequities in access to health care, community health and the functioning of health care systems. They encourage investigations into how health is shaped by the conditions where they work, live and go to school, and the well-being of children and families. Journalists participating in the California track have documented how where you live matters in life expectancy and health outcomes, growing environmental harms related to climate change, food scarcity among undocumented immigrants, progress in addressing persistent racial disparities in maternal health outcomes, and the consequences of jailing more people who are homeless in the wake of the Grants Pass Supreme Court decision. Themes include:
- The impacts of federal and state health and social welfare policy for vulnerable California children, families and communities, including how well health systems serve these communities
- Performance and access to California’s safety net programs, including Medi-Cal
- Efforts to reimagine public institutions and programs to better serve communities, including how well health systems meet the needs of diverse populations in underserved regions
- Racial, ethnic, economic and geographic disparities
- Health and mental health access challenges for vulnerable populations
- Addiction and mental health challenges and the effectiveness of health care systems and programs to address them
- Health impacts of income inequality and economic insecurity in historically disenfranchised communities
- Homelessness and interventions to alleviate it
- Maternal and infant health and efforts to address racial disparities in maternal and birth outcomes
- Immigrant health and well-being in an era of mass deportations
- Health-related environmental justice issues
- The school environment and the emotional health of children
- Public policies — or failings of public policies — to address the high cost of housing, transportation challenges, air pollution and neighborhood safety
- Innovative solutions to the state’s public health and health care challenges.
Funding Information
- Admitted Fellows receive:
- A $2,000 stipend to defray reporting costs
- A multi-day, in-person training in beginner, intermediate or advanced Spreadsheets or RStudio
- Five months of professional mentorship with some of the top data journalists in the country
- Fellows also are eligible to apply for professional mentorship in engaged journalism and $1,000-$2,000 to support those creative efforts.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Fellowships are open to U.S.-based professional journalists writing for U.S. media outlets. Students are not eligible to apply.
- Freelancers are welcome to apply, but they must have a confirmed assignment with an outlet to be considered for acceptance. This includes a signed editor checklist and letter of recommendation. Freelancers (and editors at outlets) should know that the reporting stipends are not meant to substitute for regular freelance pay.
For more information, visit Center for Health Journalism.
