Public Health Is Human Health: A Story from Columbus County, NC
In Columbus County in rural North Carolina, the COVID-19 pandemic changed how Lisa Richey thought about public health. Lisa came to Columbus County as a banker nearly 40 years...
What We Carry With Us
Vicki Wiggins worries about what happens when young people grow up surrounded by violence and become “unfortunately unfazed” by it. In Hertford County, Mayors Weyling White and Yahmale Vaughan...
Wilmington, N.C.’s RideMICRO and the Riders Who Need It Most
Lyft rideshare data shows Spanish-language riders in New Hanover County are 75% more likely to be women, and their trips are more likely to end at schools, workplaces, and...
Immigrants in a Low-Life-Expectancy Community in Wilmington, N.C., Encounter Transportation Disadvantages—Including Immigration Courts Hundreds of Miles Away
Vanessa Gonzalez is an immigration attorney in Wilmington. Many of her clients live in southeastern North Carolina.The federal offices deciding their cases do not. In this episode, Shoresides learns...
Stories from Hertford County: How Public Health Shows Up Every Day
How do we build strong public health systems? In rural Hertford County, North Carolina, the answer begins with people. These stories emerged from community story circles, where neighbors gathered...
Beyond the Rankings: Stories from Columbus County
What does health look like in a rural community? In Columbus County, North Carolina, it looks like a long drive to specialized medical care. It looks like a neighbor...
The RideShare Gap: One Wilmington Community Uses Rideshare for Convenience, Another for Survival
Poet Delthea Simmons had a license, a car on its last legs, and a hometown she loved. What she didn't have was reliable transportation—so she organized her shopping, her...
In Edgecombe County, a Fight Over Data Centers and Community Futures
Across the country, communities are confronting a new challenge: what happens when the growing demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure collides with local concerns about land, water, energy and quality...
The Hands Behind Our Food: Farmworker Stories from Rural North Carolina
Agriculture contributes billions of dollars to North Carolina’s economy and helps put food on tables across the country. Yet many of the workers who plant, harvest and process that...
The Stories We Tell About Rural Health
Across this series, we’ve explored the stories told about rural communities. This episode examines how rural health is framed — and what those narratives reveal about who belongs, who...
How trusted messengers in eastern North Carolina are building faith in public health
Public health depends on science. But science alone doesn’t build trust. In rural eastern North Carolina, trust is shaped by lived experience — by whether systems have shown up,...
What does it take to strengthen the systems people rely on in southeastern NC?
Health is often talked about as a matter of personal choice. But the truth is, our well-being is shaped by much more than individual decisions — it depends on...
