KFF Health News May 16, 2024
TURLOCK, Calif. — For much of his young life, Jorge Sanchez regularly gasped for air, at times coughing so violently that he’d almost throw up. His mother whisked him to the emergency room late at night and slept with him to make sure he didn’t stop breathing.
“He’s had these problems since he was born, and I couldn’t figure out what was triggering his asthma,” Fabiola Sandoval said of her son, Jorge, now 4. “It’s so hard when your child is hurting. I was willing to try anything.”
In January, community health workers visited Sandoval’s home in Turlock, a city in California’s Central Valley where dust from fruit and nut orchards billows through the air. They scoured Sandoval’s home for...