Jack EvansHealth Equity Reporter
Nothing excites me more than finding and telling a compelling, human story that illustrates a complicated issue. If you've got tips or story ideas, I want to hear them. I grew up in Tennessee, went to college at Indiana University and started at the Times shortly after graduating in spring 2018, and I love Florida and its idiosyncrasies (except the 90-degree October days). When I'm not at work, I write songs and spend too much time on Twitter. Let's talk about books and what new (or old) music you're listening to.
/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/tbt/39134d9b-0ece-44e2-8a58-82e2b6e0199c.png "Jack Evans - Health Equity Reporter")
![A proposal in Florida's budget would have put $2 million toward helping low-income women access long-term birth control, such as IUDs. For the second year in a row, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the item.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 562 316"/%3E "A proposal in Florida's budget would have put $2 million toward helping low-income women access long-term birth control, such as IUDs. For the second year in a row, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the item.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/YV3IGVT2KSI2RCU6T5T4NVUXRE.jpg "A proposal in Florida's budget would have put $2 million toward helping low-income women access long-term birth control, such as IUDs. For the second year in a row, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the item.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/Q5HTI3NFMFAXVJSM7QJIHLKSDE.png "The man they found dead there has not been identified, nor, police said, has “the nature of his trauma.”")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/6SPK33FVIBHVRPAKBYVAR722PA.jpg "\"Young people have been asking for (sterilizations) all along,\" one expert said — but doctors have often posed an obstacle, especially for young, childless women. Will a spotlight on sterilization after the fall of Roe change that?")
![Dr. Doug Stein applies lidocaine before performing a vasectomy in his Tampa office. [Times (2009)]](https://www.tampabay.com/resizer//YjH6_SbMPWUyhTRIuStgslazPLE=/200x112/filters:format(webP)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/RSLEGASINJAMBHRLJNCVGPYF4M.JPG "Dr. Doug Stein applies lidocaine before performing a vasectomy in his Tampa office. [Times (2009)]")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/CN2I7IQUBVBH5NLLFJGAG2KQ5U.JPG "An aerial view of the Howco Environmental Services plant, on 8th Ave S between 43rd Street S and 44th Street S, with homes in the Childs Park neighborhood pictured in the background on Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022 in St. Petersburg. Pollution is so bad in the Childs Park neighborhood that Fairmount Park Elementary had to rush kids inside during recess a year or so ago. The NAACP is teaming up with the Childs Park Neighborhood Association and the Sierra Club to launch a \"Smell something, say something\" campaign for this years-long problem.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/AFFGEDYDX5A3TMRM6VCRQZ6KE4.jpg "Hillsborough High School student Aanya Patel, 16, is pictured in her garage where 15,000 personal hygiene products, donated by Advent Health, are stored. Patel is working with Hillsborough County Public Schools to implement menstrual product dispensers in the bathrooms of the district's Title I schools.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/VRCFGN4QEYVLSGTDBNGQESXXSE.jpg "Flowers and candles are placed outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Wednesday to honor the victims killed in Tuesday's school shooting. Desperation turned to heart-wrenching sorrow for families of grade schoolers killed after an 18-year-old gunman barricaded himself in their Texas classroom and began shooting, killing several fourth graders and their teachers.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/AXHQGJBQJBGHPJEF6OD2QGNWBI.JPG "Robert Dinwiddie of St. Petersburg gets his nose swabbed during a COVID-19 test at Tropicana Field on Feb. 7. The test site closed two weeks later, part of a wave of closures that has left both sides of Tampa Bay, for the time being, without a free, walk-up site.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/VLUPHX4GIEF3YINNVPBUMCOZ2M.jpg "Shelves typically stocked with baby formula sit mostly empty at a store in San Antonio on May 10. Parents across the U.S. are scrambling to find baby formula and will likely continue to do so in the weeks to come.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/77AE6BEAHNDD3NSKPD3YYO52OU.JPG "Nadine Smith is the executive director of Equality Florida, the state's largest organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. On Monday, Time Magazine named Smith to its annual 100 Most Influential People list.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/RTNTH6ZPHVBPBERE6XRZC5UYXE.jpg "Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg has been designated as a level 1 children's surgery center by the American College of Surgeons. The distinction is shared by fewer than 50 hospitals across the country, none in Tampa Bay.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/XKNSBDZY5VAUPBOKPBKEFTAV7Q.JPG "Dominique Dudley, 31, gives a 7-ounce filled bottle to her 6-month-old son Amir at their St. Petersburg home on Thursday. His mother switched from breastfeeding to baby formula in January because she wasn’t able to pump during the day due to work. But now Amir's parents and parents across the country are grappling with the national baby formula shortage.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/IKPCHZQMYBC3DFKIJK42JMGIDA.jpg "Food items available at the Publix Community Market food pantry during Feeding Tampa Bay’s first “Senior Wellness Shopping Day,” which aims to get food to senior adults by adjusting the hours they come in to the pantry to earlier in the day. Seniors, who have been particularly affected by rising costs including grocery prices, told the organization they had concerns about driving in rush hour traffic and heading home later in the day when visibility might be a problem.")
:format(webP)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/EGY2AYCM2NG67M53YA7X2SSGKI.jpg "Kayla Benning, 27, with her son Jarvis Maynor, 4, and daughter Khaliah Maynor, 2, in the front of their yard on the corner of Ninth Avenue S and 43rd Street in St. Petersburg. Pictured across the street is Howco Environmental Services, an oil recycling operation with tall black tanks that rise above the Childs Park neighborhood.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/KMJFAZWFYZA37AOLQBIOEHIVRM.JPG "Marjorie Sherwin (left) and Rose Walton (right) were featured in a 2017 Tampa Bay Times photo project about great love stories. Walton, a pioneer in HIV/AIDS care and advocacy, died earlier this month at age 85.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/GWGEFPBSUNEKTLNXCKSQ2ICEYI.JPG "U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/DY2CVGKK35GKFN6V6EKZV6TJ3Q.jpg "Latorra Randle, director of community relations for local nonprofit Reach St. Pete, helps a person choose produce during a visit of the new, pop-up, free pantry built out of an old PSTA bus that was re-furbished as a small store, at the Enoch Davis Center, located in an area of the city where grocery stores are scarce, Thursday, March 24, 2022 in St. Petersburg.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/FWK6BB6EDNGQDAAL5PRIT47FYQ.JPG "Josh Reid, 37, of Brandon, receives a nasal swab COVID-19 test at the public drive-thru testing site at Hillsborough Community College’s Brandon campus on Feb. 7. Experts say COVID-19 treatments have largely failed to reach the most vulnerable populations, including people of color, those with low incomes and the immunocompromised. That problem could grow worse as federal pandemic funding runs out.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/U2JW4T22MFEIRGCR4TC7AYPOYY.JPG "Sandra Watson, 60, from St. Petersburg, swabs her own nose as she gets a COVID-19 test at the drive-thru test site in the parking lot at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg Feb. 7.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/CJFWM5TOKFH67I3PMNPZJDX6QE.jpeg "A child uses an inhaler to treat asthma. A newly released study, led by a University of South Florida professor, points toward a regimen that could help address racial disparities in asthma deaths and hospitalizations.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/QBTF7OZU3VH67AMH5IOWTUFZAQ.jpg "The entrance to Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/IJJ6ODJ2QVFSBF6RBEJNFQBAPA.jpg "A new Florida law may help ward off unwanted texts and calls from telemarketers.")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/FLUQXMZ645H4VJUUOBBXN4RVEM.JPG "Lorrie McMurrian, 39, along with the St. Petersburg Community Fridge that she oversees, outside of the Sustainable Family Services, at 8487 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N in St. Petersburg, on Dec. 15. Free fridges like this one have proliferated during the pandemic, amid rising food insecurity and the popularization of mutual aid.")
