Elijah de Castro reports on health disparities for WAER, Syracuse Public Media. Prior to WAER, he was the health reporter at The Keene Sentinel, where he led the Monadnock Region Health Reporting Lab, a newsroom journalism project focused on investigative and solutions journalism about New Hampshire’s health care system. Previously, he was a climate fellow at the Solutions Journalism Network and a Report for America corps member in South Carolina, where he was on the rural communities beat covering issues like systemic poverty and gun violence in rural Allendale County. He got his start in journalism as News Editor of The Ithacan, the student newsroom of Ithaca College, where he graduated in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He is an avid player of pool and ping pong.
Beat: Health Disparities and Affordability in Central New York
Syracuse, NY consistently ranks among the nation’s poorest cities, with nearly one-third of residents living below the poverty line. These economic conditions drive health disparities, food insecurity, and chronic disease. Yet the connections between affordability, environment, and well-being remain underreported. The health equity reporter investigates how economic hardship shapes health inequities and elevates community-driven solutions through in-depth features, a narrative podcast series, and data-informed visual storytelling, amplifying voices often missing from local health policy conversations.