Audio Stories by Erin Bump

From the Stanford Center on Longevity, episode 4 of Century Lives: the 51%. What are autoimmune diseases, exactly? And how many people have them? Experts can’t quite agree on the precise number, but it’s a lot: somewhere between 10 and 15% of the population. And 80% of those people are women. Autoimmune diseases contribute significantly to a lower quality of life, and incidences of autoimmune diseases are dramatically increasing. Autoimmune diseases have typically been under-researched and, as a consequence, are poorly understood. But thanks to new funding and research, efforts are underway to gain new insights into this category of diseases that affect millions of women.    

From the Stanford Center on Longevity, episode 3 of Century Lives: The 51%. Everyone knows that heart disease is a men’s issue. But as it turns out, everyone is wrong. Heart disease is also the leading killer of women. And despite significant efforts to educate the public about women’s heart disease, the risks that women face are still badly understood—not just by the public, but by the medical community, too. Why are doctors still ill-prepared to treat women with heart disease? And why do so many women not realize the threat of cardiovascular disease to their own health?

Black mothers and babies have disproportionately poorer birth outcomes than all other races. LA County is working ferociously to reverse the statistics.Produced for Century Lives: A Lifetime of Inequality from the Stanford Center on Longevity.

Life in Eastern Kentucky is marked by drug use, job loss, and life expectancy decline. But in Wayne County, life is brighter—and against all odds, it's also longer.Produced for Century Lives: American Exceptionalism from the Stanford Center on Longevity. Winner of two Signal Awards and a New York Festivals Radio Award.

What could housing possibly have to do with life expectancy? Quite a bit, actually. We travel to the Bronx, the least healthy county in New York, where an affordable, working-class community called Co-op City has among the highest life expectancies in the entire city. Co-op City is also the nation’s biggest NORC, or naturally occurring retirement community. We investigate why the residents of Co-op City continue to stay there, even as they age, and meet the community's eldest resident—a supercentenarian.Produced for Century Lives: American Exceptionalism from the Stanford Center on Longevity.

Eric Brown is a marathon runner with an extraordinary goal: to run a marathon on every continent. When he reaches his final continent, Antarctica, he faces a surprising challenge. Produced in conjunction with the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Originally aired on Maine Public Radio.

Hop aboard the Casco Bay Mailboat—which, to the islanders who live off the coast of Portland, Maine, is not just for delivering mail. This audio postcard was produced in conjunction with the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.