Healthbeat

Join Healthbeat for a community conversation on public health in Queens

2026-02-25T13:35:11+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

These are turbulent times in community health.

Federal funding that supports local health programs and food assistance is under threat. Climate change is bringing new health risks to neighborhoods. Vaccine confusion persists. And for many families, finding reliable health information — and affordable care — is only getting harder.

How is all of this affecting you?

Healthbeat is hosting a free community breakfast and conversation in Queens to hear directly from the people living and working through these challenges every day. We want to know:

How are you coping with uncertainty in health policy and funding?
What barriers are you facing when seeking care or trustworthy information for your or the clients you serve?
What solutions are emerging in your community?
What stories aren’t being told?

Join Healthbeat’s New York City reporter Trenton Daniel and me, Editor in Chief Charlene Pacenti, for a discussion about how health policy is playing out on the ground — in real neighborhoods, with real effects.

Whether you’re a concerned resident, health worker, epidemiologist, researcher, social worker, advocate, or someone serving your community another way, we want to hear your perspective. This conversation will help shape our reporting and ensure we’re covering the issues that truly impact Queens.

Admission and breakfast are free, but advance registration is required.

🗓 March 24, 9–10:30 a.m., King Manor Museum, 150-03 Jamaica Ave., Jamaica, Queens.

Come share your experiences. Help us tell the stories that need to be told. Register now to reserve your spot.

Charlene Pacenti is Editor in Chief of Healthbeat. Contact her at cpacenti@healthbeat.org.

What working in a clinic in rural India taught me about health care

2026-01-26T16:13:01+00:00

This story was part of Healthbeat’s live storytelling event, “Aha Moments in Public Health,” held Nov. 3 at Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta. Watch the full show here. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free Atlanta newsletter here.

In 2016 and 2017, I worked at a hospital and community health program in rural eastern India. That revolutionized my view of what health care could be like.

Everything in the system was geared to serve the patient: Signs over offices and paperwork included pictograms for the mostly illiterate people we served. This proved so effective that many of our village health workers successfully completed their work without ever learning to read.

We economized on everything, using mosquito nets for hernia repairs and washing gloves with bleach so they could be reused.

We didn’t have much – and it was by no means perfect – but what we did have was care; respect; compassion – all built into a community health system that actually served its community.

When I came back to Atlanta, I worked in hospital emergency rooms. Here, we had state-of-the-art equipment, highly trained staff, air-conditioning, and gloves galore. But something felt different to me. Patients and doctors spoke English, but talked right past one another. Doctors were scolded for taking too long with patients. Psychiatric patients and others lingered for days because we could find no place to send them.

And worst of all, we were all rowing in different directions. The doctors answered to one authority; the nurses to another; social workers and chaplains appeared and then disappeared; and no one seemed to care about the environmental services team, who worked so hard to keep the hospital clean.

Spending time at clinics like this one in rural Chhattisgarh in eastern India helped me rethink how health care is delivered.

I was disheartened that my hometown, a public health capital, couldn’t provide the kind of compassionate care I saw being provided in rural India. Yes, our patients were sick, but so was our system. For more than a year, I took all this in and bottled up my emotions, mostly, my anger and sadness.

Finally, I had an aha moment: I put down those bitter emotions and picked up my pen, pledging to write about what I knew. That was more than five years ago, and while I can’t claim to have fixed our broken system, I am proud to to be here, still writing about health in my hometown, learning from all of you, and carrying with me the compassion and can-do spirit that I learned thousands of miles away in rural India.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Rebecca Grapevine is back home as a Healthbeat local reporter. She has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan and in her travels learned to speak Hindi (nearly) fluently. Read her Healthbeat work here. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org.

Meet Trenton Daniel, Healthbeat’s new senior reporter in New York

2025-12-12T20:28:07+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

When we heard the initial reports of a cholera outbreak in the heart of Haiti, I dropped an assignment about a school opening and raced to a busy port city near the country’s longest river.

Saint-Marc was said to be the area hardest hit by the waterborne disease and that proved to be true. The main hospital, Saint Nicolas, was overrun with IV-tethered patients, from the corridors to the courtyard, as men showed up with sick family members on large beds that they had somehow liberated from their modest homes. The car radio crackled with stories of people collapsing in the street.

I had written about public health issues before, like child malnutrition in the Guatemalan countryside and illness linked to an incinerator ash in a historic Fort Lauderdale, Florida, neighborhood. But the cholera outbreak in Haiti was profoundly different: Imagine if a stranger came to town, ostensibly with good intentions, dumped his contaminated waste in a central waterway, and then thousands died and more fell sick. It would seem almost inevitable that the authorities would want to hold that individual liable for wrongdoing, but that really wasn’t the case in Haiti.

By all accounts, a United Nations peacekeeping mission from Nepal was found to have introduced cholera to Haiti in October 2010 by dumping its untreated fecal waste into the country’s main river. This was several months after the massive earthquake pummeled the Port-au-Prince capital, and humanitarian workers had already hailed the absence of disease.

The largest cholera epidemic in modern times followed. Officials say more than 10,000 people died, but the death toll is likely higher because of limited record keeping. Lawyers for the victims and family members unsuccessfully sued the U.N. in the U.S. court system. Due to mounting public pressure, in 2016, then-Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a public apology. In a memoir, he later described the lawsuit as a “fraudulent” extortion attempt. It could have undercut U.N. work everywhere had it prevailed, he wrote.

The Haiti cholera story made stark the political nature of health: Some lives are deemed worthy of being healthy, others less so. At every turn, I had tried to hold officials accountable, from the U.N. to Haiti’s health ministry, and it is this kind of accountability reporting that has informed my work over the years, from my early days as a beat reporter at The Miami Herald to, more recently, as a member of the AP global investigations team using public records to break news and bolster the news cooperative’s coverage. I want to bring this same commitment to holding officials accountable to my new role at Healthbeat.

The job comes at a time like no other for New York. Voters last month overwhelmingly rejected the political status quo as they elected Zohran Mamdani, a candidate from outside the Democratic establishment who aims to make one of the most expensive cities in the world more affordable for its residents. It’s a goal that sounds as pedestrian as it does profound. It will be interesting to see how the 34-year-old political newcomer delivers on his campaign promises following his Jan. 1 inauguration. He might be mayor of the largest (and arguably most dynamic!) city in the United States but he is unlikely to escape scrutiny as the country follows him, with a mix of cheer, curiosity and, for some, contempt.

With the support of his yet-to-be named commissioner, Mamdani will oversee the largest and oldest health department in the United States. His work will be cut out for him. His health care plan as presented during the campaign was noticeably thin, leaving some to wonder what he might have in store for a critical expense that is making life for many of us a little more unaffordable.

Because he has said so little, a preview of his health vision might be found in the composition of his transition committee, which is staffed with a mix of hospital executives, public and private university academics, union leaders, former health commissioners, and LGTBQ+ advocates. To be certain, parts of his campaign agenda overlapped with public health issues. A community safety initiative, for example, seeks to help New Yorkers experiencing mental health episodes by sending medical professionals, rather than just police officers with scant training, to the scene.

New York City’s health sector is poised to experience significant changes, ones that are bound to reshape the health and wellbeing of residents in all five boroughs. President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” includes major revisions to Medicaid financing and the Affordable Care Act. The New York state Department of Health estimates these changes could cause 1.5 million people to lose Medicaid coverage, and ACA recipients could see a spike next year in their deductibles and premiums. As such, New York hospitals and other health care providers will experience an increase in uncompensated costs, and a borough like the Bronx, whose economy is heavily reliant on hospitals, will bear further brunt.

I look forward to writing about a broad range of public health issues, from, of course, the Mamdani administration’s policies to the federal government’s Make America Healthy Again mandate. Other areas of keen interest include Greater New York’s efforts to keep pathogens at bay next summer when more than a million visitors are expected to show up to watch the 2026 World Cup, as well as plans to make the city’s aging infrastructure more climate resilient. We all know that, when a storm parks itself above New York, even for a few hours, we see flooding that looks like the end times on IG reels and brings the city to its knees.

That said, I’m seeking public health stories that are unique to New York; I’m also seeking unique public health stories that happen to be set in New York. These could be about, say, scientists in Queens doing ground-breaking work and/or research that raises broader questions about health, science, and climate. Above all, I want my reporting to do two things: Hold health officials accountable, be they from the White House or City Hall, and be interesting and illuminating.

I’d love to know more about the issues that concern Healthbeat readers and warrant deeper coverage during this pivotal time. What would you like to know more about? How are these new policies playing out in your communities and affecting you, your family, and friends? What’s working? What needs improvement?

If you happen to have any documents or emails you think I should see, please send them.

You can reach me at tdaniel@healthbeat.org or on the messaging app Signal at trentondaniel.88.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Trenton

Watch Healthbeat’s Alison Young on media’s role in investigating origin of Covid-19 pandemic

2025-10-29T20:54:55+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free national newsletter here.

Healthbeat Senior National Reporter Alison Young moderated a discussion this week on the media’s role in investigating the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic: Was it caused by an accident at a lab in Wuhan, China? Or an infected animal at a Wuhan market or in the wild?

The discussion, hosted by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., focused on the media’s role in exploring those two theories – and why they appeared to receive unequal coverage.

The question of the pandemic’s origin has been the subject of controversy and debate.

Government authorities in China have refused to provide international investigators from the World Health Organization with key data that would help solve the origin question. Information being withheld includes hundreds of viral sequences from people sickened earliest in the pandemic, details about animals sold in Wuhan markets, and details about research and biosafety conditions in Wuhan.

“As things stand, all hypotheses must remain on the table, including zoonotic spillover and lab leak,” the WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in June, when the organization released its latest report on the pandemic’s origin.

Over the years prominent scientists have published research that they have said provides an “extraordinarily clear picture that the pandemic started at the Huanan market” in Wuhan, and that their work “lays to rest the idea that the virus escaped from a laboratory.”

Meanwhile, intelligence agencies remain divided in their assessments of how the pandemic began. The Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation lean toward a lab-related event being the most likely cause. Other intelligence agencies lean toward a natural origin. All had “low confidence” in their assessments except for the FBI, which had “medium confidence.”

Young is a longtime public health reporter and is author of the 2023 book “Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk.”

As part of Brookings’ work on biosafety and pandemic prevention, Young moderated a “fireside chat” with Vanity Fair journalist Katherine Eban, who broke stories on the pandemic’s origin.

Watch the video here.

Calling NYC’s community health voices: Share your ‘Aha’ moments

2025-10-21T16:47:58+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

Hello, New York.

As Healthbeat moves into its second year, we want to shine a light on the people who carry the quiet weight of protecting our communities – those working on public health issues on the ground.

This November, we’re inviting New York’s public health community to step into the light and share the stories that reveal why this work matters, in their own words. Because behind every data point, every policy, every initiative, there are human moments — moments of clarity, heartbreak, hope, and resolve.

We want to hear your “Aha” moments. That instant when you understood your work’s true impact. The day you saw how a small act of care could ripple through a community. The conversation that changed your perspective. The breakthrough that illuminated a path forward.

If you work in community health — whether as an epidemiologist, nurse, researcher, social worker, volunteer, or myriad other related profession, here or abroad — we invite you to share a true story from your own experience. Set the scene. Let us feel what you felt. Tell us what you learned, and why it matters. Humor is also welcome!

Send your story (500-800 words) to community@healthbeat.org by Nov. 3.

We’ll publish the most powerful stories on Healthbeat and invite a select few of the authors to join us for a live evening of storytelling at 7 p.m. Nov. 18 at the Powerhouse Arena bookstore in Dumbo, Brooklyn. (Admission is free, but space is limited — reserve your ticket now.)

Storytellers chosen for the stage will receive coaching beforehand, so your voice and message shine.

This is more than an event — it’s a chance to help the community see the dedication behind public health, and to connect with neighbors who are working tirelessly for the greater good.

We can’t wait to hear your story.

If you’d like to get involved as a partner or sponsor, reach out to community@healthbeat.org. (We’re doing this in Atlanta, too. Learn more about that event here.)

Charlene Pacenti

Editor in Chief

This story was updated to extend the deadline for story submissions to Nov. 3. Keep them coming!

Meet Alison Young, Healthbeat’s new senior national reporter

2025-10-09T14:21:02+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free national newsletter here.

My introduction to covering public health came during an earlier time of turmoil and leadership exodus at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, which were quickly followed by deadly anthrax-laced letters sent through the U.S. mail, then-CDC Director Julie Gerberding in 2003 launched what was called the agency’s Futures Initiative.

The initiative, which went on for years, involved a massive reorganization of the CDC. Gerberding said the goal was to make the agency more nimble and effective in responding to the urgent and emerging threats of the modern world, such as bioterrorism and pandemics.

Yet prominent scientists and staff within the agency accused Gerberding, who was appointed during the administration of President George W. Bush, of creating a controlling, top-down management structure that added bureaucratic layers, stifled science, and put at risk the CDC’s ability to respond to a public health crisis.

As the full-time CDC beat reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution back then, I reported extensively on the wave of high-profile CDC leaders and scientists who were departing the agency, including the directors of six of the CDC’s then eight primary scientific centers, the agency’s pandemic influenza coordinator, and top experts in vaccines and several diseases.

The continuing departure of high-profile scientists and plummeting morale within the agency prompted five former CDC directors to privately send a rare joint letter to Gerberding in December 2005 expressing their “great concern.” The letter only became public because of my AJC reporting.

“We have all gone through periods of change and recognize the difficulties attendant to change. However, we are concerned about the previous and impending losses of highly qualified and motivated staff,” wrote former CDC directors Dr. William Foege, Dr. James Mason, Dr. David Satcher, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan and Dr. David Sencer, who led the agency during Republican and Democratic administrations going back to 1966.

“We are concerned that so many of the staff have come to us to express their concerns about the low morale in the agency. We are concerned about the inability of many of the partners to understand the direction in which CDC is headed,” they wrote.

Fast-forward to today and the seismic changes that are underway at the CDC and across every corner of the nation’s public health safety net.

The circumstances now are far different.

Federal health workers have been hit with mass layoffs; an important CDC vaccine advisory panel had all of its expert members replaced; a gunman opened fire on the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, killing a police officer; the most recent CDC director, Susan Monarez, was fired just a few weeks into the job; and other top CDC officials have resigned in protest over the way Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is remaking the CDC.

These days former directors and acting directors of the CDC are warning very publicly that the nation is being put at risk by wide-ranging directives from Washington that are “unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.”

It’s against this backdrop that I’m excited to join the team at Healthbeat as senior national reporter and return to covering public health full time during this critical period in our nation’s history.

I will be writing about a wide range of public health issues – from outbreaks and infectious diseases to vaccines, food safety, health disparities, chronic diseases, the Make America Healthy Again movement and more – and I will be helping explain how they impact all of us.

My reporting will shine a light on federal public health policy and agencies, as well as examine the risks, benefits, and scientific evidence for public health interventions.

I will be showcasing the people behind the work of public health, sharing their challenges and victories. I also will tell the stories of regular people across the country as they seek to keep themselves and their families healthy. And I look forward to highlighting public health solutions and providing independent and contextualized consumer resources to help readers make their own informed decisions.

I have spent most of my career reporting on health, science, and environmental issues at local and national news organizations that include USA Today, Knight Ridder’s Washington Bureau, the Detroit Free Press, and The Arizona Republic, in addition to the AJC.

At USA Today, my reporting revealed how substandard hospital care fuels childbirth deaths and injuries, the health risks posed by tainted dietary supplements, and the spotty enforcement of drinking water regulations. For a project called Ghost Factories, I was part of a team that traveled the country testing soil to show dangerous lead contamination in neighborhoods near the forgotten sites of smelters that had closed decades earlier.

At other news organizations, I’ve reported on the outbreak risks of low vaccination rates at individual schools, the failure of drinking water utilities to identify lead pipes in their systems, the dangers of unprotected hazardous chemical pipelines, and problems in the nation’s food recall system.

For more than a decade before the Covid-19 pandemic emerged near a major coronavirus research center in Wuhan, China, my reporting for USA Today and the AJC had been revealing serious safety breaches at prestigious U.S. labs, as well as the lax approach to biosafety oversight and regulation here and abroad that risked a future pandemic. This reporting is the underpinning of my recent book, “Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk,” which was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2023.

As I get started here at Healthbeat, I’m asking for your help. Please let me know the issues and topics you want me to cover. How are public health policies and approaches impacting you, your family, your organization, or your community? What’s working? What’s not working? What do you have questions about?

If you happen to have any documents or emails you think I should see, please send those, too.

You can reach me at ayoung@healthbeat.org or contact me on the messaging app Signal at alisonyoungreports.48

I look forward to beginning a conversation with you.

New from Healthbeat: Global Health Checkup will bring context to news from around the world

2025-09-25T20:00:43+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s Global Health Checkup in your inbox a day early.

Hello, Healthbeat readers.

Today, we are expanding our reporting, zooming out a bit more intentionally to provide more context to the story of global public health at this time of great upheaval.

William Herkewitz, a journalist and former communications director at USAID, is Healthbeat's global health writer.

The Trump administration’s decimation of American aid to foreign countries is a developing story that will have vast consequences. Our new Global Health Checkup will keep tabs on what’s happening on the ground abroad, informed by reporting from other local outlets, a perspective that is often missing from the conversation.

The weekly report will also bring context to a broader scope of news around global public health, to show how it’s all connected - and what it means for Americans.

Healthbeat’s 1st year: Explaining public health in chaotic times

We’re thrilled to have William Herkewitz to anchor this reporting. William has over 10 years of experience in science, health, and policy journalism. From 2016 to 2025, he also served as the head of communications at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s country offices in Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Kenya. He is based in Nairobi.

William’s experience gives him a keen grasp of the global public health landscape and how to tell that story in a way that Americans will hear it. That’s what Healthbeat is all about, and we’re excited to add this layer of context for our readers.

We’re launching the Global Health Checkup this week here at Healthbeat.org. It will soon become a newsletter, too. If you’d like to get it in your inbox a day early, sign up here.

Thanks for reading.

Charlene Pacenti

Editor in Chief

Stories worth sharing: Public health workers, scientists, tell us your ‘Aha’ moments

2025-09-24T15:10:03+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free Atlanta newsletter here.

Hello, Atlanta.

As Healthbeat moves into its second year, we want to shine a light on the people who carry the quiet weight of protecting our communities – those working on public health issues on the ground.

This November, we’re inviting Atlanta’s public health community to step into the light and share the stories that reveal why this work matters, in their own words. Because behind every data point, every policy, every initiative, there are human moments — moments of clarity, heartbreak, hope, and resolve.

If you work in community health — whether as an epidemiologist, nurse, researcher, social worker, volunteer, or myriad other related profession at home or overseas — we invite you to share a true story from your own experience. Set the scene. Let us feel what you felt. Tell us what you learned, and why it matters. Humor is also welcome!

Send your story (500-800 words) to community@healthbeat.org by Oct. 15.

We’ll publish the most powerful stories on Healthbeat and invite a select few of the authors to join us for a live evening of storytelling at 7 p.m. Nov. 3 at Manuel’s Tavern. (Admission is free, but space is limited — reserve your ticket now.)

Storytellers chosen for the stage will receive coaching beforehand, so your voice and message shine.

This is more than an event — it’s a chance to help the community see the dedication behind public health, and to connect with neighbors who are working tirelessly for the greater good.

We can’t wait to hear your story.

Thank you to the Georgia Health Initiative for its sponsorship of the event. There is still room for more partners and sponsors. Email us at community@healthbeat.org if you want to get involved.

Charlene Pacenti

Editor in Chief

Healthbeat’s 1st year: Explaining public health in chaotic times

2025-08-26T11:00:00+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

Happy 1st Birthday to Healthbeat!

We launched on Aug. 26, 2024, as the only newsroom committed exclusively to covering public health in America.

It was already an urgent need as Civic News Company – creator of Chalkbeat and Votebeat – laid the groundwork for this nonprofit project in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fast-forward to 2025, and the events of the past few months under the new Trump administration have only made our reporting more vital.

As health and science research is disrupted or canceled, longstanding policies on vaccines and other disease prevention are upended, global aid is cut off, and federal health funding cuts trickle down to local communities, Healthbeat is here to explain what it all means – in a nonpartisan voice, centering scientists and other experts you can trust.

Our inaugural bureaus in New York City and Atlanta have reported impactful stories that have been republished and shared locally and nationally. We’ve been privileged to meet so many people who are doing the vital work of public health – at home and abroad.

We’re working on some live events so you can meet them, too, and hear some of their stories firsthand. Stay tuned for details.

We’re expecting a momentous second year, adding new staff to meet this critical moment – and to bring Healthbeat to other cities. Should yours be one of them? Email us: expansion@civicnews.org.

In the meantime, catch up and learn from some highlights of Healthbeat’s first year of reporting. (And sign up for our newsletters so you won’t miss a thing).

Public health is local

When Rebecca Grapevine arrived at Healthbeat Atlanta, she discovered right away that the Georgia Board of Public Health had gone several months without a public meeting, even as the state was facing numerous crises: the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, a chemical fire at the BioLab chemical plant that was spewing pollution into the air, a summer Covid surge. Since our reporting on why open government is important, the board has met more regularly.

This year, we’ve been working to understand how the Trump administration’s cuts to federal health funding affect communities. New York City reporter Eliza Fawcett was among the first to detail the impact it would have there – billions of dollars in losses and disruptions to programs like Head Start.

Grapevine has exposed how HIV workers were laid off, then reinstated, in Fulton County; how Atlanta startups that depend on federal contracts are being disrupted; and layoffs at Emory University, among many other impacts.

Our rare glimpse inside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta showed how scientists, researchers and other workers are coping with disruptions to important health projects, and then the aftermath of a shooting.

Public health is prevention

Our science-based guides explain how to protect against infectious diseases and environmental health threats, including:

Ticks: Tick populations are surging in the Northeast – and so are related infections.
Extreme heat: How to stay safe in scorching temperatures; and how Atlanta lacks enough weather stations to provide neighborhood data.
Tuberculosis: The world’s most deadly disease is on the rise again. Here’s what to know about it in New York City and Atlanta.
Measles: How doctors and clinics can prepare for a measles comeback decades after it was eradicated; how an Atlanta pediatrician advises parents; how Georgia officials contained an outbreak, and how to reduce your family’s risk.
Vaccines: Why immunization is important for community health, no matter where in the world you live.
HIV: Georgia tops states in new HIV cases. Here are 10 easy ways to get tested in Atlanta.

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Public health is community

Some of the best sources for what’s going on in public health are those serving the community at the ground level. We think of them as “civic catalysts” because they are the helpers connecting their neighbors with resources to stay healthy, a bridge between people and policy, getting things done. Focusing on their work helps readers learn about challenges and solutions.

Here’s a sampling of those stories:

People helping each other: ‘A place of empathy’: Queer mutual aid group helps New Yorkers with disabilities
Lifeline for older adults: How a NYC center for older adults tripled membership in a year and aims to be national model
Teen wellness: Nutrition expert vows to continue wellness club for NYC teens after USDA cut it
Health and the arts: Atlanta theater that used arts to combat vaccine misinformation loses HHS funding
Young caregivers: Metro Atlanta program looks to support high-schoolers responsible for caregiving at home
Community health workers: East Point’s ‘Miss Morehouse’ works to build trust as community health worker
Scientific research: Morehouse School of Medicine researcher aims to improve prostate cancer screening for Black men

Public health is national – and global

As epidemiologists often say, infections don’t recognize borders. In that way, and many others, local public health is tied to national and global public health. Look at how the West Texas measles outbreak spread to four other states and Mexico.

Helping other nations prevent disease keeps those infections from traveling. There are also economic and diplomatic reasons for the United States to provide global health aid, as we’ve reported, for example, on the PEPFAR program that supports AIDS relief overseas.

The Trump administration this year has gutted U.S. global health aid, dissolving the U.S. Agency for International Development. Besides endangering lives abroad, the funding cuts have resonated in places like Atlanta, which is home to nonprofits like CARE International that administer the aid, the Task Force for Global Health, and global health workers at the CDC.

Here are some other ways that global public health hits home:

TB in Georgia: ‘Global work on a local level’: DeKalb gets new tuberculosis clinic
Immigrant hunger: New York City food pantries work to give immigrants a taste of home. Trump’s aid cuts are making it harder.
Maternal health: From Kenya to New York: How a global nonprofit is addressing local maternal health needs
Foreign-trained doctors: Georgia has a doctor shortage. Barriers to training keep foreign-credentialed physicians from filling the gap.
Dengue in California: Cases prompt swift response from public health officials
Mpox: NYC Health Dept. urges mpox vaccination amid global emergency

What else should we be covering? Email us at community@healthbeat.org. And we’d be grateful for your feedback in the survey below. If you don’t see the form, head to this link to open it in a new window.

Thank you for reading.

Charlene Pacenti, Editor in Chief

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U.S. nurses: What are the health needs in your community? Healthbeat wants to hear from you.

2025-06-30T18:56:49+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free Atlanta newsletter here.

Nurses across America, Healthbeat wants to hear from you.

As we work to cover public health across the United States – and in our launch communities of New York City and Atlanta, with more to come – we’d like to learn about your experiences.

As community caregivers, nurses are among the most trusted professionals in the United States. We’re eager to get your insights.

If you’re a nurse willing to share your perspective, please take our survey at this link. It only takes 5 minutes, and you can participate anonymously if you wish.

What health needs do you see in the communities you serve? How is local media covering public health in your community? What stories deserve more attention?

You will be helping shape Healthbeat’s journalism. We will read every response. And as a thank you, five respondents will be chosen at random to win a gift card.

We appreciate your participation and sharing the survey with the nurses in your network.

Have a question? Reach us at community@healthbeat.org.

List your community health events in the new Healthbeat Events calendar

2024-12-06T16:35:47+00:00

The Healthbeat Events calendar is live and ready to help spread the word about health-related community happenings in Atlanta, New York and nationally.

You can find the searchable database on the Events page.

To submit an event, click on “List Your Event” at the top of the page and fill in the form. It’s free to post free events. For job fairs or events that require an admission fee, the cost is $25. (We plan to launch a separate jobs board soon.)

Even for free events, you will need to create a Healthbeat account with your name, etc., so we can reach you if there are questions about your listing.

To browse events in your area, click on “Browse Events.”

Categories include community events like health fairs, health department meetings, community forums, personal physical and mental health classes and workshops, preventative fitness, health and nutrition classes, and continuing education events for health professionals.

We look forward to seeing the events you have planned and helping our readers find the community resources they need to make good decisions about their health and the health of those around them.

You’ll see our events section on the sidebar of our webpages and in our newsletters as events start getting posted.

Go here to get started. Thank you for participating!

Listen: Healthbeat staff talk vaccinations, bird flu and other public health stories on ‘What the Health’

2024-11-26T20:34:23+00:00

Healthbeat staff dropped in on the “What the Health” podcast with Julie Rovner at KFF Health News in Washington, D.C., to talk about our work on public health and what stories to be watching.

Healthbeat Editor in Chief Charlene Pacenti, national reporter Amy Maxmen, and New York reporter Eliza Fawcett discuss vaccination rates - from Covid to childhood shots - bird flu, the importance of community trust in the public health system, and changes expected under a new administration in Washington.

The episode, “Public Health and the Dairy Cow in the Room,” was released Tuesday.

KFF Health News is Healthbeat’s national reporting partner.

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What comes next for America: A message to readers

2024-11-12T17:17:44+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free national newsletter here.

I want to say something to our readers and our supporters here at Civic News Company about last week’s presidential election. However you voted, many of us right now are united in a sense that our politics are broken — and that our country may not be able to take on the challenges we face.

I think we can. But to get there, we have to repair something that goes deeper than politics. We have to repair the fabric of our civic life.

Healthy civic exchange across diverse American communities — real-life, non-virtual communities — has been fraying for decades. But that erosion has sparked a counter-force, a fledgling movement for civic renewal. People trading toxic shouting for real conversation. Communities crossing divides. Journalists like us forming outlets like Chalkbeat, Votebeat, and Healthbeat, where people can get trustworthy reporting about issues in their communities, in defiance of polarization and misinformation.

The truth is that when Americans get the tools to work on real issues in their local communities, they solve problems and create healthier politics. They become what we at Civic News Company call “civic catalysts.” They show up to public meetings; they start organizations; they run for office.

We’ve seen this in our work at Civic News Company through both the Trump and Biden years. We’ve seen ordinary people take action to bolster the integrity of their county elections after Votebeat reports on proposed or real changes. We’ve seen parents and students become aware through Chalkbeat of well-intended changes in education laws that went awry and work to overturn them. In many cases, we have seen Republicans and Democrats work together, changing course when Chalkbeat and Votebeat’s reporting showed them that their actions harmed fair voting or local schools.

We need many more civic catalysts. Because whether you find the potential policies of the second Trump administration thrilling or terrifying, you have to see that our country has challenging business in front of us. We’ll have to consider and track Trump’s explosive policies as they shape life in actual communities, from promised deportations to his proposal to eliminate the Department of Education to the possibility of a vaccine skeptic holding the highest public health position in the land.

Trump aside, schools face an “education depression”: Student achievement has declined for the first time in decades (a trend that actually preceded Covid). Since Civic News Company has started reporting on public health with the launch of Healthbeat this summer, we’ve learned that many experts see another pandemic as not an if but a when. Meanwhile, our public health system remains unprepared, and on top of that faces a public health skeptic in the incoming president.

Pillars of our democracy that we were fortunate to take for granted now require vigilant attention. The U.S. system for elections was severely tested, and while it actually came out stronger, it is nonetheless plagued by distrust. The Jan. 6 attack and two recent assassination attempts on President-elect Donald Trump show a rising tendency toward political violence. And our media is corrupted by misinformation, magical thinking, foreign interference, and a fourth estate reduced both by diminishing economic prospects and declining credibility.

In the face of these challenges, we cannot throw up our hands. We have to enter the arena. Like you, our readers and supporters, already do.

You support organizations like ours as a vote for a healthier democracy.

And you are yourselves civic catalysts.

You are teachers, young people, and parents who look out not just for your own interest, but ask what’s going on in your community and what you can do to help. You are voters, election officials, and poll workers who monitor democracy’s most precious system, and take action if a law or policy threatens it. You are community leaders who work to improve your neighbors’ health.

You are the reason I know that we can set toxicity aside and start solving the big problems in front of us. And you inspire me to be my own civic catalyst, in the best way I know how — doing everything in my power to keep Chalkbeat, Votebeat, and Healthbeat strong. With your support, we can help you make this country a better place, one local issue at a time.

Elizabeth Green is the founder and CEO of Civic News Company.

Meet Healthbeat's new Atlanta reporter, inspired by power of health journalism

2024-10-17T14:23:24+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free Atlanta newsletter here.

My introduction to health reporting came from a last-minute change — at least the way I understand it.

I was one of 10 high school summer interns at the San Diego Union-Tribune, my hometown newspaper. During the third week of the program, each of us was assigned to a full-time journalist; for a few days, we would help the reporters, and the reporters would show us what it’s like to produce stories.

Before the program coordinators announced with whom we would be paired, I managed a glance at a sheet with assignments. My name was next to the paper’s renowned investigative journalist. But, when the coordinators made the official announcements, I learned I would be helping one of the paper’s science and health reporters.

That reporter introduced me to ideas about how powerful science journalism can be. By taking complicated ideas and expressing them clearly, he said readers could have more control over their health. That concept captivated me. When I started college a couple months later, I wanted to be a science and health journalist.

Over the next four years, I did some reporting for my college newspaper’s science and technology desk and took classes with health journalists. But my perspective on what health journalism could accomplish changed. I learned more and more about systems that prevented people, often those from marginalized backgrounds, from living healthy lives. By itself, I found that information about personal health decisions often isn’t enough to change how people get sick and which groups are at high disease risks.

To address these disparities and deeply rooted health problems, it felt important to understand how they were caused. So I enrolled in an applied epidemiology Master of Public Health program right after college, as the COVID-19 pandemic took its unequal, inequitable toll on Americans.

I learned more about how and why people got sick and died prematurely, and I practiced using journalism to change them. A kind professor at the School of Journalism let me take her graduate reporting class, where I spent the semester reporting with refugee communities in Greensboro, North Carolina. They taught me how government systems could fail them, leading to worse health experiences for their families.

By the time I finished my master’s degree, I knew the type of journalist I wanted to be: one who combines the narratives of communities experiencing health problems with strong research to write compelling stories.

Mountain State Spotlight was the first place where I could consistently do this work. The newsroom — a West Virginia nonprofit news outlet — hired me to be its public health reporter in 2022. Over the next two years, I spent my days driving across West Virginia, interviewing people experiencing major health problems and researching how these issues could improve.

I learned how powerful groups, like large companies, could harm the health of their neighbors, employees, or consumers. I learned how government groups tasked with fixing these problems could take years before adequately addressing them, fail to do anything at all, or actively make things worse.

Now Healthbeat has hired me to do similar work in Atlanta. I’m thrilled and cautious about the opportunities that come with this job. I’ve seen firsthand what health journalism can do to help people live healthy, happier lives. But I also know reporters have platforms that can be abused, and some stories forsake the people they claim to serve.

My commitment to Atlanta is to do everything I can to report responsibly and honestly. That means always centering the people and communities experiencing public health problems when writing my stories, acknowledging the areas I have a lot to still learn about, and affirming Healthbeat’s mission to serve the public.

I hope you follow along with my co-workers and me as we go about our public health reporting. We have lots of stories to tell.

Allen Siegler is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Allen at asiegler@healthbeat.org.

New Yorkers, meet Your Local Epidemiologist

2024-09-30T10:00:00+00:00

We have some exciting news for Healthbeat’s New York readers.

This week, we are welcoming a new contributor and the formal launch of our partnership with Your Local Epidemiologist.

Meet Dr. Marisa Donnelly, a research epidemiologist with a decade of experience in public health. She’ll be providing New Yorkers with reports every week on what’s happening, from infectious disease threats to the latest intelligence on vaccines and other important information. Think of her reporting as a community health forecast.

Marisa, who holds a PhD in epidemiology and works at wastewater monitoring firm Biobot Analytics, has more than 10 years experience in public health. She has specialized in infectious diseases and emerging threats, serving at the California Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

She joins the Healthbeat team to translate public health science so people have the information they need to make evidence-based decisions about their health — and the well-being of the people around them.

We’re excited to add Marisa’s reports to Healthbeat as we bring the story of public health to our communities, grounded in data and science.

Your Local Epidemiologist was founded by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, a Healthbeat supporter who has grown her popular national newsletter into a must-read for 268,000 subscribers. Marisa will use her expertise to localize the YLE approach for New York readers.

You can find Marisa’s reports on Healthbeat New York starting Wednesday. Sign up here to get them direct to your inbox a day early. You can sign up here for YLE’s national newsletter.

We’d also love to hear from you about what public health topics Marisa and our New York public health reporter Eliza Fawcett should be pursuing. Fill out this form to send us your thoughts.

We’re listening.

Charlene Pacenti, Editor in Chief

Healthbeat's New York reporter discusses West Nile virus on WNYC

2024-08-27T19:21:17+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

Healthbeat New York reporter Eliza Fawcett joined “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC on Tuesday to give a public health update on several viral threats.

Fawcett’s recent reporting has focused on cases of West Nile virus in the city and what you need to know about the risk amid peak mosquito season.

“The best way to protect against it is to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes,” Fawcett said.

The city has been spraying neighborhoods with pesticides to mitigate the risk of West Nile virus.

Lehrer and Fawcett also discussed HIV, mpox and Covid in the city.

New Covid vaccines have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and will be available soon. When people should get them depends on their personal risk factors — and whether they were recently infected during this summer’s spike in cases.

Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org.

Welcome to Healthbeat

2024-08-26T10:41:09+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free national newsletter here.

Hello from Healthbeat as we celebrate our official launch!

I’m Charlene Pacenti, the inaugural Editor in Chief.

I’m privileged to lead a team at Civic News Company and KFF Health News working to tell the story of public health in America. It’s an essential story for these skeptical times, when people need reliable coverage of the safety net our public health system is supposed to provide.

We have learned hard lessons in the Covid-19 pandemic about the shortcomings of that system — or have we?

The pandemic’s arrival was a global public health story that hit home for everyone in disruptive and tragic ways. Many of us lost loved ones. Many of us are still struggling with new cases of the illness, or the aftereffects of earlier cases, with long-term effects still unknown.

At Healthbeat, we will cover the news around the systems of prevention — infectious diseases for sure, but also air and water quality, food safety and the research in a quest for breakthroughs to shore up our collective well-being.

We’re looking at the public health challenges in dealing with intensifying heat waves brought by climate change and the threat posed by a bird flu outbreak. We’ll hold officials accountable for spending and also for finding solutions to the issues we are all facing

We’re starting in New York City and Atlanta, with a third location coming next year. (Should that be your city? Email us here.) We are joining forces with KFF Health News to provide in-depth national reporting on critical issues and the science driving the news. We are working with public health expert Katelyn Jetelina to offer local scientific expertise from Your Local Epidemiologist.

As we ramp up, we’ll be out in the community, talking to you about your concerns. How is the public health system working for you? Where is it failing?

What solutions do you see? Whose voices are being left out of the conversation? Tell us. We’ll share your stories and work to get answers.

We’re particularly interested in hearing from front-line workers in public health: nurses, social workers, service organizations, volunteers from houses of worship and others filling the gaps in underserved communities. How can we serve you? Tell us your stories. Invite us to your next meetup. Email us here.

We’re building Healthbeat to help everyone understand how the public health system works so we can all work to make it better.

Let’s get started.

Charlene Pacenti, Editor in Chief

New York City: What should we know about public health in your neighborhood?

Atlanta: What should we know about public health in your neighborhood?

Meet Healthbeat’s Atlanta reporter: Coming back home, to Atlanta and public health

2024-08-16T16:25:03+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free Atlanta newsletter here.

You can go home again, it turns out.

After graduating from Chamblee High School in 2000, I left Atlanta. My plan was to live a life doing exciting things far away from my hometown.

I managed to do that, eventually finding my way to health care work in rural India.

But as is so often the case, the farther away you go, the more you realize how much your home has shaped you.

My love for learning new languages and trying to understand other cultures — that was forged by my years in DeKalb County’s public schools.

My desire to help make the world a healthier and more equitable place was clearly shaped by growing up in the shadow of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I wanted to learn others’ stories and try to write some of my own. Is there anything Southerners love more than a well-narrated tale, with lots of juicy details?

When I returned to Atlanta in 2017, I embraced the city.

I picked up a job in Atlanta emergency rooms. On my time off, I soaked in the local culture: comedy, live music, plays, and the symphony.

At work in the ER, I had a backstage pass to another Atlanta, the one where doctors and nurses and police officers and EMTs and anxious parents and people in pain strove to choreograph services to preserve life and health.

That real, complex emergency room dance is an unfiltered view of people from every background struggling with serious challenges. It could be upsetting, but it was also inspiring and highly educational.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, I decided it was time to take what I’d learned and start writing. I have a unique perspective on how the health care system worked and didn’t. I was fortunate to find a home at Georgia Health News, which is now part of KFF Health News, Healthbeat’s national reporting partner.

I went on to report on health, government and more for other outlets, including Decaturish, the Atlanta Business Chronicle, and Capitol Beat News Service.

Almost five years later, it’s still thrilling to report on Atlanta. I hope to take everything I’ve learned about public health and tell interesting stories for Healthbeat. I’d like to help explain the public health system, highlight the people and organizations who are finding solutions, and ask tough questions about how the system works or doesn’t.

Most of all, I want to hear what other Atlantans think about our public health system. What’s working and what isn’t? What challenges do we face, and what do Atlantans hope for from their public health system? What stories aren’t being told?

My inbox is open for questions, story ideas and thoughts (RGrapevine@healthbeat.org) and you’ll see me out and about at community events.

I’m looking forward to meeting you.

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Meet Healthbeat’s NYC reporter: Covid was baptism by fire

Welcome to Healthbeat

New York City: What should we know about public health in your neighborhood?

2024-07-30T14:12:33+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

At Healthbeat, we want to report on the public health issues that matter most to New Yorkers.

Public health is the science of preventing disease and improving life at the population level. That means using evidence-based strategies to address problems in your neighborhood, your borough, and your city.

These issues are threaded through our lives — even though we might not always realize it.

How safe is the water that you drink, and the air that you breathe? Is there lead or mold in your apartment? Has there been a disease outbreak at your workplace or in your child’s school? Can you get health care when you need it? Are you worried about climate change?

We’re eager to get into issues like these — and others we don’t know about. Tell us: What should we know about public health in your community?

Fill out the survey below to share your story with our newsroom. A Healthbeat journalist may reach out to learn more.

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Atlanta: What should we know about public health in your neighborhood?

2024-07-30T12:35:19+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free Atlanta newsletter here.

Healthbeat, a new nonprofit news platform reporting on public health, is launching in Atlanta.

And we want to hear from you.

In the back yard of America’s health department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta is arguably a global public health capital. But that doesn’t mean the local public health system is working for everyone.

A shortage of public health workers, high rates of HIV, a maternal health crisis — these are some of the issues we know about. We’ll also be reporting on epidemiology and preparedness for the next outbreak, as well as air and water quality, the public health threat of extreme heat and how hospital closures are affecting the healthcare safety net.

We want to hear from you: What are the Atlanta public health stories that haven’t been told?

How is the public health system working in your neighborhood? What’s going well? What isn’t? What solutions do you see? Whose voice is left out of the conversation?

Please fill out the form below to help us tell the stories that are important to you.

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Meet Healthbeat’s NYC reporter: Covid was baptism by fire

2024-07-29T20:23:47+00:00

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York City newsletter here.

In early 2020, six months into my first full-time reporting job, Covid-19 tore across the United States. A journalist for the Hartford Courant in Connecticut, I was reassigned from state politics to public health. My world suddenly shifted from voters to ventilators.

Following that baptism-by-fire moment, I began to settle into the work of covering the pandemic as a local reporter. Over my years on the beat, I got to know doctors and researchers throughout the state as they struggled to understand a virus that changed at warp speed — and claimed patient after patient. As vaccines rolled out, I followed a fleet of nurses who went to the bedsides and kitchen tables of homebound residents, putting shots into arms. I memorialized residents who died, and wrote about the struggles of those who survived with lives irrevocably altered by long Covid.

I also covered the politicization of Covid-19 mitigation measures and the spread of misinformation. I reported on the successes of the state’s public health response, and the times at which it faltered and failed. And as a statewide crisis emerged in children’s mental health, I chronicled families’ desperate attempts to secure psychiatric care for their kids, only to encounter long waitlists and overwhelmed ERs. Above all, I tried to capture an unprecedented era — and help readers navigate it.

Four years into the pandemic, I’ve found my way back to my hometown to cover public health as Healthbeat’s first New York City reporter. Covid-19 remains with us, and much of what I learned as a reporter during those early years has stayed with me, too.

At Healthbeat, I aim to center the experiences of frontline health workers and those directly affected by public health issues. I intend to use all the tools at my disposal — interviews, research, data and public records — to help readers understand key topics in public health. And I hope to deliver vital accountability reporting on public health systems, which don’t have enough watchdogs — even in New York.

Before landing at Healthbeat, I covered national news as a fellow for The New York Times and worked as a freelancer in New York, investigating county jails for New York Focus and reporting on city news. I remain interested in the intersection of public health and criminal justice issues, as well as the opioid crisis, which I’ve reported on in Chicago and from a small corner of West Virginia.

Growing up in Brooklyn, I’ve seen firsthand the immediate devastation — and enduring public health ramifications — of many of New York’s greatest catastrophes, from 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy to Covid-19. The city is still grappling with the long tails of those crises as it prepares for the disasters of the future.

We face a slew of other pressing public health issues as well, from infectious disease outbreaks and environmental hazards in our air, water, and homes, to gun violence and the worsening effects of climate change. I’m keen to dive into those issues, and more, in communities across the city.

I’m eager to hear what you think I should cover, or anything that deserves a closer look. If you’d like to send a comment or question my way — or just say hi! — please reach out: efawcett@healthbeat.org.

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