Jill Braden Balderas

Contributing Editor, Center for Health Journalism Digital

Jill Braden Balderas is a multimedia journalist focusing on medicine and health policy.  She has covered these issues on six continents and across all mediums, including in The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, PRI’s “The World,” North Carolina Health News, Kaiser Health News and numerous international TV networks.  In 2011, Balderas was awarded a fellowship by the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University to cover malaria in Uganda.  As managing editor at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C., Balderas oversaw several news and information publications focusing on domestic and global health policy issues from 2003 to 2011.

Prior to Kaiser, Balderas served as a correspondent and senior producer at Reuters Television.  She covered everything from cloning to the U.S. anthrax attacks and won a Unity Award for her television broadcast coverage of diabetes on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  Before joining Reuters, she freelanced for Health24News and various national and international radio stations covering the 2000 U.S. elections. During this time, she wrote a special series on health in then-war-torn Sudan as well as HIV/AIDS in Kenya.

Balderas was also a reporter and editor for National Journal’s The Hotline and Politics Daily publications and a political analyst for MSNBC.  Balderas has undergraduate degrees in Spanish and psychology from The University of Georgia and a master of public health in epidemiology from The George Washington University. 

Articles

Which Came First: The Obesity Or The Related Disease?

A study last week by researchers at UCLA published in the journal Academic Pediatrics garnered surprisingly few headlines. What makes this study unique is that it is the first to examine and discover that obesity parallels a long list of other health conditions in children.

Chronic Disease

Taxes, Regulations & Election Spending: Tobacco Control in the U.S.

The tobacco industry has never been shy about flexing its financial muscle to influence policy. A report released this week looks at the tobacco lobby’s efforts to derail increased cigarette taxes and another sheds some not so flattering light on state and federal efforts to control tobacco use.

Preventing Gun Violence: Where are the Data?

A compelling patient or researcher makes a story engaging; concrete statistics make a story valid. Data, however, aren’t always clear-cut, and experts disagree on interpreting and applying it. Statistics on gun violence and how to reduce it fall prey to the same dichotomy.

Moving Policymakers To Tip Scales On Childhood Obesity

Even with major initiatives from such high-profile entities as the NFL and First Lady Michelle Obama pounding the message of exercising and healthy eating, childhood obesity in the U.S shows few signs of abating. Could more influential policy be the answer?