Kristin covers health care for Rhode Island Public Radio, Rhode Island's NPR station. Before joining RIPR, Kristin covered the environment and science for Louisville Public Media in Kentucky. And prior to that she was a reporter and host for Wyoming Public Radio. Kristin received her MS in journalism from Columbia University and her BA in anthropology from Lewis & Clark College. She's also taught undergraduate journalism and broadcast skills. For RIPR, Kristin covers all aspects of health care, from the burden of disease and health care disparities, to efforts to reform payment and delivery. She's won numerous national, regional, and local awards, most recently a regional Edward R. Murrow award for her year-long series "Future Docs," examining medical education in a changing health care landscape.

Articles

Health Equity & Social Justice
Children & Families
Community & Public Health

Children In Crisis: Home visiting aims to prevent child abuse and neglect

Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families is struggling to cope with an influx of neglect and abuse cases and has run into financial trouble. Reporter Kristin Gourlay explores how a national "home visiting" program aims to keep families from entering the system in the first place.

Race and Equity
Housing and Homeslessness

Learning to respect a patient's wishes at the end of life

The nation spends billions on care for patients during the last year of life. And a recent IOM report found all that spending isn’t necessarily helping us live longer or better. Is there a better way to help patients nearing the end of their lives get the kind of care they prefer?

Reporting on the turning point in the hep C epidemic

Last year marked a turning point for people living with chronic hep C and public radio reporter Kristin Gourlay led the way in documenting the bittersweet promise of new treatments. In this post, she shares how she reported the series and the resources she found invaluable.

Chronic Disease
A rapid hepatitis C test requires only a finger prick for a drop of blood and about a 20 minute wait to find out if you have been exposed to hepatitis C. A follow up confirmatory blood test is required to determine whether you've developed chronic hepatitis C infection. Credit Kristin Gourlay / RIPR

At The Crossroads, Part 8: Fueled By opioid abuse, new Hep C infections rise

In 2014, hundreds of Rhode Islanders died from accidental drug overdoses. For those who inject the drugs, there’s another risk: hepatitis C. In the final story in Kristin Gourlay’s “At the Crossroads” series, we meet a team of outreach workers determined to find new infections before it’s too late.