Laura Starecheski is a reporter and producer for Reveal. Previously, she reported on health for NPR’s Science Desk, was on staff at NPR’s “State of the Re:Union” and freelanced for “The World,” “Latino USA” and elsewhere. Her 2006 Radiolab story, “Goat on a Cow,” won a Third Coast Silver Award for best documentary, and “The Hospital Always Wins,” on “State of the Re:Union,” won a 2014 national Edward R. Murrow Award and a Third Coast Director’s Choice Award, among others. Starecheski was a 2012 Rosalynn Carter fellow for mental health journalism and a 2014 Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan. Starecheski serves on the board of The Association of Independents in Radio. She is based in Philadelphia.

Articles

Community's response to mental illness

<p>When someone living in New York's West African Communities shows signs of mental illness, friends and family don't send the individual to a doctor. The community gathers up enough money to send them to Africa for treatment. Laura Starecheski reports from New York.</p>

Reporter's Notebook: Repatriation

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Mental Health in the African Immigrant Community

<p>Recently, at a meeting of social workers serving African immigrants, I brought up the issue of mental health. “We don’t have a problem with mental illness in the African community,” a caseworker told me, citing the resilience of a population largely familiar with extreme poverty, human rights abuses, and instability.</p>