Insights

You learn a lot when you spend months reporting on a given issue or community, as our fellows can attest. Whether you’re embarking on a big new story or seeking to go deeper on a given issue, it pays to learn from those who’ve already put in the shoe leather and crunched the data. In these essays and columns, our community of journalists steps back from the notebooks and tape to reflect on key lessons, highlight urgent themes, and offer sage advice on the essential health stories of the day. 

Need a Lift? An Overview

By Yvonne LaRose

Since the auto is becoming a luxury item in terms of cost and fuel, and because environmentally speaking, using a personal auto is becoming a less desirable option, it's important for Southern California urban planners to come up with transportation options.

When Data to Support Claims Are Scant

By Erica Peterson

To document Rubbertown, Ky., residents’ claims of unusually high rates of disease, I needed hard data. Originally, I had planned a health survey of the areas around the industrial plants. When that proved impractical, I enlisted a state health monitoring agency.

Revisiting Michigan's most devastating environmental disaster

By Valerie Lego

In 1973, nearly every Michigan resident was exposed to a toxic chemical. As I brought this story out of the shadows and examined the lasting health effects, I had an advantage: the story was heavily archived and documented.

Lessons from the Field: covering redevelopment projects as health projects

By Andrew Doughman

Several years ago, a young man was gunned down and stripped of his belongings -- the shooters even wrenched his dental gold out of his mouth -- in a public housing complex across the street from an elementary school in a poor neighborhood in Spartanburg, South Carolina. ...

Just One Breath: Senate resignation provides a lesson in journalism results

By William Heisel

Whether the subject is a money-squandering government agency or a looming public health threat or a failing school system, reporters want to be able to say something changed as a result of their reporting. Momentum might get going after a story, but continuing it is another matter.

Lessons from the Field: Multimedia Journalism

By Alison Yin

Photographer and multimedia journalist Alison Yin, a 2012 National Health Journalism Fellow, shares how she chronicled the “invisible” struggles of children with asthma through photos and audio.

“Emerging Young Adults” Adrift in Perfect Storm of Health Risks

By Lawrence Neinstein

As 18- to 25-year-olds try to find their footing, they face the least access to health care, have the highest uninsured rate, and struggle with greater behavioral and non-behavioral health risks than either adolescents aged 12-17 or young adults aged 26-34.