Insights

Fact-checking Obama on PTSD, pertussis in Canada, a commitment on AIDS and more from our Daily Briefing.

If you could do one thing to ensure that you had a long, healthy life, what would you do? If you have less than a high school degree at 25, you can expect to live another 44 years, on average. Those with a graduate degree, however, can expect to live another 60 years, on average.

The Chinese call it the hundred day cough. In Spanish it is tosferina or “Bark of the Dog.” Pertussis, a.k.a. whooping cough, is a disease that many thought to be a thing of the past, but has been making a comeback for several decades now. In some cases, it has been deadly.

Coaching works for weight loss, the gathering storm against Obamacare, health effects of climate change and more from our Daily Briefing.

Numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals about pain as well as media coverage of pain begin with the premise that far more people suffer from pain than are adequately treated for it. This broad trend may be true, but the specific numbers sometimes used to justify this assertion merit more scrutin

How can a reporter make those urgent stories on complicated health care topics feel urgent to the uninitiated? A compelling personal story isn't always enough to help the audience understand the deeper trend or causes. Sometimes the best solution is to find unusual sources or framing devices.

Tonight's keynote speaker Gregory Warner has opened my eyes to a different way of reporting.  It broke away from the tradition "personalizing" a story by including views from officials, experts, and even innamite objects.  Very interesting to me and I look forward to applying this approach....

    The fifth and final story in my series, "Invisible Nations, Enduring Ills," on health disparities affecting Native Americans in the Portland area ran today on the front page of The Sunday Oregonian. Today's story focuses on the dramatic success and efficiency of an innovative Native American health organization in Anchorage, Alaska, called...

Film moguls never anticipated the shooting just the other day of over 70 people with 12 dead at a midnight screening of the latest Batman film in Aurora, Colorado. The media has been quick to seek out so-called experts to comment on this man's behavior, thinking, his personality and every aspect they can possibly form into a question. The problem is that most of the experts are not experts in the true sense of having any educational background in dealing with individuals who engage in what must be seen as pathological behavior.

After several years on the health beat, I've learned that covering health more comprehensively means paying more attention to how people’s health is affected by where they live.