1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
Title of Series: PBS NewsHour Health Beat 2010.
"Four Years after Healthcare Reform: An Update on Care in Massachusetts"
"Mississippi ‘Food Deserts' Fuel Obesity Epidemic"
"How is the Gulf Coast Mentally Coping with Devastation of Two Disasters?"
Journalists Involved: Betty Ann Bowser and Bridget DeSimone.
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
"Mississippi ‘Food Deserts' Fuel Obesity Epidemic," Original Airdate: June 3, 2010
"How is Gulf Coast Mentally Coping with Devastation of Two Disasters?," Original Airdate: Aug. 26, 2010
"Four Years after Health Policy, an Update on Care in Massachusetts," Original Airdate: Nov. 15, 2010
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Our Health Beat continually reports on health care and health policy in the U.S. In 2010, it produced 79 broadcast segments, 171 online exclusives and eight lesson plans and articles geared to teens. In these three stories, Bowser and DeSimone explore some of the main health issues facing our country today: insurance coverage, food sources and mental health. Good health begins with access to nutritious food. Many rural communities, once hubs for farming, now are being coined food deserts, where healthy foods are unavailable. These formerly financially nimble communities now lack goods and services for their residents. The result: obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Bowser and DeSimone also went to Massachusetts to see what lessons that state could offer for the national debate on health care. Four years ago, Massachusetts created a mandatory health insurance program that now has a 74 percent approval rating. The unit looks at what challenges the state still faces and what new goals are being set to contain rising health care costs. And finally: a segment from New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, life for citizens in the Gulf became about tending to basic needs: food, shelter and the next paycheck. Processing heartache, frustration and the enormity of devastation would have to wait. Then the BP oil spill dealt Gulf residents another blow. These two catastrophes created a climate for depression and domestic violence. DeSimone and Bowser speak with survivors and question why so few mental health care services are available.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
1. Massachusetts Health Care: We did research through the websites and policy experts at the following organizations: The Cato Institute, The Kaiser Family Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund and the health policy groups at MIT and Harvard University School of Public Health. Economist Jon Gruber was also helpful. We also used information from public records on emergency use since health care reform passed there, as well as information from the state's main website for health care for consumers, which included the Massachusetts Connector.
2. Mississippi Food Deserts: First we had to identify the best place to tell this story. We did that using data from the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Commonwealth Fund. We finally settled on Mississippi because it was a state with the highest number of overweight people but one which was also trying to do something about its childhood obesity problem. Experts at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation were also helpful. They have a special group devoted to research on this issue. We also worked with Michelle Obama's obesity team at the White House.
3. Gulf Mental Health: This story was exclusively reported through human sources; see below. FOIA requests were not necessary for these stories.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
1. Massachusetts Health Care: We identified and interviewed countless residents of the state to see how the reforms had impacted their care. From those interviews, we chose the ones we used on the website and on the broadcast. The human resources included doctors, administrators, politicians, and ordinary people grappling with health issues.
2. Mississippi Food Deserts: Most of the human resources were people who live in Mississippi whom we found on the ground when we got there. These were children, teachers, doctors, nurses, fitness instructors and the like whom we located and who told us their many stories of trying to fight obesity in a culture where cooking with high fat products has been a way of life for generations.
3. Gulf Mental Health: This was the most difficult story we did last year in terms of getting people to talk. Mental illness is still something that carries with it a huge negative stigma in the United States, and nowhere is that more pronounced than in the Deep South. However, we finally found a number of mental health professionals who were willing to help us locate people and programs that would help us tell the story of how people in the Gulf are struggling. Dr. Howard Osofsky, chair of the depart of Psychiatry at the LSU Health Sciences center in New Orleans, was extremely helpful: he recognized an opportunity to advance public knowledge on this subject and graciously helped us find people who were experiencing mental stress. Dr. Karen DeSalvo of the Tulane School of Public Health was also very knowledgeable and provided guidance and interview subjects. We also ended up just going out into the community and talking to a large number of people to find out their stories. Around the docks, we found fishermen with high levels of stress who were not seeking any kind of counseling. In fact, that is how we located the gentleman who became
6. Results (if any).
The PBS NewsHour's coverage of health has pushed the national debate forward on a number of crucial topics, including but not limited to health care reform, mental health, HIV/AIDS and obesity.
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
We will certainly be traveling to Massachusetts, the Gulf Coast, and Mississippi again in the months ahead for follow-up stories, but we have not done so yet. No corrections or clarifications have been necessary.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Accuracy is critical when reporting on issues involving health. Much care was needed when covering national health care reform this year due to the high-profile, controversial and sensitive nature of the subject. But it's also critical when reporting on new studies and illnesses. For example, spreading false or faulty information on new developments could unnecessarily raise hopes for the ill and their families. Fact check, then fact check again and again. Our advice to any journalist who wants to do a story on mental health issues is to put the cell phone and computer away and get out into neighborhoods where you believe people have had financial and emotional stress and talk to as many as you can.