About AHCJ: General News

Margarita Birnbaum named new AHCJ core topic leader on health equity Date: 02/02/22

Margarita Birnbaum, a Texas-based independent journalist, storyteller, federally certified court interpreter and translator, joins AHCJ as the new health equity core topic leader on Feb. 4.

Birnbaum was born in Miami but grew up in Central America. She spent her childhood in Costa Rica and graduated from high school in Guatemala and started her college education there before returning to Miami in the 1990s.

Birnbaum, who is of Cuban and Guatemalan descent, has been an AHCJ member since 2016, has reported on health disparities among Hispanic-American, white and Black adults in the United States, primarily on heart disease and stroke trends. Her stories have been published by American Heart Association News and WebMD and have appeared on Univision and HealthDay.

“We’re so excited to be adding Margarita to our great team of core topic leaders. She has a wealth of knowledge about health equity, one of the most important topics in health care,” said Katherine Reed, AHCJ’s interim executive director and director of education and content. “Our members will benefit from her perspective on this subject.”

Birnbaum says creating a database of researchers studying health disparities, education policies, financial practices, environmental laws, and other determinants of health would be high on her priority list in the coming months.

“Journalists are only as good as their sources; having a variety of experts who can offer historical context to health trends and explain complicated topics such as the intersection of housing policies and quality of health helps us keep up with trends in research and data,” Birnbaum said. “In the end, it helps us better inform readers.”