The Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism recognize the best health reporting in print, broadcast and online media. The contest is run by journalists for journalists and is not influenced or funded by commercial or special-interest groups.

The contest features a variety of categories and entries can include a wide range of health coverage including public health, consumer health, medical research, the business of health care and health ethics.

Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism: 2022 winners

• Audio Reporting (large division)

  • First Place: Smarter Health: Artificial intelligence and the future of American health care, Dorey Scheimer, Meghna Chakrabarti, Tim Skoog, WBUR On Point
  • Second Place: Inside a Michigan clinic, patients talk about abortion, Kate Wells, Sarah Hulett and Lindsey Smith, NPR
  • Third Place: Killer Proteins: The Science of Prion Disease, Gabriel Spitzer, Berly McCoy and Emily Kwong, NPR’s Short Wave

• Audio Reporting (small division)

  • First Place: Banned: The Mississippi Case to End Roe v. Wade, Rosemary Westwood, Eve Abrams & Patrick Madden, WWNO/WRKF
  • Second Place: Hazard NJ Episode 3: Heart of Ringwood, Jordan Gass-Pooré, Michael Sol Warren and Jamie Kraft, NJ Spotlight News
  • Third Place: The cost of forgetting: Dementia’s tax on financial health, Sarah Boden and Maria Carter, 90.5 WESA News

• Beat Reporting

  • First Place: Coverage of Mental Health Care Access, Hannah Rose Furfaro, The Seattle Times
  • Second Place: Global Health Coverage, Stephanie Nolen, The New York Times
  • Third Place: Public Health in Louisiana, Emily Woodruff, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate

• Business

  • First Place: Nonprofit Hospitals Are Big Business, Staff, Wall Street Journal
  • Second Place: Diagnosis: Debt, Noam Levey, Aneri Pattani, Yuki Noguchi (NPR), Kaiser Health News and NPR
  • Third Place: The Cash Monster Was Insatiable: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions, Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz, The New York Times

• Consumer/Feature (large)

  • First Place: STILLBIRTHS: When Babies Die Before Taking Their First Breath, Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica
  • Second Place: Rethinking Obesity, Karen Weintraub, USA Today
  • Third Place: In the label ‘adult failure to thrive,’ medicine reveals its own failures, Eric Boodman, STAT

• Consumer/Feature (small)

  • First Place: Congenital syphilis rates soar across California as public health funding dwindled prior to the pandemic, Kristen Hwang, CalMatters
  • Second Place: State of Mind, Mark Johnson, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
  • Third Place: Family of 3-year-old who died after a dental procedure left with grief and questions, Jennifer Berry Hawes, The Post and Courier

• Health Policy (large)

  • First Place: Endgame, Ava Kofman, ProPublica and The New Yorker
  • Second Place: Emergency Rooms Are On the Frontlines of Human Trafficking, Magdalena Puniewska, New York Magazine
  • Third Place: She Wanted an Abortion. A Judge Said She Wasn’t Mature Enough to Decide., Lizzie Presser, ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine

• Health Policy (small)

  • First Place: A New Prescription, Guy Boulton, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
  • Second Place: Minnesota crisis pregnancy centers promote ‘dangerous’ abortion pill reversal; some are state-funded, Molly Castle Work, Post Bulletin
  • Third Place: Unimpaired, Unemployed, Ed Mahon, Spotlight PA

• Investigative (large)

  • First Place: Child Deaths at John Muir, Cynthia Dizikes and Matthias Gafni, San Francisco Chronicle
  • Second Place: Still Practicing: Tracking Problem Doctors, KXAN Staff, KXAN Investigates
  • Third Place: The Pixel Hunt, Todd Feathers, Simon Fondrie-Teitler and Staff, The Markup

• Investigative (small)

  • First Place: Mayo Clinic Charity Care, Molly Castle Work, Post Bulletin
  • Second Place: How jails mistreat people with mental illness, Brett Sholtis, WITF
  • Third Place: Blood and Money, Andrew Ford, Arizona Republic

• Public Health (large)

  • First Place: Inner Pandemic, Matt Richtel, The New York Times
  • Second Place: Undermined, Eli Cahan, USA Today, Capital and Main
  • Third Place: The Enemy Within: Why Veterans Are At Risk for Low T, Tracy Middleton and Staff, Hone Health

• Public Health (small)

  • First Place: Blind Drunk, Ted Alcorn, New Mexico In Depth
  • Second Place: Journey to Care, Anita Hofschneider,  Honolulu Civil Beat
  • Third Place: Children in Crisis: How Georgia’s Mental Health System is Failing Kids, Carrie Teegardin, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

• Student

  • First Place: Growing Older, Fellows and Faculty of the Global Reporting Program, UBC School of Journalism, Writing and Media
  • Second Place: Psychedelic Therapy for Racial Trauma, Lucy Tu, The Guardian
  • Third Place: Healing Through Culture, Laura Bargfeld and Natalie Skowlund, Cronkite News at Arizona State University

• Trade Publications

  • First Place: Expanding Services And Tailoring Outreach To Prevent Suicide, Charlotte Huff, Health Affairs
  • Second Place: Meet the Scientist at the Center of the Covid Lab Leak Controversy, Jane Qiu, MIT Technology Review
  • Third Place: Hospice Has a Diversity Problem, Liz Seegert, American Journal of Nursing