Tag Archives: epidemics

Health journalism student explores challenge of gathering data, predicting outbreaks

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Photo: Kat Masback via Flickr

Predicting whether a pathogen will have an impact on a few people or an entire population would be a huge achievement in global health security. Public health leaders would be able to determine the most effective response, whether it is expending resources on vaccination, or quarantining people in their homes, or just letting a disease run its course if it isn’t life threatening.

Researchers have turned to information technology to develop mathematical models that may predict the next infectious disease outbreak, but the models so far rely on data from past events to predict the future. Continue reading →

Bara Vaida (@barav) is AHCJ's core topic leader on infectious diseases. An independent journalist, she has written extensively about health policy and infectious diseases. Her work has appeared in the National Journal, Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg News, McClatchy News Service, MSNBC, NPR, Politico, The Washington Post and other outlets.

Strong social media presence helps Md. reporter cover her community’s opioid crisis

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Photo: nadja robot via Flickr

For Heather Wolford, a reporter for the Cumberland Times-News, covering the growing opioid crisis in the rural hills of Western Maryland was, quite literally, a calling.

Now two years into her health coverage of the epidemic, Wolford was driven by a journalist’s instinct to find out what was happening in her community, from those using the drugs, police officers and government officials, to family members on all sides of the crisis.

“When I repeatedly heard daily overdose calls over the office scanner, I asked my boss if I could dive into the crisis,” she said. Continue reading →

Susan Heavey, (@susanheavey) a Washington, D.C.-based journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on social determinants of health and curates related material at healthjournalism.org. She welcomes questions and suggestions on resources and tip sheets at determinants@healthjournalism.org.