Tag Archives: violence

Intersection of mental health, law enforcement complex, changing

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hand gun

Photo: Dmitriy via Flickr

A Philadelphia police officer’s recent, fatal shooting of 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr., as he wielded a knife, dramatized how, according to the numbers,  those with mental illness are less likely to do harm than to be harmed, including by law enforcement.

In its most recent report on this topic, “Overlooked in the Undercounted,” the national Treatment Advocacy Center said persons with mental illness were 16 times more likely than those without mental illness to be killed during encounters with law enforcement. While the mentally ill account for 1 in 50 adults, they are estimated to represent 1 in 4 adults who are approached by police, the center’s researchers wrote. Continue reading →

Katti Gray (@kattigray) is AHCJ's core topic leader for behavioral and mental health. A former Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow, Gray is providing resources to help AHCJ members expand their coverage of mental health amid ongoing efforts to de-stigmatize mental illness and to place mental health care on par with all health care.

Covering gun violence as a public health problem requires nuance

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Photo: Pia Christensen/AHCJJoseph Sakran

As journalists, we focus on the increasingly common phenomenon of mass shootings. They are appalling, they are terrifying and we don’t fully understand them.

But gun violence is far more common, far more widespread, and far more insidious than those high-profile events – both murder and suicide. And we aren’t doing enough to think about and address firearms deaths as a public health problem, rather than a law enforcement problem, panelists told a Health Journalism 2019 panel in Baltimore on Friday. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Reporter’s resource focuses on responsible mass shootings coverage

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Photo: Amy Kearns via Flickr

As I write this post, I can’t even recall what the most recent mass shooting was. I know it wasn’t the Pittsburgh synagogue because that’s been a few weeks, and then there was the one at a country music club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., that came after that not long after. (The later incident sticks out in my mind because one victim had earlier survived last year’s Las Vegas mass shooting, also during another country music concert.) Continue reading →

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

October workshop will explore how urban life affects health

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Chirlane McCray

The first lady of New York will keynote AHCJ’s Urban Health Journalism Workshop in October. Chirlane McCray, the founder of comprehensive mental health plan ThriveNYC, as well as the wife of Mayor Bill de Blasio, will talk about addressing behavioral health issues in the city.

She also spearheads the Cities Thrive Coalition of mayors, with representation from more than 150 cities from all 50 states, advocating for a more integrated and better-funded behavioral health system. Continue reading →

Jeff Porter is the director of education for AHCJ and plays a lead role in planning conferences, workshops and other training events. He also leads the organization's data collection and data instruction efforts.

Have a plan before tragic news breaks, Las Vegas reporter says

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Rachel Crosby, a metro reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, reviewed her Twitter feed from her coverage of the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas as part of her talk for Health Journalism 2018. The panel, “Finding organization in the chaos of mass violence,” offered a look at how journalists and health systems prepare and respond to mass tragedies.

Reporters everywhere increasingly must cover mass violence and other chaotic situations, and should make a plan before any news erupts, the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Rachel Crosby told attendees at Health Journalism 2018.

Whether it’s a mass shooting, disease outbreak, natural disaster or other major event – take time now to figure out how your newsroom would report on it and how you can be best prepared, Crosby, a former crime reporter now on the metro desk, said at AHCJ’s annual conference in Phoenix. 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.