Provide names of other journalists involved.
Pamela G. O’Brien, executive editor, FITNESS magazine
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
November 2012 issue
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Lung cancer is earning a scary new reputation as a disease that strikes women — especially healthy, fit young women who’ve never smoked. Overall, the disease kills more women than breast cancer each year, yet it gets little respect from the public and very little coverage in the media. (In contrast, think about how nearly every women’s magazine is plastered in pink for breast cancer each October and how many pink fundraisers, races and walks take place.) Many people wrongly believe that only smokers are at risk for lung cancer. As such, there’s a stigma that anyone who gets the disease deserves it. In this reported piece, FITNESS shines a much-needed light on the overlooked but deadly cancer and provides lifesaving news, moving personal stories of young women with lung cancer and actionable advice for readers. Significant findings include: * One in five American women who contract lung cancer this year will be what researchers call “never smokers” — those who have taken a drag on fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lives. * Sixty percent of never smokers with lung cancer are women. * The number of never smoking women diagnosed each year in the United States is comparable to the number of women who are found to have ovarian cancer. * Never-smokers’ cancer can strike young, in their twenties and thirties.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Reporter Hollace Schmidt found several important pieces of data in a Brigham and Women’s Hospital study called Out of the Shadows: Women and Lung Cancer. For other statistics, she turned to the websites of various health agencies such as the National Cancer Institute, Environmental Protection Agency, American Cancer Society, National Institutes of Health and the American Lung Association. She also located pertinent studies by searching PubMed. She did not file an FOI or public records act request.
Explain types of human sources used.
To make the data and statistics meaningful to readers, Hollace included personal stories of nonsmoking women in their 30s and 40s currently undergoing treatment for lung cancer to illustrate that the disease strikes women just like them. She was able to connect with these women through the advocacy organizations Leaders of the Lung Cancer Free World and the National Lung Cancer Partnership. An oncologist provided the contact information for another patient willing to speak with her. To locate the top researchers in the field, Hollace worked again with the National Lung Cancer Partnership as well as the Lung Cancer Research Foundation and Uniting Against Lung Cancer. She also emailed or spoke with the lead researchers of the studies that she cited.
Results:
Readers wrote in to thank FITNESS for running the story, helping to publicize the disease and making women aware of their risk. Here are a couple of examples: “Thank you for using your publication to help bring about awareness of the growing number of diagnoses of lung cancer in healthy women who have never smoked. My mother was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2008 at the age of 50. It came as a shock to our entire family because she has never had a single puff of a cigarette. And just like Ms. Roberts in your article, she had no other significant risk factors at all. A diagnosis like stage IV lung cancer is scary and confusing enough, but it’s made even more difficult when the first thing people ask when hearing of someone with lung cancer is, ‘Oh, was she a smoker?’ Again, thank you for writing about this important issue.” –Aimee Wood, Houston, Texas “Since I do my best to constantly be engaged on all health-related topics, it is rare I come across an article that truly stops me in my tracks. Yet, ‘Danger In The Air’ did just that. I was stunned by the personal stories and data around the number of non-smoking, young women with lung cancer. I am a very active, non-smoker, as were the women in the article suffering from this disease. I paid particularly close attention to prevention strategies and the symptoms of which to be aware. While it is most often the result of smoking, lung cancer, like all cancers, does not discriminate. It reminded me that in order to stay at the top of my health game, I need to throw out stereotypes, remain vigilant and remind my doctor to do the same. Thank you for such an engaging and informative article.” –Claudine Battisti, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania
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.
None
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Be prepared to do some digging to suss out statistics of lung cancer in nonsmokers, which are not always broken out into a separate category in reports. Partner with disease advocacy groups to assist you in finding patients, doctors and other experts to interview.