Association of Health Care Journalists

Lunch and Learn: Freelancer Free-for-all
2024-03-21 13:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
At AHCJ’s Lunch and Learns, freelancer members chat about a designated topic over Zoom every third Thursday of the month at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. The Zoom link is always the same. This time, the topic is open, so come prepared to ask your fellow freelancers for help with anything from coping with a mean editor to buying the right stand-up desk.

Reimagining menopause: How reporters can reduce the stigma
2024-03-20 14:00 - 15:00
Half of the world’s population will experience menopause, yet this time in life is fraught with mystery, misconceptions, and a lack of solid information. Although menopause treatment and knowledge can affect healthy aging, primary care physicians and even many OB/GYNs don’t get the training or support they need to counsel patients and help them navigate what can be a challenging phase of life.

Join Liz Seegert, AHCJ’s Health Beat Leader for Aging, a certified menopause specialist, and a journalist who reports frequently on this topic for some myth-busting and guidance on how to report on menopause with sensitivity. You’ll learn about the most useful research on this subject and where the gaps still exist.

Liz Seegert is AHCJ’s health beat leader on aging. She’s an award-winning, independent health journalist based in New York’s Hudson Valley, who writes about caregiving, dementia, access to care, nursing homes and policy. Seegert is also a contributing writer for Fortune.com, the American Journal of Nursing, and PBS/NextAvenue.org, reporting on myriad health topics, including social determinants of health and women’s health. She has written for TIME Health, The Wirecutter, Money.com, Medscape, Consumer Reports, The Guardian and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, The Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

Rebecca Levy-Gantt, M.D., is a board-certified ObGyn and a certified menopause practitioner. Levy-Gantt has been practicing for the last 15 years in Napa, California, and practiced before that for 11 years on Long Island. She focuses on menopause management, including hormones and alternative management strategies, as well as vaginal and vulvar pain syndromes. She also teaches at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine, and writes frequently on menopause issues.

Meryl Davids Landau is a longtime independent journalist specializing in health. Her work on menopause has appeared in National Geographic, Good Housekeeping, Prevention, Everyday Health and other publications. She’s also the author of the award-winning mindfulness women’s novel, Warrior Won.

Breaking into ghostwriting and collaborating on books
2024-03-13 13:00 - 14:00
Ghostwriting and collaborating on books are a lucrative income stream — and you don’t have to sacrifice your journalistic principles to do it. The market for these books has mushroomed because publishers are now looking for experts with giant platforms.

Collaborations in their various forms can be a financial and professional lifeline; busy ghostwriters and collaborators can make upwards of $100,000 a year. In this webinar, two writers and a literary agent will discuss this growing market, how to get that first assignment as a ghostwriter or collaborator, what to watch out for in contracts and how to effectively work with an expert.

Barbara Mantel is AHCJ’s health beat leader for freelancing and has written about subjects such as how to find and keep an accountability partner, how to tap the rich resources at libraries and how to break into narrative journalism. Mantel, an award-winning journalist, began her journalism career as the economics reporter and then assistant managing editor of a business news program on ESPN television. She moved to NPR as its economics and business correspondent and later served as the first senior editor, senior producer and director of the public radio program “Science Friday.” Mantel’s byline has appeared in a wide range of media outlets, including CQ Researcher, AARP, Undark, Next Avenue, Medical Economics, Healthline, NBCNews.com, Today.com, NPR and The New York Times.

Susan K. Golant is a book collaborator, co-author, book doctor, ghostwriter, editor and/or writing coach. Golant has been writing nonfiction books alone and with others since 1982 and has more than 40 books to her credit. Her specialities include psychology, health and medical breakthroughs, spirituality and parenting, among others. She has collaborated with or ghostwritten for M.D.s, Ph.D.s and Rosalynn Carter.

Madeleine Morel is the head of 2M Communications, an agency that represents more than 100 ghostwriters and collaborators, matching them with experts, celebrities and public figures who need help getting their ideas into print. Morel has provided writers for more than 60 New York Times bestsellers. Each writer specializes in an area such as health, parenting, memoir/autobiography, science, sports and more.

Parsing the deadly problem of low vaccination rates in nursing homes
2024-03-05 14:00 - 15:00
Nearly four years into the pandemic, vaccine uptake for COVID, RSV and even influenza remain very low among nursing home residents and staff, according to recent CDC MMWR data. Some 600 nursing home residents died from COVID in the first two weeks of January alone. Meanwhile, flu cases remain high in parts of the U.S., and risk for RSV is still elevated among this vulnerable population.

Despite widespread availability of both the COVID-19 booster and new adult RSV vaccine, infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths continued to climb over the winter months. On top of that, COVID booster uptake by nursing home staff was only 23% at the end of 2023, CDC data shows. Why haven’t more nursing home residents received the vaccine? And, what, if anything, can nursing homes or states do to ensure their residents and staff are protected?

AHCJ Health Beat Leader on Aging Liz Seegert will talk with a geriatrician/researcher and the executive director of an organization that advocates for aging people about what the data tell us, the challenges of ensuring staff and residents receive the shots they need, overcoming persistent misinformation about the COVID and RSV vaccines, and the impact new federal staffing mandates may have on infection control and prevention.

Liz Seegert is AHCJ’s health beat leader on aging. She’s an award-winning, independent health journalist based in New York’s Hudson Valley, who writes about caregiving, dementia, access to care, nursing homes and policy. Seegert is also a contributing writer for Fortune.com, the American Journal of Nursing, and PBS/NextAvenue.org, reporting on myriad health topics, including social determinants of health and women’s health. She has written for TIME Health, The Wirecutter, Money.com, Medscape, Consumer Reports, The Guardian and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, The Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

Richard Mollot is the executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition (LTCCC), a U.S.-based nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving care for individuals in nursing homes and other residential care settings through legal and policy research, advocacy, and education. Richard has researched and published on a variety of long-term care issues, including: dementia care; nursing home and assisted living standards; the rights of older adults in residential care; abuse, neglect, and crime in nursing homes; nursing home financing; and the imposition and use of penalties for substandard residential care. He is a graduate of Howard University School of Law and a member of the Maryland Bar.

Ana Montoya, M.D., M.P.H., is a geriatrician and health care researcher at the University of Michigan, and a clinical associate professor at the U-M Medical School. Her research focuses on improving the care of older adults by examining health system performance for this vulnerable population, with a particular interest in health disparities, delirium and dementia, management of chronic medical problems and infection control in skilled nursing facilities. She received her medical degree from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru, and her master’s in public health from the University of Michigan, where she also completed her geriatric medicine fellowship. She is currently enrolled in the Master’s in Health and Health Care Research program at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. She is the medical director for the Sub-acute and Long-Term Care program at U-M, which is a partnership between the U-M Geriatrics Center and local facilities offering rehabilitation and skilled nursing care. She is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and certified as a medical director by the American Board of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.

Open wide: Covering the growing field of AI and dentistry
2024-02-28 13:00 - 14:00
Artificial intelligence has been making its way into dentistry. New AI software products have emerged that could enhance dentists’ ability to detect tooth decay, cavities or bone loss and propose treatments before dental health worsens. The FDA already has approved eight such AI products, with more to come, and some large corporate dental chains have already begun using them.In this webinar, we’ll go over how these products work, their benefits and limitations, what’s on the horizon, and how to cover this growing field. Roya Zandparsa, a dentist who lectures at Tufts and Harvard universities, and Casey Ross, national technology correspondent for STAT, will discuss how the products work and are being incorporated into dental care, what we might expect in the future, and how to report on this trend.

Karen Blum is AHCJ’s health beat leader for health IT. She’s an independent health and science journalist based in the Baltimore area. She has written for publications such as the Baltimore Sun, Pharmacy Practice News, Clinical Oncology News, Clinical Laboratory News, Cancer Today, CURE, AARP.org, General Surgery News and Infectious Disease Special Edition; covered numerous medical conferences for trade magazines and news services; and written many profiles and articles on medical and science research as well as trends in health care and health IT. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and chairs its Virtual Education Committee; and a member of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) and its freelance committee.

Roya Zandparsa, D.D.S., M.Sc., D.M.D., F.I.C.D., is a clinical professor and biomaterials course director at the Department of Prosthodontics at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and a lecturer at the Department of Restorative Dentistry and Biomaterials Sciences at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. She also is vice president of innovation and development at Qualitas Dental Partners Organization, the founder & CEO of Expert Dental Advisory, the president-elect of the American Association of Women Dentists, the past president of American Academy of Dental Science, and a Fellow of the International College of Dentistry.

Casey Ross is a national technology correspondent at STAT. His reporting examines the use of artificial intelligence in medicine and its underlying questions of safety, fairness, and privacy. Before joining STAT in 2016, he wrote for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Boston Globe, where he worked on the Spotlight Team in 2014 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Covering reproductive health: A closer look at issues affecting women of color
2024-02-21 13:00 - 14:00
The impact of abortion bans and the implications of challenges to the Affordable Care Act that aim to limit birth control coverage provide numerous opportunities for reporting. The same goes for stories about the effects of efforts to limit or outright ban the use of mifepristone, a key drug that has been used in medication abortion for more than two decades.

However, proponents of reproductive health equity say that many journalists aren’t paying enough attention to — or are ignoring — how both current and possible restrictions will worsen the health of women of color of reproductive age, particularly Black, Hispanic and Indigenous women. As the implications of those restrictions become clearer, those women — who collectively represent 36.5% women from the ages of 15 to 44 in the U.S. — may be even more likely than non-Hispanic white women to have unintended pregnancies or preterm births.Lupe M. Rodríguez, the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, and Lauren Sausser, who writes about health care in the South as a member of KFF Health News’ Southern Bureau, will join AHCJ Health Equity Beat Leader Margarita Birnbaum for this webinar.

We’ll explore why — by some reproductive health measures — Black, Hispanic, Native American and Alaska Native women tend to be in poorer health than non-Hispanic white women. We’ll also delve into the role that abortion disinformation and misinformation play in contributing to reproductive health care outcomes in women of color. And we’ll talk about misconceptions about attitudes that women of color have about birth control and abortion. You’ll learn about efforts that aim to give women of color more access to reproductive health care services and encourage them to advocate for themselves.

Margarita Birnbaum is AHCJ’s health beat leader for health equity and an independent journalist based in Dallas. Over the years, her stories about health, as well as crime and other topics she covered early in her career, have appeared in WebMD, American Heart Association News, The Dallas Morning News, The Miami Herald and Reuters. Fluent in English and Spanish, Birnbaum is also an interpreter and translator. Her personal and professional experiences living and working in the U.S. and in several Central American countries have informed her reporting work in covering health disparity trends among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

Lupe M. Rodríguez is the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. Over the years, she has worked as a social justice advocate in the U.S. and Mexico. A former vice president of public affairs at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Rodríguez has an undergraduate degree in neurobiology from Harvard University. She serves on the Community Advisory Board for the Center for Clinical Research at Stanford and was chair of the Commission on the Status of Women in Santa Clara County and treasurer of the Board of Directors for California Latinas for Reproductive Justice.

Lauren Sausser writes about health care in the South as a member of KFF Health News’ Southern Bureau. She is based in Charleston, South Carolina, where she previously spent nine years covering health care at The Post and Courier. A graduate of Clemson University and Columbia University, she has received awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, and other groups. In 2016, she was part of a team of reporters who were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. In 2017, she was recognized as Reporter of the Year by the South Carolina Press Association.

Using the CDC's Environmental Justice and Social Vulnerability data in your reporting
2024-02-20 12:00 - 13:00
Environmental health is a deeply intersectional topic, which opens up the possibility of using lots of different datasets in your reporting. In this webinar, coordinators from the CDC’s Environmental Justice Index (EJI) and Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) will show you how to access and use data found in these portals.

Social vulnerability refers to the potential negative effects on communities caused by external stresses on human health. Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, to develop, implement, and enforce environmental laws, regulations, and policies. These topics are deeply connected and when these indexes are used together, they can help to include perspectives that have historically been marginalized.

Join us for this webinar to explore the data.

Paul Gordon (he/him), AHCJ’s health beat leader for environmental health, is a Chicago-based environmental journalist, photographer and arborist. His work appears in The Nation, Grist, The New Lede, Sierra Magazine, Belt Magazine, Civil Eats, Clean Energy Wire and In These Times. Gordon graduated from DePaul university where he studied international relations and journalism. During summers in college, he worked in conservation across the East Coast for US Fish and Wildlife and the National Park Service. After finishing school, Gordon worked in conservation and field ecology for the National Audubon Society, Forest Preserves of Cook County, and Fermilab. After being awarded the Congress-Bundestag Exchange Fellowship, he worked as a correspondent for Clean Energy Wire in Berlin and furthered his education in journalism at Freie Universität.

Ben McKenzie, M.S. (he/him), is a geospatial epidemiologist with the Geospatial Research, Analysis, and ServicesProgram (GRASP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/ the Agency for Toxic Substance andDisease Registry. Since 2021, he has served as the team lead for the Environmental Justice Index project in collaboration with the National Center for Environmental Health and the HHS Office of Environmental Justice. Mr. McKenzie is a committed advocate for the application of geospatial sciences to promote health and health equity.

Elizabeth Pembleton, M.P.H. (she/her), received her Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion and Behavior from the University of Georgia, and her Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has worked in various public health areas throughout her career, including nutrition and exercise, healthcare associated infections, foodborne illnesses, HIV, COVID-19, and most recently, Social Vulnerability and geospatial science. Elizabeth joined GRASP in July 2020 as the Senior Project Coordinator for COVID-related projects and has since moved to lead the Social Vulnerability Index beginning in early 2022.

Gun violence reporting certification: What it is and why journalists should get it
2024-02-16 13:00 - 14:00
The movement in journalism for less episodic and more thoughtful, trauma-informed gun violence coverage is growing, as are opportunities for journalists to learn how to get it right.

A recent example is a certification workshop held by the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting. The day-long training, called the “Gun Violence Prevention Reporter Certification Workshop,” explored best practices for reporting on firearm violence and prevention. Participants included 25 journalists and 15 community-based gun violence prevention experts.

The central idea is that reporting on gun violence as a public health issue can provide a better understanding of why violence happens and how to prevent it. This type of reporting is also about minimizing the harm done by sensationalized, episodic violence coverage.

In this webinar, Jim MacMillan, founder and director of The Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting, and Alaina Bookman, a violence prevention reporter for AL.com and a participant in the workshop, talked about the main points of the workshop, how certification aims to improve coverage of firearm violence prevention, the benefits of offering a certification, and what plans are in the works to offer the certification to more journalists.

Kaitlin Washburn is AHCJ’s health beat leader for firearm violence and trauma and a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. She was a gun violence reporter for two years in Missouri for The Kansas City Star as a Report for America corps member. Previously, Washburn was an agriculture reporter covering the omnipresent industry in California’s Central Valley for The Sun-Gazette, also as a part of RFA. Previously, Washburn had internships at the Morning Call in Pennsylvania, the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. and The Oregonian in Portland. She spent three years as a researcher for Investigative Reporters and Editors, based at The University of Missouri.

Alaina Bookman was born and raised in Dallas and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She has experience working as a journalist for the Houston Defender and as an archivist at the University of Texas Black Diaspora Archives. Her role as a violence prevention reporter at AL.com is supported by Report for America, a nonprofit that aids local newsrooms.

Jim MacMillan is the founder and director of the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting and the assistant director of the Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting at Temple University. He has been a fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma and the Knight-Wallace Fellows, as well as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and Swarthmore College. Previously, MacMillan spent 17 years at the Philadelphia Daily News and photographed the war in Iraq for The Associated Press, after which he and his team were awarded The Pulitzer Prize.

Health Care Issues Forum — AHCJ New York Chapter Event
2024-02-15 18:30 - 20:00 | Borough of Manhattan Community College, Fiterman Hall, Conference Room #1302, 245 Greenwich St, New York City, New York, 10007, United States
Free tickets for AHCJ members. Use promo code: AHCJ

Join us for an important panel discussion about healthcare misinformation. Hear from the following panelists:

Sony Salzman, Coordinating Producer, ABC Medical Unit.

Dr. Lisa H. Rose, Professor of Human Services and Social Work, Borough of Manhattan Community College.

A brief reception with light refreshments will follow the panel portion of the event. Share this invitation with a friend!

Organized by Children of Bellevue and AHCJ.

Location

Borough of Manhattan Community CollegeFiterman Hall, Conference Room #1302 (use Elevator #9)245 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10007

More information

Children of Bellevue is dedicated to advancing public understanding of health care issues. Its mission is to improve the quality, accuracy and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing.

AHCJ is dedicated to advancing public understanding of health care issues. Its mission is to improve the quality, accuracy and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing.

Lunch and Learn: Overcoming writer's block
2024-02-15 13:00
At AHCJ’s Lunch and Learns, freelancer members chat about a designated topic over Zoom every third Thursday of the month at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. The Zoom link is always the same.

Reframing Firearm Violence: How journalists can use research in their reporting
2024-02-09 11:30 - 12:45
Firearm violence is largely covered in the media as a crime issue focused on individual shooting events. But experts assert that reframing firearm violence as a broader public health issue is crucial to finding policy and community solutions aimed at preventing deaths and injury from guns.

Join AHCJ and the National Press Club Journalism Institute at 11:30 a.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 9, for a conversation among experts and journalists on where to find the best data and research on firearm and gun deaths for your reporting.

In this 75-minute webinar, we’ll explore the gaps, go-to resources, and facts and myths about firearms and firearm ownership. Participants will also learn:

The differences among firearm violence, such as what is a mass casualty event versus a mass shooting.

Where to find new research on firearm violence.

How news coverage of firearm violence impacts victims and frontline health workers.

How to move thinking of firearm violence as “the crime beat” to more nuanced coverage across beats.

Kaitlin Washburn is AHCJ’s health beat leader for firearm violence and trauma and a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. She was a gun violence reporter for two years in Missouri for The Kansas City Star as a Report for America corps member. Previously, Washburn was an agriculture reporter covering the omnipresent industry in California’s Central Valley for The Sun-Gazette, also as a part of RFA. Previously, Washburn had internships at the Morning Call in Pennsylvania, the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. and The Oregonian in Portland. She spent three years as a researcher for Investigative Reporters and Editors, based at The University of Missouri.

Jessica Beard, M.D., is a trauma surgeon at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, a Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow, and Director of Research for The Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting. Her research examines the perspectives of firearm-injured people on media reports of their injuries and seeks to define, measure, and support minimization of harmful reporting on community firearm violence.

Abené Clayton is a reporter in the Guardian’s California office and is the lead reporter on the newspaper’s “Guns & Lies in America” series, which launched in 2019 and focuses on the impacts of and solutions to community violence. She started covering gun violence in her hometown of Richmond, California, and is now based in Los Angeles where she covers the people who live where shootings and homicides happen most.

Jennifer Mascia is a senior news writer and founding staffer at The Trace, the only newsroom that exclusively covers gun violence, which launched in 2015. She previously reported on gun violence for The New York Times, where she began her career as a news assistant. She served as the lead writer for the Times’s annual Neediest Cases campaign, which profiles New Yorkers in need, and wrote and produced The Gun Report, a daily tally of gun violence victims in America that ran for a year and a half after the Sandy Hook shooting.

SHERF Informational Session
2024-02-07 13:00
Interested in applying for the National Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellowship? Join representatives from the Society of Environmental Journalists, Association of Health Care Journalists, and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing to learn about this opportunity to gain reporting skills at the intersection of science, health and environment.

Coverage 101: Using the new state media guides to write big stories
2024-01-24 13:00
All AHCJ events are listed in Eastern Standard Time.

The United States has a patchwork system of health insurance coverage that leaves some people with great access to services and some with no coverage at all. It depends on a person’s birthplace, age, job, income, location, and health status.To help journalists make sense of the confusion, Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms — with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — has created primers for how insurance works in each state plus a national overview that offers the big picture. You can find the guides and overview now on AHCJ’s website.In this webinar, AHCJ Health Beat Leader Joe Burns, who focuses on health policy and insurance, will talk to Charles Ornstein of ProPublica and Sabrina Corlette, J.D., who led the Georgetown project, about the new tool and how to make the most of it in your reporting.

Joseph Burns is AHCJ’s health beat leader on health policy and insurance. He’s an independent journalist based in Brewster, Mass., who has covered health care, health policy and the business of care since 1991. Burns has written for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, Fortune, Hospitals & Health Networks, and Medical Economics, among others.

Sabrina Corlette, J.D., is a research professor, founder, and co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. There, she directs research on health reform issues, with a focus on state and federal regulation of private health insurance. She provides expertise and strategic advice to individuals and organizations on health insurance laws and programs and provides technical support through the publication of resource guides, white papers, issue briefs, blog posts and fact sheets. She has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and is frequently quoted in the news media on emerging health care issues. She has published dozens of papers relating to the regulation of private health insurance and health insurance marketplaces.

Charles Ornstein is managing editor for local initiatives at ProPublica, overseeing the nonprofit news organization’s regional offices and its Local Reporting Network. From 2008 to 2017, he was a senior reporter covering health care and the pharmaceutical industry at ProPublica, and then worked as a senior editor and deputy managing editor. Prior to joining ProPublica, he was a member of the metro investigative projects team at the Los Angeles Times and a reporter at the Dallas Morning News. Ornstein is a past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and an adjunct journalism professor at Columbia University. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Lunch and Learn: Finding anchor clients
2024-01-18 13:00

Covering long COVID, the hidden epidemic
2024-01-10 15:00
All AHCJ events are listed in Eastern Time.

Up to one in seven people in the U.S. have had long COVID, according to one of the most recent estimates. But it’s still getting relatively little coverage, not nearly capturing the scale of this debilitating condition for which no approved treatments exist.

In this webinar, you’ll hear from a rehabilitation physician who specializes in treating people with long COVID and a journalist who has been living with the condition. You’ll learn what you need to know about long COVID, best practices in covering it and the importance of speaking with people who are dealing with it.

Tara Haelle is AHCJ’s health beat leader for infectious diseases and medical studies. She’s an independent science/health journalist, author, speaker, and photographer. Her work has appeared in the National Geographic, Scientific American, Texas Monthly, Science News, Medscape/WebMD, The New York Times, Wired, and O Magazine, among others. She specializes in public health and medical research, particularly vaccines, infectious disease, maternal and pediatric health, mental health, healthcare disparities, and misinformation. She also covers medical research conferences and edits Long COVID Connection on Medium. Haelle earned a master’s in photojournalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and her images have appeared in Texas Monthly, NPR, the, Chicago Sun-Times and elsewhere.

Monica Verduzco–Gutierrez, M.D., is chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Long School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health San Antonio. She previously was a Medical Director of the Brain Injury and Stroke Program at a top three US News and World Report Best Hospital for Rehabilitation. Her area of clinical expertise is the care of patients with traumatic brain injury, stroke rehabilitation, and interventional spasticity management. Most recently, she has developed a Post-COVID Recovery Clinic to help those who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and suffer from various physical, cognitive, and functional difficulties.

Lygia Navarro is a freelance magazine, audio and multi-media journalist and editor who is also living with long COVID. She has particular expertise covering Latin American and Latine/o/a/x stories across the United States, and has also covered mental health, the environment, immigration, human smuggling, trauma, the intersection of politics and the arts, 2SLGBTQ+ communities, food, and music. Navarro is currently an editor at palabra, the National Association for Hispanic Journalists’ outlet, and a health reporting fellow at Journalism and Women Symposium.

Lunch and Learn: Finding patient stories
2023-12-14 13:00
All AHCJ event listings are in Eastern Standard Time.

At AHCJ’s Lunch and Learns, freelancer members chat about a designated topic over Zoom every third Thursday of the month at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. The Zoom link is always the same. The discussions are not recorded, but you can find summaries of key takeaways by clicking on the topic name in the below schedule.

AHCJ South Florida Chapter holiday mixer
2023-12-13 18:30 - 20:30 | JOEY Aventura, 19505 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, Florida, 33180, United States
The South Florida chapter again joins other South Florida journalism groups including the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for a holiday mixer. First drink is free. RSVP by contacting Meryl Davids Landau through the link below.

Getting a grant or fellowship to support your project
2023-12-13 13:00
Breaking into narrative journalism part II

All AHCJ event listings are in Eastern Standard Time.

In the spring, AHCJ held a webinar on breaking into narrative journalism featuring editors and a freelancer who offered tips on how to pitch your idea. In part II, we’ll talk about how to get that project funded with grant or fellowship money. Representatives from organizations offering funding will talk about what makes an application stand out, and a recipient of a prestigious fellowship will offer his advice.

Barbara Mantel is AHCJ’s health beat leader for freelancing. She’s an award-winning journalist who has written about subjects such as how to find and keep an accountability partner, how to tap the rich resources at libraries and how to break into narrative journalism. Mantel began her journalism career as the economics reporter and then assistant managing editor of a business news program on ESPN television. She then moved to NPR as its economics and business correspondent and later served as the first senior editor, senior producer and director of the public radio program “Science Friday.” Mantel’s byline has appeared in a wide range of media outlets, including CQ Researcher, AARP, Undark, Next Avenue, Medical Economics, Healthline, NBCNews.com, Today.com, NPR and The New York Times.

Josh McGhee is an investigative reporter for MindSite News, covering the intersection of criminal justice and mental health with an emphasis on public records and data reporting. McGhee is a 2023-2024 Carter Center’s Mental Health Journalism Fellow.

Jacqueline Stenson is the manager of projects at the USC Center for Health Journalism. Stenson leads the Center’s outreach and recruitment for its Fellowships and other initiatives, which offers reporting grants of between $2,000 to $10,000. Stenson has worked as a health reporter and editor with multiple media outlets, and her freelance work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, NBC News, TODAY.com, Health, Self, Shape and more.

Eric Ferrero serves as Executive Director of the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Ferrero has worked closely with some of the nation’s leading investigative journalists to help them uncover high-impact stories, including those published or broadcast by The New Yorker, CBS News “60 Minutes,” the Washington Post, the New York Times and PBS “Frontline,” as well as in regional and specialty outlets.

Reckoning with the Bill Gates mythos
2023-12-01 13:00
A Q&A with investigative journalist Tim Schwab

All AHCJ event listings are in Eastern Standard Time.

Does Bill Gates get a free pass from journalists because many have so completely internalized the idea of him as “the good billionaire”? Or is Gates truly influencing news content through the grants he makes to news organizations?

Maybe it’s both. At least that’s the argument that investigative reporter Tim Schwab makes in his new book, “The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning With the Myth of the Good Billionaire.”Schwab spent years reporting on billionaire Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation and has produced a counter-narrative about Gates’s activities around the world. This Q&A will examine how Gates funding influences journalism, the challenges of critically reporting on foundation activities, and the role of philanthropy in health care.

Mary Chris Jaklevic is AHCJ’s health beat leader for patient safety based in Chicago. She’s an independent journalist who has covered health care finance, clinical care and medical research for a variety of professional and consumer publications. Her interest in patient safety issues and the potential harms of medical interventions was honed by her experience as a contributor to HealthNewsReview.org, a project that aimed to improve health care journalism by critiquing the accuracy and balance of media messages about medical treatments and tests. She’s a longtime AHCJ member and served on the board for two terms.

Tim Schwab is an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C. His groundbreaking reporting on the Gates Foundation for The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, and The British Medical Journal has been honored with an Izzy Award and a Deadline Club Award. “The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire” is his first book.

The immigrant health beat: A practical and ethical guide
2023-11-29 13:00
All AHCJ event listings are in Eastern Standard Time.

Immigrants, who represent 14% of the U.S. population, aren’t inherently less healthy than their native-born counterparts. But research shows their health declines the longer they live in this country.

One of the major reasons is that there are barriers to accessing care, partly due to a lack of English language proficiency and health insurance. Noncitizen immigrants tend to work in low-wage jobs that don’t offer that benefit.

This AHCJ webinar will provide an overview of the state of immigrant health and ethical issues that journalists should be aware of when reporting on the health status of immigrants in the U.S. For instance, foreign-born people from the same country may have different socioeconomic backgrounds and legal immigration statuses. Reporters who interview undocumented immigrants need to be conscientious about the legal consequences that their sources may face if they use their names or images in stories.

Margarita Martín-Hidalgo Birnbaum is AHCJ’s health beat leader for health equity and an independent journalist based in Dallas. Over the years, her stories about health, as well as crime and other topics she covered early in her career, have appeared in WebMD, American Heart Association News, The Dallas Morning News, The Miami Herald and Reuters. Fluent in English and Spanish, Birnbaum is also an interpreter and translator. Her personal and professional experiences living and working in the U.S. and in several Central American countries have informed her reporting work in covering health disparity trends among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

Stella M. Chávez covers immigration for KERA, the NPR member station in Dallas. In 2019, she broke a national story about a large-scale immigration raid on a technology repair company in Allen, Texas. She also reported on the Uvalde school shooting and the mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart. Previously, she covered education and produced several multi-part projects, including “Generation One” about immigrant students in North Texas and The Race to Save Failing Schools about schools trying to meet state academic standards.

Before joining public radio, Chávez spent nearly 13 years as a daily newspaper reporter for The Dallas Morning News, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla.

She’s received several national and state awards, including a 2021 Investigative Reporters & Editors award for the collaborative series: “Hot Days: Heat’s Mounting Death Toll on Workers in the U.S.” In 2007, she received the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in national reporting for “Yolanda’s Crossing,” a seven-part series that reconstructs the journey of a young sexual abuse victim from a village in Oaxaca, Mexico, to Dallas.

Adriana Menéndez is the social services manager at the Rural Women’s Health Project in Gainesville, Fla. In that capacity, she manages the day-to-day operations of Project Salud, a referral line catering to the needs of the Spanish-speaking community. She has collaborated with health care providers, legal experts, and social service agencies to expand the network of available resources for callers. Menéndez is an advocate for language access for minorities, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and cultural sensitivity in service delivery.

Drishti Pillai, Ph.D., is the director of immigrant health policy at KFF. In that capacity, she oversees data and policy analysis about health care access trends and issues in that population, with a focus on health equity.

Before joining KFF, Dr. Pillai was the research director at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum and a faculty member at George Washington University, where her research focused on public charge rules, population differences in access to maternal and child health services, and access to government programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Dr. Pillai holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from The Ohio State University, a Master of Public Health degree from Emory University and a Ph.D. in public policy from George Washington University.

The analyses that Dr. Pillai has published at KFF include:

Health and Health Care Experiences of Immigrants: The 2023 KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants

Health and Health Care in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region

Employment Among Immigrants and Implications for Health and Health Care

Reporting on addiction accurately and ethically
2023-11-27 13:00
The organization Reporting on Addiction began as a response to what its founders identified as misinformed, harmful coverage of opioid use disorder and the people and communities affected by it. The organization now offers nationwide training of student and professional journalists. This webinar will pinpoint some of the errors reporters make most often and present the research-informed viewpoints of experts, strategies and tips journalists can apply to solutions-based coverage of addiction treatment and related topics. The panel will also delve into how to incorporate into reporting the lived experience of people struggling with addiction.

Katti Gray is AHCJ’s health beat leader for behavioral and mental health and a former Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow. Gray has covered, among other topics, mental health care in prisons and jails, the debate over whether mental illnesses are being over-diagnosed and efforts to persuade people of color to be less skeptical about seeking counseling and other mental health services. Her work has been published by The Washington Post, Salon, Reuters, among other publications. Her writings appear in,” The Criminalization of Mental Illness” and “Narrative Matters: Writing to Change the Health Care System,” among other books.

Ashton Marra, M.S., is co-founder and co-director of Reporting on Addiction, which trains professional and student journalists in solutions-focused journalism aimed at reducing stigmas about drug use disorders that the news media also have perpetuated. She teaches news writing, video storytelling and community-focused journalism at West Virginia University and is executive editor of 100 Days in Appalachia, an award-winning national news site whose editors, reporters, photographers, et al. are Appalachians.

Jonathan J.K. Stoltman, Ph.D., Opioid addiction and recovery researcher Jonathan J.K. Stoltman is co-founder and co-director of Reporting on Addiction and director of the Opioid Policy Institute. He earned a doctorate in lifespan developmental psychology from West Virginia University. His work has appeared in leading journals and media outlets and at national conferences. Currently, his work focuses on reproductive/sexual health, stigma/discrimination and digital approaches to addiction treatment.

Lunch and Learn: Tapping medical journals for story ideas
2023-11-16 07:00 - 08:00
At AHCJ’s Lunch and Learns, freelancer members chat about a designated topic over Zoom every third Thursday of the month at 12 p.m. Central Time.

The Zoom link is always the same.

American Public Health Association Annual Meeting 2023
2023-11-11 01:00 - 2023-11-16 00:59
The American Public Health Association (APHA) will be hosting its annual meeting in Atlanta from Nov. 12-15. Journalists covering the event will have access to thousands of public health experts, more than 4,000 scientific papers and thousands of oral presentations on topics from infectious diseases and gun violence to health equity and disparities.

When/Where: Nov. 12-15; Atlanta

Contact: Email APHA Media Relations at mediarelations@apha.org

For more information, visit the APHA site.

Neuroscience 2023 Conference
2023-11-11 00:00 - 2023-11-15 23:59 | Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Allen Y. Lew Place NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001, United States
Scientists from around the world will congregate at Neuroscience 2023 to discover new ideas, share their research, and experience the best the field has to offer.

Contact: Email the Society for Neuroscience at info@sfn.org or call the Society at (202)962-4000

Where/When: Nov. 11–15 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Media Registration

Recorded: Pushing past resistance to better firearms violence reporting
2023-11-06 12:00 - 13:00
In the fall of 2022, AHCJ held a summit in the Chicago suburbs that brought together researchers, clinicians, journalists and organizers to talk about how to change the “frame” of firearm violence reporting. The question was (and continues to be), how to apply a public health reporting approach to this problem. A movement toward ending “the crime brief” is gathering strength, but slowly, and there’s been pushback in newsrooms.

This webinar will explore how four journalists have tried to be part of the solution and the changes they’ve observed. They’ll share tips for managing managers, taking small steps (and feeling okay about that) and the importance of working closely in the communities most affected by the violence.

Watch the recording

Speakers

Kaitlin Washburn is AHCJ’s core topic leader on firearm violence. She is also a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. She was a gun violence reporter for two years in Missouri for The Kansas City Star as a Report for America corps member. Before that, Washburn was an agriculture reporter covering the omnipresent industry in California’s Central Valley for The Sun-Gazette, also as a part of RFA.

Abené Clayton is a reporter in the Guardian’s California office and is the lead reporter on the newspaper’s “Guns & Lies in America” series, which launched in 2019 and focuses on the impacts of and solutions to community violence. She started covering gun violence in her hometown of Richmond, California and is now based in Los Angeles where she covers the people who live where shootings and homicides happen most.

Christopher “Flood the Drummer” Norris is a two-time Emmy-nominated broadcast journalist and former managing editor for community and engagement at WHYY, the Philadelphia NPR and PBS affiliate. He established the radio/TV station’s community engagement department and hosted Community Conversations, a series of public affairs specials that tackled gun violence, police reform, voting rights, reparations and more.

Norris serves as the strategic advisor to the CEO of StoryCorps, a 20-year old national nonprofit organization that preserves and shares humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. He also oversees StoryCorps’ One Small Step, a national program that pairs strangers across the political divide for conversations about their lives, in an effort to reduce toxic polarization and highlight a shared humanity.

Sammy Caiola was most recently a gun violence prevention reporter at WHYY News in Philadelphia. In 2022 she was a professional mentor with the Philadelphia Center for Gun Violence Reporting’s Credible Messenger Program, and she currently serves as a senior fellow with the University of Southern California’s Domestic Violence Impact Fund. She was a 2023 Ochberg fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. She is the co-host of “Stop and Frisk: Revisit or Resist”, a Murrow Award-winning podcast about policing and public safety, and “After the Assault”, a participatory journalism podcast about healing from sexual violence.

Homelessness and Health: An AHCJ Summit
2023-11-02 06:30 - 2023-11-03 11:00 | Waterfront Hotel – JDV by Hyatt, Waterfront Hotel - JDV by Hyatt 10 Washington Street, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Housing is a health care issue.

Research leaves little doubt about the negative impact a lack of a place to call home has on people’s health. The toll on mental and emotional health is enormous, alongside the physical harms. People experiencing homelessness are more vulnerable to becoming victims of crime, especially women, and more likely to experience a medical emergency. Unsurprisingly, the life expectancy of people who are unhoused is significantly lower than for the general population. Alarms are sounding about the nation’s aging, unhoused population.

We’re going to dig into this complicated issue at our fall summit Nov. 2-3 in Oakland, Calif. Setting aside the politics while being mindful of the myths surrounding homelessness, we’ll bring together experts, journalists and people with lived experience to talk about:

What the research shows about who is experiencing homelessness and the factors that contributed to them losing their housing.How “street teams” are addressing people’s critical health needs and providing a bridge to more sustained care.Approaches to addressing the mental and behavioral health needs of people who are unhoused.The upstream causes of homelessness and promising approaches to preventing it.

What the research shows about who is experiencing homelessness and the factors that contributed to them losing their housing.

How “street teams” are addressing people’s critical health needs and providing a bridge to more sustained care.

Approaches to addressing the mental and behavioral health needs of people who are unhoused.

The upstream causes of homelessness and promising approaches to preventing it.

View the program

HotelWaterfront Hotel- JDV by Hyatt10 Washington StreetOakland, Calif.

Book your hotel room in the AHCJ block here.

Registrations made after Oct. 13 will not include meals.

AirThe Oakland International Airport (OAK) is a breeze to navigate and is only 8 miles from downtown Oakland. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is 26 miles from Oakland Marriott City Center. Both airports are served by BART. Taxi’s, Uber and Lyft are also easily available at both airports.

Rapid TransitBay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The 12th Street Center is located approximately 6 blocks from the Waterfront Hotel. Plan your trip and get fares by using Trip Planner. Add Clipper to your phone in advance of arriving to the station. Clipper is available for mobile phones through either Apple Pay or Google Wallet. Every rider age 5 and up needs their own digital card. Clipper is a regional transit card that can be used on all transit in the Bay Area. If you are going to ride the Cable Car, ferry, or buses, put Clipper on your phone. As of October 2022, new plastic Clipper cards may not be available to purchase at SFO station due to global supply chain issues.

RailTravelers can reach Oakland by train at Amtrak’s Jack London Square station, approximately 0.4 mile from Waterfront Hotel.

WaterTake in panoramic views as you cruise on the water and under the Bay Bridge to various SF Bay Ferry terminals. Arrive or Board at Jack London Square and relish the ocean air on your face during the half-hour trip from/to San Francisco, Oracle Park, and more. The Jack London Square Terminal is adjacent to the Waterfront Hotel

CarWaterfront Hotel offers self parking. For those attending but not staying overnight, ample parking is available at the Washington Street (Washington Street And Embarcadero) and Jack London (Broadway AND Embarcadero) Garages, both located less than a block from the hotel.

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Application Deadline for Power of Diverse Voices: Writing Workshop for Journalists of Color
2023-09-15 01:00
The Poynter Institute, a leading instructor of journalists, is hosting a persuasive writing workshop for journalists of color from Nov. 15-18 in St. Petersburg, Fla. Journalists will network and practice new writing techniques in small-group writing and coaching sessions.
The application deadline is Sept. 15, 2023. The workshop is free to accepted candidates. Travel costs are not covered.
When/Where: Nov. 15-18; St. Petersburg, Fla.
Contact: Email the Poynter Institute at info@poynter.org For more information, visit the Poynter website.

The 5 Most Urgent Conversations About Rural Health
2023-08-24 08:00 | Hotel Kansas City, 1228 Baltimore Avenue, Kansas City, MO, Missouri, 64105-1908
AHCJ Rural Health Journalism Workshop 2023 — Kansas City

Join us in Kansas City on Aug. 24 for the 2023 Rural Health Journalism Workshop! This year’s theme is “The 5 Most Urgent Conversations About Rural Health.”

We’ll start with an overview of rural demographics and then talk about:

Investigating environmental health — access points and pointers

How rural harm reduction fits into the fight against overdose

Rural mental health care: Reaching cultural competency

Finding a maternal health solution for rural America

How people get health care information in news deserts

Registration opens on July 5 and closes on Aug. 11.

Book your hotel room in the AHCJ block here at Hotel Kansas City by Aug. 1.

Registration (advance registration includes lunch):

Members: $25

Non-members: $35

Non-members + a six-month AHCJ membership: $60

PR/PIO: $80

Advance registration is closed, however, on-site registration will be available at the event: $50 (On-site registration does not include meals)

Scholarships are available to offset attendance for Kansas and Missouri-based journalists that can assist with mileage and registration. Apply here.

Location:Hotel Kansas City1228 Baltimore AvenueKansas City, Mo. 64105816-685-1228

Meeting:Starlight Ballroom, 15th floor, Hotel Kansas CityUpon entry through the Front Entrance on Baltimore, Guests will walk through the lobby, past the front desk toward the double elevators. The Starlight Elevator is located to the left of the Town Company Restaurant (Starlight is not accessible from the double elevators).

If you are staying at the hotel overnight, you will need to return to the lobby to access the sleeping rooms by using the double elevator.

Parking garageAuditorium Plaza Garage1220 Wyandotte Street, Kansas City MO 64105Daily parking is rated at $12 but is subject to change or event parking rates.

Walking directions from the parking garage to the hotel.

Head south on Wyandotte St toward W 13th St

Turn left onto W 13th St

Turn left onto Baltimore Ave

Hotel will be on the left

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SPONSORS

The 5 Most Urgent Conversations About Rural Health: An AHCJ Workshop
2023-08-24 01:00
Join us in Kansas City on Aug. 24 for the 2023 Rural Health Journalism Workshop! This year’s theme is “The 5 Most Urgent Conversations About Rural Health.”
We’ll start with an overview of rural demographics and then talk about:

Investigating environmental health — access points and pointers
The harm reduction argument for rural America
Telemental health: It works when it’s culturally appropriate
Finding a maternal health solution for rural America
How people get health care information in news deserts

Register here

Registration opens on July 5 and closes on Aug. 11.
Book your hotel room in the AHCJ block here at Hotel Kansas City by Aug. 1.
Fees:

Members: $25
Non-members: $35
Non-members a 6 month AHCJ membership: $60
PR/PIO: $80

Scholarships are available to offset attendance for Kansas and Missouri-based journalists that can assist with mileage, registration and one hotel night. Apply here.

Location:

Hotel Kansas City1228 Baltimore AvenueKansas City, Mo. 64105816-685-1228
Meeting:Starlight Ballroom, 15th floor, Hotel Kansas CityUpon entry through the Front Entrance on Baltimore, Guests will walk through the lobby, past the front desk toward the double elevators. The Starlight Elevator is located to the left of the Town Company Restaurant (Starlight is not accessible from the double elevators).
If you are staying at the hotel overnight, you will need to return to the lobby to access the sleeping rooms by using the double elevator.
Parking garageAuditorium Plaza Garage1220 Wyandotte Street, Kansas City MO 64105Daily parking is rated at $12 but is subject to change or event parking rates.

Walking directions from the parking garage to the hotel.

Head south on Wyandotte St toward W 13th St
Turn left onto W 13th St
Turn left onto Baltimore Ave
Hotel will be on the left

1 year later: Assessing the 988 mental health hotline
2023-08-17 01:00
Thursday, Aug. 17 at 1:30 p.m. ET
The national 988 mental health crisis line was launched in July 2022 as an easier-to-remember alternative to the previous 10-digit hotline. The initiative, modeled after 911, is intended to reduce the incidence of suicide and the mental health crises that underlay suicidal ideation, attempts and fatalities. It is distinct from 911 in that it specifically addresses suicide crises.From the start, there have been questions about how well the hotline would function, including whether it would result in distressed people being involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospital wards or put the caller at risk of trauma or tragedy by sending armed police untrained in mental health interventions. Panelists — including a behavioral health policy researcher and a population health management strategist — will address those questions and related aspects of this topic.
Watch the recording
Vincent Atchity
Heather Saunders
Katti Gray

Vincent Atchity is president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado, which, in 2019, absorbed The Equitas Project, a national initiative to disentangle mental health and criminal justice that Atchity served as executive director. A population health management strategist, Atchity has worked on care management, cost control, outcomes improvement, workforce development, data integration, partnership network development and support, project design, education and fundraising. Atchity is a member of the Colorado Public Defender Commission, the Governor’s Strategic Planning Task Force to Increase Behavioral Health Access, the Denver District Attorney Advisory Council on Mental Health and the Colorado School of Public Health Behavioral Health Initiative Advisory Board. He has taught at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Fordham University in New York and was an assistant dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.
Heather Saunders is a postdoctoral fellow in the Kaiser Family Foundation Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Her work focuses on behavioral health policy, workforce adequacy and health care delivery for people with disabilities. Prior to joining KFF, Saunders was a researcher for Virginia’s Medicaid program. Before that, while employed as a social worker, she worked with clients in hospitals, schools and outpatient settings. She also managed randomized controlled trials in behavioral health care medical settings. Saunders earned a doctorate in health care policy and research from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her dissertation examined access to behavioral health services.
Katti Gray is AHCJ’s health beat 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. She has covered, among other topics, mental health care in prisons and jails, the debate over whether mental illnesses are being over-diagnosed and efforts to persuade persons of color to be less skeptical about seeking counseling and other mental health services.
