Reporting the Mind, Emotions and Health

By Katelin Chow

This week I want to focus on Type 2 diabetes, a disease commonly seen in the Latino community. The New York Times article “Testing Link Between Diabetes and Family History” makes the claim that in addition to diet, family history may also cause diabetes. A group of Australian researchers tested 41 men and women and asked them to eat a high-fat diet for four weeks. Half of these subjects had family members with diabetes, but in the end, all participants had gained weight. But the subjects with a family history of diabetes had gained 7.5 pounds, a large weight increase compared to those without “genetic susceptibility (4.8 pounds)”, according to the article. Read all »

By Chantal Anderson

This week I decided to take a look at the New York Times multimedia health section. This large consortium of audio interview and photo essays called “Patient Voices” attempts to show the human angle of different diseases. Some of the projects include eating disorders, bipolar disorder and A.D.H.D. Each person has about 30 seconds of audio attached to a photo essay the reader can flip through. I appreciate how each disease featured has multiple viewpoints, and how personal the medium feels. Most of all, I think what the project does best is encouraging people to talk about taboo topics like tourette syndrome or an eating disorder to help others better understand these diseases.

By Joanna Nolasco

As I read “Whooping cough still with us, still dangerous,” by Rong-Gong Lin II of the Los Angeles Times, I was reminded of the Seattle Times article I read last week: “WHO says measles making ‘rapid comeback’.”

Both articles report about new cases of illnesses that most people thought were diseases of the past. Both articles also attribute the re-emergence of the disease to missing inoculations. The LA Times article reports that many adults believe they are immune to the whooping cough (pertussis) because they were vaccinated as a child, but the vaccine wears off in five years. The Seattle Times article attributes the new cases of measles in Britain to a drop in the use of the combined measles, mumps and rubinella vaccine in the late 1990s when there was a “flawed” paper published that linked the inoculation to autism. Read all »

By Rachel Solomon

I decided to devote this week’s blog post to some quick, interesting and little-known facts about leprosy.

1. Some cases of leprosy cause people’s eyebrows to disappear. In places like India, this carries a huge stigma, and having no eyebrows can out someone as a leprosy patient. So, when patients come to the Hansen’s Disease Clinic, doctors can perform hair transplants to replenish the hair above the eyes. They take hair from the scalp, move it under the forehead bring it out. Sometimes, people end up with long, bushy brows—which makes them very happy! Read all »

By Joanna Nolasco

After reading “Studies: African-Americans twice as likely as whites to get Alzheimer’s” by Sandy Kleffman of The Contra Costa Times (and featured by The Seattle Times), I was irked.

I loved the lead. The reporter began with a narrative about Roberta Randolph, an 85-year-old African-American woman, and the beginnings of her struggle with Alzheimer’s. It certainly drew me into the story. Read all »

By Joanna Nolasco

A mental-health article that caught my attention this week was “A Closer Look: Scientists take sides over the games’ effects on children who play them” by Jill U Adams of The Los Angeles Times. The article presents the two opposing views on the link between video games and violence in children and teenagers.

“It’s a highly polarized research field,” Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, told the LA Times.

Ferguson claims that the effect is 0 percent and that scholars who argue otherwise “are being deeply dishonest with the American public.” In contrast, Rowell Huesmann, communications and psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, compares the effect of video games on violent behavior to that of cigarette-smoking and lung cancer. Read all »

By Rachel Solomon

Maternal deaths are falling across the world, says a study published in The Lancet. Sounds like great news. Health care is improving in impoverished areas to give women better obstetric care. Nutrition is improving. Women have better access to education.

The New York Times wrote last in April that some women’s health advocates actually urged The Lancet to delay publishing its findings. They were worried that the “good news would detract from the urgency of their cause,” The New York Times reported. Read all »

By Andrew Doughman

I’ve noticed that doctors have the same penchant as politicians; they speak in acronyms. Sometimes I just have to nod my head and write down that I better look up “OSPI” and “UN HRC” later.

It’s difficult, though, to avoid using a group’s lingo. It’s OK, as long as journalists don’t confuse the reader by using jargon and big words in their writing.

I wrote a story this past week and struggled with translating jargon into something easy to understand. Read all »

By Chantal Anderson

One of the primary aims of last weekend’s War and Global Health conference was to make the case war is not only a political issue, but also a public health issue. During one of the seminars I covered a professor asked, “What are some reasons wars begin?” The answer for a few in the crowd was instant: “the media.”

That blatant accusatory phrase, “the media,” hit me like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t so much that I felt offended by the comments, but it did make me feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to think a room full of healthcare professionals and students in the global health field thought journalists (me) were mainly to blame for our current “war on terror.” I took it as a reminder of the importance of truthful and fair journalism. But also it was a reminder of the wretched power of storytelling gone astray. It brought these questions to mind: How long it will take the media field to recognize war as a health issue? Will war coverage always be under the politics section of the newspaper/online news site? And at what point will more health experts be interviewed in a war story than politicians?  

By Katelin Chow

Seeking preventive health care can prevent emergency room visits, emphasized the New York Times article “Saving the Emergency Rooms for Emergencies.”  

 According to the writer, Jane Brody, people with minor ailments who go to emergency rooms for care add an additional wait time for people with actual medical emergencies. People who have minor ailments like colds or coughs and don’t have medical insurance go to emergency rooms, which are all mandated by law to treat everyone regardless of their ability to pay. Other patients with minor ailments simply go because they are unable to see their normal physicians. Either way, the article stressed that emergency rooms are crowded with people who don’t have medical emergencies.  Read all »

By Wilhelmina Hayward

The practice of torture is perceived by many as a dark element of history, but what less people know is the U.S. continues to dirty their hands by engaging in this immoral and illegal practice.

“We cannot wish it away…questions of responsibility are pressed upon us,” said Robert Crawford, a professor who teaches courses about human rights, war and post 9/11 politics, in an introduction into the discussion about torture in the U.S. Read all »

By Andrew Doughman

 Little and her family fled from the conflicts in the Balkans during the 1990s. Now she lives in Seattle, where she works with AmeriCorps and the International Rescue Committee. 

After her talk, she told about 80 in attendance that they could help refugees by volunteering at the local International Rescue Committee office. Those interested in volunteering can contact the International Rescue Committee at VolunteerSEA@theIRC.org. Read all »

Andrew Doughman, a student in this global health reporting course, provided The Seattle Times with a story previewing the 8th Annual Western International Health Conference on War and Global Health. His story touched on the impressive work of Evan Kanter, who treats active-duty military personnel and veterans for PTSD and other mental-health conditions.  He summarizes the intent of the global health students who organized the conference in the words of UW graduate student Rebecca Bartlein. “War is not just something that happens,” she said. “We can impact those causes of war.”  Read Doughman’s story here.

By Rachel Solomon

Panelists at the women and war session addressed a packed room about gender-based violence and rape as a war crime during the War and Global Health conference April 24.

Sutapa Basu, executive director of the University of Washington Women’s Center, introduced the topic of rape as a weapon of war, stating that evidence of women being handled as trophies of war has been documented for centuries. Read all »