Association of Health Care Journalists

The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) is a nonprofit group that operates independently, with a focus on enhancing the public’s knowledge of health care topics. The organization aims to elevate the quality, precision, and prominence of reporting, writing, and editing in the health care sector. Currently, AHCJ boasts a membership of over 1,500 individuals.

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A new way to measure perinatal mortality — and why it matters

1 week ago | healthjournalism.org | Lara Salahi

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has adopted a new, broader definition of perinatal mortality — deaths that occur around the time of birth. Until now, perinatal mortality included fetal deaths at 28 weeks of pregnancy or later and infant deaths within the first 7 days. The new definition lowers the threshold to include fetal deaths starting at 20 weeks. Under the previous definition (called Definition I), only about 61% of all perinatal deaths were captured.
Covering the ongoing bird flu story: Identifying appropriate sources

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Katie Burke |Tara Haelle

In our first post, we provided a very broad overview of the ongoing bird flu situation. This post will focus specifically on stories reporters can do on ecological health issues, including veterinary, agricultural and wildlife angles — areas that have been underreported by health journalists but are particularly important at the local level.
Bird flu: Background and data overview for reporters

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Katie Burke |Tara Haelle

As with covering any outbreak or other type of ongoing, developing story, it’s helpful when writing about bird flu to provide context throughout your coverage for those who have not been following it all along. Consider including some of the news developments from the list of resources at the bottom of this post in your story to provide background or a sense of the timeline for your audience. All influenza A viruses have eight genes that encode 11 known proteins.
How to find and tell fresh stories about infertility and reproductive health

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Anna Medaris

From news about the Trump administration’s insulting potential strategies to incentivize women to have more babies to dire headlines about abortion bans increasing infant and maternal mortality, there’s no shortage of depressing — if not downright dystopian — reproductive health stories for journalists to follow and write.
What journalists should know about lab-developed tests

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Jyoti Madhusoodanan

Lab-developed tests (LDTs) are diagnostic tools widely used across health care to test blood, tissue or other samples for infectious diseases, genetic markers, or other biomarkers of many conditions. Unlike tests manufactured and marketed commercially, LDTs are designed and used within a single lab that meets certain stringent standards.
What if the ACA included a public option insurance plan?

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Joseph Burns

When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, lobbying from health insurers and physicians helped to kill a potentially significant provision: a government-run public option health insurance program. In early versions of the ACA, President Barack Obama proposed that it include a public option that could compete with private insurers and keep them honest, as Robert Pear reported for The New York Times.
Medical device manufacturers often delay reporting adverse safety events, study says

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Karen Blum

Medical device manufacturers are required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to report within 30 days any adverse safety events like malfunctions that could injure someone. The agency compiles these events in a centralized database called the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) and uses the information to decide whether to communicate any safety concerns to the health care community and/or the public, or pursue any other regulatory actions including recalls.
Vital context to include in your measles coverage

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Tara Haelle

Since a measles outbreak first began in west Texas in mid-January, there have been 1,001 confirmed cases across 30 U.S. states as of May 8. While not all of these cases are specifically linked to the Texas outbreak, 93% of them are linked to the dozen outbreaks recorded this year. There’s reason to believe these numbers will continue to climb given the pockets of low vaccination rates spread unevenly across the country.
New guides for pitching to Huffpost Personal, Business Insider and Women's Health

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Anna Medaris

Do you have a great story idea but not sure which publication is the right fit? Or, do you want to write for a certain outlet but don’t know how to best reach out? AHCJ’s Freelance Market Guides include tips for pitching over 50 publications — including the New York Times, NPR, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Wired and others — based on interviews with the editors who field them.
3 common freelance conundrums — and how to handle them

1 month ago | healthjournalism.org | Anna Medaris

From pitching into an apparent void to dealing with “scope creep” — or when an assignment involves a lot more than what was originally agreed upon, without added compensation — freelance writers deal with some particular challenges that staff journalists typically do not. Of course, all journalists face many of the same issues from time to time too, whether it’s managing burnout, combatting procrastination or disagreeing with an editor’s changes.