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Progress and challenges on Europe’s pathway to clean air
Recently released data show that the European Union has successfully met its “zero-pollution” target of reducing premature deaths from air pollution by 55% by 2023. However, about 95% of people living in EU cities in 2023 were still exposed to fine-particle pollution above WHO health guidelines. As the United States falls behind in clean air…
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Building audience with local climate-health stories
Climate change is often covered as a vast, global crisis, defined by melting ice sheets, stalled international agreements and the persistent grip of fossil fuels. What gets far less attention are the local stories unfolding across the country: clinics adapting to wildfire, counties redesigning emergency response plans for extreme heat, public health responses to vector-borne…
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Why air pollution is an underreported health story of the decade
For health journalists, the data are unequivocal: Air pollution is no longer just an environmental issue; it’s a global public health emergency. While headlines often focus on climate change, the invisible particles and molecules that result from burning fossil fuels and that infiltrate human bodies is one of the greatest threats to longevity today. The…
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A billion lives in the balance: How we prepare for unbearable heat will shape the century
More than 1 billion people live in areas where the heat and the humidity will surpass the survivability limit by the end of this century. For comparison, the COVID-19 pandemic killed an estimated 15 million people in its first two years, according to the United Nations. So, such extreme heat could be orders of magnitude…
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New insights for health journalists from a climate communication research review
People around the world are not getting important information about their health because it is siloed as an environmental topic. Health journalists can help fill that gap. A review paper published in October summarizes the global literature published on climate-health communication between 2000 and 2023. The biggest take-home point is the need for more climate-health communication. …
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How to get quotes when scientists won’t talk on the record about climate change
I’ve covered health for a long time, as a writer and editor. This year, I’ve started reporting more on climate and health, which had not been my prior focus. Developing story ideas hasn’t been a problem. But developing sources — at a time when the White House is calling climate change a hoax, when universities…
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Hospital flood risk: How to use KFF’s mapping analysis
In part one of my interview with Holly Hacker of KFF Health News, we discussed how her project mapping flood risk came about, and why the analysis was necessary beyond the maps you can find through FEMA. In this second part, Hacker and I discuss how she and her team chose what to emphasize visually…
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