Calendar

The National Center for Health Statistics is expected to release a report on the health behaviors of American adults, based on data collected from 2005 to 2007. The behaviors quantified by the report will include "alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, leisure-time physical activity, body weight status, and sleep habits."

The National Center for Health Statistics is tentatively scheduled to release a report on the use of electronic medical records by ambulatory care providers in 2007.

The CDC and a number of epidemiology-focused organizations are hosting the Decennial International Conference on Healthcare-Associated Infections, a once-in-a-decade gathering in which experts will swap recommendations, review science and set policy for the next decade.

For more information or to register, visit the conference website.

The CDC's Division of Behavioral Surveillance will host the 27th Annual Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Conference, which will focus on data collection, data processing and innovation as applied to their chosen field.

The National Center for Health Statistics is tentatively scheduled to release a report on the use of electronic medical records among office-based physicians in 2006.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, this release "presents the very latest information on health insurance coverage in the United States, examining data from the first three quarters of the 2009 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and presents estimates from 1998 through 2007 for comparison."

Join us in the Windy City for a world-class program of panels, workshops, field trips and classes certain to deepen your knowledge of today's hot-button health issues. You'll walk away with immediate and longer-term story ideas, meet  sources, strengthen your reporting skills, attend breaking newsmaker events and network with other journalists working hard to stay on top of their beats.

We remain one of the best training deals in journalism, with registration as low as $150 for journalists and $99 for students. We've negotiated a great hotel rate of $139 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, the conference hotel. But don't delay; our hotel room block is nearly full.

Unite For Sight is hosting the 7th Global Health & Innovation Conference, a weekend event with a large and diverse guest list that plans to address "global health and international development, public health, medicine, social entrepreneurship, nonprofits, philanthropy, microfinance, human rights, anthropology, health policy, advocacy, public service, environmental health, and education."

For the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Annual Conference, more than 1,000 public health epidemiologists from across the country will come together to discuss chronic disease, child health, disparities, environmental health, infectious diseases, injury prevention and more.

The National Council on Disabilities will commemorate the Americans with Disabilities Act's 20th anniversary with the 2010 National Summit on Disability Policy. Possible issues to be discussed include civil rights, employment, disability statistics and data education, health care, homeland security, housing, international, telecommunications and technology, and transportation.

The Association of Health Care Journalists has teamed up with the National Library of Medicine to present the first AHCJ-NLM Fellowships. AHCJ will select four journalists to spend a week on the campus of the National Institutes of Health.

The American Psychosomatic Society, which calls itself a "worldwide community of scholars and clinicians dedicated to the scientific understanding of the interaction of mind, brain, body and social context in promoting health and contributing to the pathogenesis, course and treatment of disease," will review the latest psychosomatic research at its 2010 scientific conference.

The National Center for Health Statistics is expected to release a report on viral hepatitis in the U.S. According to the release, "This report includes trends and prevalence rates for hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, and it includes sociodemographic variables such as race, ethnicity, gender, place of birth and age."

The Indiana Hospital Association will bring together stakeholders from across the industry to help shed light on the obstacles to improving patient safety in Indiana. The summit will also seek to create a cooperative plan for overcoming them.

The National Center for Health Statistics is tentatively scheduled to release a report on the health characteristics of American Indian and Alaska Native adults, with a focus on the special challenges faced by those groups.

Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration economist Robert L. Scharff, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), and food-safety experts will discuss in a telebriefing the Produce Safety Project's new report, "Health-Related Costs from Foodborne Illness in the United States" and the nation's food-safety oversight system.

The workforce specialists at Jobs for the Future are hosting a conference at which their staff and outside experts will consider the new health care workforce and workforce policy in health reform.

The National Center for Health Statistics is tentatively scheduled to release information on the access to and utilization of medical care for young Americans.

The National Institutes of Health state-of-the-science conference on lactose intolerance will discuss the public health burden posed by lactose intolerance, as well as the possibility of misdiagnosis and the nutritional deficiencies that accompany a dairy-free diet.

In "A Population-Based Policy and Systems Change Approach to Prevent and Control Hypertension," the IOM looks at how hypertension can be reduced and controlled through "diet, physical activity and other public health approaches."

The 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will, according to a release, "feature more than 150 symposia, seminars and lectures on topics such as sleep and memory, dolphin intelligence, next-generation lasers, personalized medicine and more."

OMB Watch, a nonprofit that keeps its eye on the federal budget office and related matters, will host a webcast on Lobbying and ethics reform.

The National Center for Health Statistics is expected to release "Viral Hepatitis in the U.S.," a report that will include "trends and prevalence rates for hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, and it includes
sociodemographic variables such as race, ethnicity, gender, place of birth and age."

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute will release rankings that, according to the release, "show how counties measure up within each state in terms of how healthy people are, how long they live, and how important factors affect their health, such as tobacco use, obesity, access to healthcare, education, community safety, and air quality."

The National Center for Health Statistics is tentatively scheduled to release a statistical portrait of marriage and cohabitation in the United States.

OMB Watch, a nonprofit that keeps its eye on the federal budget office and related matters, will host a webcast on Recovery Act transparency.

The National Center for Health Statistics is scheduled to release a comprehensive summary of health in the United States in 2009.

The National Center for Health Statistics is expected to release data on the impact of private insurance type on health access/utilization for American adults.

The International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism are co-sponsoring a panel discussion on global public health risk communication, which will focus on lessons from the H1N1 influenza pandemic, according to the press release.

The Division of Aging and Seniors (Public Health Agency of Canada), in partnership with CHNET-Works, (University of Ottawa) will host a teleconference on "How elder care can become elder abuse and neglect." The "fireside chat" will examine the relationship between caregiving, stress and abuse.

OMB Watch, a nonprofit that keeps its eye on the federal budget office and related matters, will host a webcast on Public protections and regulatory approach.

The National Center for Health Statistics is tentatively scheduled to release "Health Information Technology Use Among Adults 18-64 Years of Age," which will be based on early estimates from the National Health Interview Survey's results from the first half of 2009.

A day devoted to journalists across Missouri will give reporters access to state officials and health experts with a focus on improving health reporting. The news-breaking event will provide journalists with the tools needed to improve the depth and amount of coverage focused on critical state and local health issues. The seminars will provide journalists from Missouri insight into state government's role in health policy. The journalists will leave the event with stories for their newsrooms right away, plus solid ideas for future health-related stories. Attendees will hear the latest on a variety of topics, especially important during a time when health – from reform to H1N1 – makes news every day.

OMB Watch, a nonprofit that keeps its eye on the federal budget office and related matters, will host a webcast on Government Openness. You must RSVP no later than Jan. 25.

The University of the Incarnate Word's Center for Medical Tourism Research presents a medical tourism research conference titled "Paradigm shifts and disruption -- the impact of globalized health care." The conference will address drivers of medical tourism, evaluations of medical tourism practices and the legal and ethical issues of medical tourism.

The 2010 Military Health System Conference will take place at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center.

The Philadelphia chapter of Association of Health Care Journalists will hold an open meeting on Jan. 25 at the Drexel University College of Medicine. This is an opportunity for journalists to meet some major figures at Drexel and delve into the worlds of surgery, drug development, electronic medical records and the new health bill that Congress is poised to pass. The session is designed to focus on Drexel faculty who will be making news in the next year.

A day devoted to journalists across Kansas will give access to state officials and health experts with a focus on improving health reporting. The news-breaking event will provide journalists with the tools needed to improve the depth and amount of coverage focused on critical state and local health issues. The seminars will provide journalists from Kansas insight into state government's role in health policy. The journalists will leave the event with stories for their newsrooms right away, plus solid ideas for future health-related stories. Attendees will hear the latest on a variety of topics, especially important during a time when health – from reform to H1N1 – makes news every day.

Come join your fellow health journalists for some post-holiday cheer!

We'll be meeting at the Laughing Man Tavern. This event is open to AHCJ and non-AHCJ members, so bring your colleagues too! No agenda. Just a chance to meet new colleagues or old friends.

The Atlanta chapter of the Association of Health Care Journalists is having a social gathering next week to welcome 10 fellow health journalists from across the country who are in town for a fellowship program at the CDC. Our visitors include newspaper, magazine and freelance journalists.

The Association of Health Care Journalists has teamed up with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for this national fellowship program for journalists. Ten fellows are chosen to spend a week studying a variety of public health issues at two CDC campuses. The fellowships include membership, travel, lodging and meals.

What do current Medicare beneficiaries think of the program? What do they like and don't like? How would they change their coverage if they could? Experts will explore the high out-of-pocket costs some beneficiaries still must still pay and whether they have too many choices for supplemental and drug coverage. What are the prospects for preventive care services that many beneficiaries say they want? Experts will also look at the long-term prospects for Medicare.

Our panel of experts and journalists will discuss these issues and more with an eye toward what journalists need to know to best inform their readers and viewers.

Send questions in advance to talkinghealth@healthjournalism.org.

Stories about food, nutrition, and the health impacts of eating are all over the media lately. The topic is especially significant for kids, who continue to tip the scales more than their peers even a decade ago and risk heading into adulthood with medical conditions that used to be for adults only. What can be done? Bay Area experts are doing some good work to solve this problem; our speakers are among this group, and share some insights and recent work that will inspire story ideas that will resonate with your readers and listeners. Mandatory RSVPs by 3 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 11.

Over the next 20 years, the 65-plus population is projected to grow four to six times as fast as the population as a whole. Learn what the hot-button issues in our aging society will be and what you need to be reporting on now.

What's ahead in research on chronic conditions, Alzheimer's and genetics? What's evolving in technology? What will be expected of caregivers? What kind of medical coverage will these seniors need? How do changing ethnic populations impact aging issues?

Come explore these issues and more so you can start telling these stories now.

This panel, presented at the California Chicano News Media Association's Journalism Opportunities Conference, will help reporters who don't normally cover health learn how to cover the health angles on their beats.

A San Francisco Chapter event

In these times of shrinking budgets and staff, reporters are more challenged than ever to get the information – especially public information – they need for thorough stories. What changes – if any – have occurred under the Obama Administration that make it easier to have requests for documents honored in a timely manner?  Speakers at this San Francisco Bay Area chapter event will provide background, examples, and smart strategies on these topics:  

• How FOI has changed (if it has) from the Bush to Obama administrations, examples of recent lawsuits, and how to navigate FOI hurdles.
• How the California Public Records Act has changed in the last year, examples of what precipitated legal action, how to make requests, and what to if you get no response or have difficulty getting records.
• What a reporter can do to translate hundreds of thousands of records into a digestible and comprehensive database.

A New York City Metro Chapter event

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most devastating epidemics of our time. But it receives relatively little attention from the media in relation to the 1.8 million deaths (and 9.3 million cases) it causes annually. Even worse, is the growing epidemic of multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB), which is greatly undermining gains in controlling TB particularly among those with HIV/AIDS. Recent data show that 25 percent of people dying of TB are HIV . An expert panel of scientists and journalists will make the case that health journalists must be prepared to cover MDR-TB and to persuade editorial leadership of its urgency.

An Atlanta Chapter event

The Atlanta chapter of AHCJ is piggybacking off a just-announced town hall forum on health care reform. If you can't make the start of the town hall, drop by later on. And plan to meet up afterward in the hotel bar in the lobby, the Parasol, to chat about health care and other issues.The town hall event is free and open to the public. 

Join the Washington, D.C.-metro area chapter of the Association of Health Care Journalists for a roundtable on the challenges and opportunities of covering health care reform.

The Association of Health Care Journalists has teamed up with the National Library of Medicine to present the first AHCJ-NLM Fellowships. AHCJ will select four journalists to spend a week on the campus of the National Institutes of Health.

A webinar for journalists

There's little question that health reform has dominated the news this summer, but is the coverage tackling the right issues? Join us for a "Talking Health" webinar, presented by AHCJ, The Commonwealth Fund, and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, to find out what top journalists think of the coverage of this complicated policy debate.

A Workshop for Journalists on Understanding the Relationship Between Faith, Culture and Health

In advance of its annual conference, the Religion Newswriters Association is cooperating with AHCJ to put on a workshop focused on the intersection of health and faith.

At the SPJ Convention

While it's getting easier to check the quality of health care institutions, investigating the quality of health professionals still requires a lot of legwork. This session will focus on the use of public records, court documents and interviews to background the people to whom we trust with our care. Several investigative reporters who have done it well will be highlighted.

AHCJ sponsored 12 journalists to take part in a two-day workshop at the CDC about covering seasonal influenza and the A-H1N1 flu virus, now grabbing the headlines. The workshop includes a series of on-the-record sessions with CDC experts to prepare front-line journalists for the upcoming flu season.

This three-hour event is open to all AHCJ members. It's planned as a fast-moving summary of the Fox Chase Cancer Center's highlights. Most presenters will speak for 15 minutes. The subjects will range from trends in personalized medicine and women's cancer to advances in radiation oncology and robotic surgery. Fox Chase maintains these researchers are all likely to make news in the next 12 months.

A leading CDC expert on influenza, Dr. Nancy Cox, will address the Atlanta chapter. It promises to be an illuminating look at swine flu and its effects on global health. So come out, shake off the midsummer blahs and enjoy a great evening of infectious talk with your fellow health journalists.

The Association of Health Care Journalists has teamed up with the National Library of Medicine to present the first AHCJ-NLM Fellowships. AHCJ will select four journalists to spend a week on the campus of the National Institutes of Health.

The 2008-09 Midwest Health Journalism Program Fellows will attend a seminar on covering rural health issues and will officially graduate from the program.

AHCJ member Gary Schwitzer will address the challenges of writing accurate, balanced and complete stories on deadline despite biased sources and commercial pressures in the medical industry. Schwitzer will use real stories as examples to show how it doesn't take an extra thousand words of type or 10 minutes of air to write a solid medical story.

Health reform is picking up steam in Congress. A major flash point in the coming debate is whether employers and individuals should be able to obtain health insurance through a public plan that is similar to Medicare, as well as private insurance from commercial carriers.

Our next Talking Health program will feature two experts: Cathy Schoen, senior vice president for research and evaluation at The Commonwealth Fund, and Bruce M. Bullen, chief operating officer of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. They will be on hand to offer their judgments on what we can expect. Our two journalist experts, Noam Levey, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times; and Ceci Connolly, a staff writer at The Washington Post; will provide their insights and suggestions for covering what will be a major story in the coming months.

The speakers will answer questions submitted before and during the webcast.

Join us in Seattle for AHCJ's annual conference, featuring dozens of experts and top journalists.

Reforming our health care system, which many believe is necessary for the United States to see economic recovery, is at the top of many people's minds these days. A number of panels, with expert speakers, at Health Journalism 2009 have been designed to help journalists cover health reform and all of the issues involved in a way that their readers and viewers will understand and appreciate.

More reasons not to miss this conference: Freelance PitchFest , networking with colleagues, receptions and much more. Panels and speakers will cover policy, business, research and clinical topics, with an aim of giving attendees practical ideas and information.

A new report examining the state of health care journalism and a survey of members of the Association of Health Care Journalists will be released. An expert panel will discuss the findings and the general topic.

Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at research and findings coming out of UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. You'll hear about leads, contacts, and valuable background for your stories in the areas of health research, new treatments for diseases, solutions to health business and policy challenges, and much more.

The fellows in the Midwest Health Journalism Program who are in Missouri will travel to Jefferson City for a series of briefings and meetings with state health policy experts.

New Date & Location!

Whether you're a staff reporter or freelancer, you've undoubtedly heard that to survive in the media in the future, you'll need to blog, podcast, and Twitter. A few writers have become conversant in online technologies and are using them to the benefit of their careers. Many of the rest of us, though, may have experimented with a blog or used Facebook to find sources for a story, but are still waiting to see how the digital revolution is really going to help our work lives. We'll explore this question with a panel of folks who are using online technology or helping others to do so.

Those Midwest Health Journalism Program Fellows who are in Kansas will go to Topeka for briefings and meetings with state health policy experts.

The 11 journalists in the the first class of AHCJ-CDC Health Journalism Fellows will spend a week studying public health issues at two Atlanta campuses of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The fellowship program, supported by the CDC Foundation, will include presentations, roundtable discussions and lab tours on epidemiology, global disease prevention efforts, obesity, vaccine safety, pandemic flu preparedness, autism and many other topics.

Philadelphia-area members of the Association of Health Care Journalists can learn about an international cancer information resource based in our own backyard: OncoLink, the oldest and largest cancer information resource on the Internet founded in 1994 by University of Pennsylvania cancer specialists.

The 2008-09 Midwest Health Journalism Program fellows will visit the CDC to learn more about how that agency works, what resources it has available and how to best use those resources. The fellows also visit the Carter Center. This competitive fellowship program picks 10 journalists from Kansas and Missouri each year for special training sessions, mentoring and access to AHCJ conferences, workshops and resources.

Obama presidency: Does his health plan stand a chance?

What lies ahead for health reform? The candidates made lots of promises during the campaign and now the time has come to deliver on them. Will the new president really be able to bring insurance coverage to more Americans given the country's other financial problems and the growing deficit? Will we again fall back on an incremental approach?

Our next Talking Health program will feature two experts who have been following the politics of health reform for a long time and two journalists who will give suggestions for covering the story for the next year nationally and locally. They will be taking questions from the audience, so submit questions today!

Philadelphia's AHCJ chapter will host a free workshop on health care reporting featuring guest lecturers Gary Schwitzer, associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, and Kathleen Fairfield, MD, DrPH, a medical editor with HealthNewsReview.org and clinician-scientist at Maine Medical Center. They will share their data on how news organizations have performed on 10 criteria for accurate, balanced and complete coverage; reflect on trends observed in the coverage of health care news; and provide tips about evaluating claims made about new health care treatments, tests, products and procedures. 

Jim Pickett of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago; Johnathan Briggs, foundation spokesman and former Tribune reporter; and Rev. Doris Green will discuss AIDS/HIV and the need for more prevention efforts.

AHCJ is a sponsor of the 6th Annual Missouri Health Policy Summit, hosted by the Center for Health Policy at the University of Missouri.

Dr. Arthur Kellermann, the associate dean for health policy at Emory University's School of Medicine, will be the featured speaker at this meeting of AHCJ's recently formed Atlanta chapter. Kellermann is one of the nation's leading experts on emergency medicine, ambulatory health policy and injury prevention.

Sessions will explore the health issues of children, seniors and immigrants in urban settings, as well as topics such as obesity, mental health, disaster preparedness and the mapping of local health data. Come get the tools to better investigate, understand and relate the health of your city.

This hands-on workshop will hone your skills and help you overcome the hurdles of reporting and writing quality health care stories despite biased sources and commercial pressures in the health/medical industry. We'll look at recent examples in our local media and learn tips and strategies.

Mary Chris Jaklevic, secretary of AHCJ's board of directors, hosted an informal gathering of health journalists.

Disseminating the information that comes from medical practitioners and the media is becoming more difficult. In this session health reporters and public health information officers will lead a discussion about the complicated roles of journalists and sources in this new environment and what the future may hold.

This interactive course is a resource for understanding the increasing diversity of the audiences AHCJ members serve. The e-class is the online companion to the book “Covering Health in a Multicultural Society: A Resource Guide for Journalists.”

This intensive boot camp for the 2008-09 Midwest Health Journalism Program brings the fellows together with top health care journalists for in-depth sessions on how to report on specific health care issues. This competitive fellowship program picks 10 journalists from Kansas and Missouri each year for special training sessions, mentoring and access to AHCJ conferences, workshops and resources.

Atlanta-area health journalists will gather to lay the groundwork for a local chapter.

This kick-off workshop brings the class of fellows together with experts to learn more about politics and policy, stakeholders in the health care debate and ideas for generating stories. This competitive fellowship program picks 10 journalists from Kansas and Missouri each year for special training sessions, mentoring and access to AHCJ conferences, workshops and resources. 

AHCJ, The Commonwealth Fund, and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism will present Talking Health, a webcast for members that will explore the growing problem of the underinsured – those who have insurance but are still at risk for substantial out-of-pocket expenses.

AHCJ's Chicago chapter presents this session in which attendees will learn how to address the challenges of writing accurate, balanced and complete stories on deadline despite biased sources and commercial pressures in the medical industry. The speakers will use real stories as examples to show how it doesn't take an extra thousand words of type or 10 minutes of air to write a solid medical story.

The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of AHCJ will hold this panel discussion, exploring a timely topic that deserves more local coverage. Thousands of veterans are coming home with serious injuries, especially post-traumatic stress disorder, brain trauma, and physical disabilities. Are local medical and mental health resources adequate to handle their needs?

AHCJ's Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism will present the workshop, which will focus on special health concerns of America's rural populations and how reporters can better cover them.

This conference is designed to help journalists navigate the complex scientific, medical and political issues involved with global health, to assess what's working and what's not, and make these stories meaningful to local audiences.

Nearly 600 people attended Health Journalism 2008 for dozens of panels on medical research, public health, the business of health care and consumer health. They also hear actor Dennis Quaid's very personal perspective on medical errors, Elizabeth Edwards' take on John McCain's health care plan, top experts debate the future of health care in this country and much more. News briefings by HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and officials from the American Public Health Association and its partners let attendees write stories for their news outlets during the conference.

This Chicago chapter event featured two doctors who specialize in treating addictions.

This panel will tap into cutting-edge news, research, and innovations developing in the Bay Area. If you write about any health aspect of the boomer generation, you won't want to miss this event. Panelists include Laura L. Carstensen, professor of psychology and director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, and Bay Area journalist Paul Kleyman, editor of the American Society on Aging's publication Aging Today and the national coordinator of the Journalists Exchange on Aging.

Andrew Dillon, chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, will meet with British and American reporters to discuss his agency's role in advising the UK's National Health Service on the cost-effectiveness of medical treatments, and some of the subsequent rumbles across the Atlantic.

Enjoy complimentary light refreshments and a casual, meet-and-mingle gathering. The holiday party will be hosted this year by KQED Public Radio's The California Report, producers of "Heath Dialogues."

The 2007-08 fellows will pay a visit to the Centers for Disease Control. They will take part in two days of educational sessions, briefings and tours with CDC personnel.

For the first time, Florida health reporters will gather to share tips, ideas and meet some of the state's top health regulators. The gathering also will serve as an exploratory meeting to discuss the possible formation of an AHCJ Florida Chapter. All Florida health reporters are invited. You do not have to be an AHCJ member to attend.

The Chicago chapter of the Association of Health Care Journalists held an after-work gathering where AHCJ board member Mary Chris Jaklevic, who edited the new AHCJ guide "Covering Obesity: A Guide for Reporters," discussed the book and AHCJ board member Carla K. Johnson gave an update and answered questions about AHCJ nationally and in Chicago.

The New York chapter heard from five speakers about conflicts of interest in health care. The event, at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, examined how to recognize potential conflicts, including marketing vs. education, the pharmaceutical industry's gift giving to doctors and how it might affect prescribing habits and similar issues.

AHCJ - and its Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism - held its first Urban Health Journalism Workshop. Sessions explored the health issues of children, seniors and immigrants in urban settings, as well as obesity, mental health, disaster preparedness and the mapping of local health data.

Get MP3 and Flash presentations from the 2007 Urban Health Journalism Workshop. Topics include the health issues of children, seniors and immigrants in urban settings, as well as obesity, mental health, disaster preparedness and the mapping of local health data.

Three dozen journalists gathered at the San Francisco Chronicle for a workshop on multicultural health issues in the Bay Area.

Covering disparities in health and health care is not the same as reporting the latest drug trial or diet advice. Culture, history, money and biology intertwine to influence health and health care. This workshop builds on AHCJ's recently published multicultural health resource guide, which was supported by The California Endowment, to help you sharpen your skills, learn practical tips, and avoid lurking traps in this important, yet underreported area. Experienced journalists share their hard-earned lessons. Health experts flag common errors and misconceptions, while also providing an overview of what researchers really know.

Multimedia presentations are now available from this workshop, the third of its kind presented in California by AHCJ over the past year, was sponsored by The California Endowment. Logistical support also came from The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

Bay Area members gathered to hear from three panelists about "Universal health coverage in California and the U.S.: Will it happen, when, and what will it look like?"

Audio is now available from the AHCJ San Francisco Bay Area Chapter meeting on Sept. 5 at the Kaiser Family Foundation about "Universal health coverage in California and the U.S.: Will it happen, when, and what will it look like?"

Training event for the 2007-08 Midwest Health Journalism Program fellows.

Kickoff training event for the 2007-08 Midwest Health Journalism Program fellows.

Washington, D.C., members gathered for a brown-bag lunch and panel discussion on drug safety regulation and the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), which is currently in conference committee in Congress.

The Chicago chapter will meet at 6 p.m. at Columbia College to hear about the future of health care reform from two speakers.

This innovative simulation will hone your critical-thinking skills and give you the beat-specific knowledge needed to cover the hospitals in your community. You will be a rookie health beat reporter, investigating local hospitals on deadline, working with your editor to find the focus of your story and craft the lead. You'll tap into the same tools that you'll use on the job, and you'll have a virtual "mentor" to walk you through the maze of reports, statistics and sources. As the simulation progresses, you'll uncover additional sources, and the story you thought was unfolding might take unexpected turns.

AHCJ and the Kaiser Family Foundation hosted this interactive roundtable webcast on March 6, 2007. Trudy Lieberman, president of AHCJ's board of directors, moderates a panel of experts discussing what journalists need to know about covering SCHIP.

With the State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) up for reauthorization, this roundtable - a partnership between the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Kaiser Family Foundation - focuses on what journalists need to know about covering SCHIP in their states. Health reform proposals announced by would-be presidential candidates call for expanding coverage through SCHIP.

Hospital emergency rooms are under siege. Some inner city hospitals are losing on-call specialists to treat severely injured patients or must pay high prices to keep them. In some parts of the country, ambulance diversions are continuing. So are wallet biopsies which telegraph to hospitals who can pay and who cannot. Changes to Medicaid mandated by the Deficit Reduction Act could affect the care those on Medicaid will receive. Technology and emergency room care will become more expensive, raising the question: “Who will fund this place of last resort as the move to market-driven health care rushes ahead? “

Bay Area health care writers, editors, reporters and authors gathered at the 13 Views bar at the top of the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero for a Health Journalism Schmooze.

A roundtable focusing on the new Medicare prescription drug benefit known as Part D, designed to help Medicare beneficiaries pay for their medications.

This roundtable focuses on health savings accounts and related approaches advocated by the Bush Administration and others to address rising health care costs and lack of coverage for the uninsured. Webcast and transcript available.