In many parts of the world, health reporting is not a stand alone news beat. Health often goes to the top of the news agenda when there is an emergency that threatens a large number of lives. Case in point is the Covid-19 global pandemic. The same happened during the HIV/Aids epidemic of the 80’s and the 90s, the SARS, H1N1 and the multiple Ebola outbreaks, as well as the Flint water crisis in the U.S. But the reality is that health matters to all because most human beings will eventually confront various health challenges, especially as they get older.

Paula Andalo, Senior Ethnic Media Editor for Kaiser Health News and Ahmed Abdeen, Internews Pandemic Mentor and Founder of Aleyada.com, joined us in March to discuss way to fill the gap in health news reporting. As the Senior Ethnic Media Editor for Kaiser Health News, Paula is responsible for the curation and dissemination of health news for Hispanic audiences in the Americas. As an experienced health reporter herself, Paula emphasized the importance of aiming for a diversity of voices in health stories. Ahmed, who recently launched the first health news portal for Arabic speaking countries, reflected on the challenges of packaging health content for low literacy audiences. You can find out more about this event by reading our blog and watching the video recording.