Why Don't We Know: Global Neglected Killer Diseases

Date: March 12, 2013
Time: 4:00 - 5:30pm
Location: London School of Economics | Clement House, Aldwych, CLM.4.02
No RSVP needed

When the Global Burden of Disease Survey showed that people in poor countries are hit hard by diseases usually associated with richer countries, leading US radio health reporter Joanne Silberner knew it would take more than statistics to reach the general public with this critical story.

In December, her five-part radio series on cancer in Haiti, Uganda and India was broadcast on Public Radio International's The World. It gave the show's website its highest weekly traffic ever, and a subsequent piece on the BCC picked up 500,000 hits in a 24-hour period. Silberner recently returned from Cambodia, where she reported on rising rates of hypertension and diabetes. Silberner's field reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Silberner is a freelance public radio reporter and artist-in-residence at the University of Washington. For 18 years, she covered health policy and global health for National Public Radio. She studied biology at Johns Hopkins University, earned a masters in journalism at Columbia University and spent a year as a fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Contact: Peter Sawyer, psawyer [at] pulitzercenter.org