Selena Simmons-Duffin
Selena Simmons-Duffin reports on health policy for NPR.
She has worked at NPR for ten years as a show editor and producer, with one stopover at WAMU in 2017 as part of a staff exchange. For four months, she reported local Washington, DC, health stories, including a secretive maternity ward closure and a gesundheit machine.
Before coming to All Things Considered in 2016, Simmons-Duffin spent six years on Morning Edition working shifts at all hours and directing the show. She also drove the full length of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2014 for the "Borderland" series.
She won a Gracie Award in 2015 for creating a video called "Talking While Female," and a 2014 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for producing a series on why you should love your microbes.
Simmons-Duffin attended Stanford University, where she majored in English. She took time off from college to do HIV/AIDS-related work in East Africa. She started out in radio at Stanford's radio station, KZSU, and went on to study documentary radio at the Salt Institute, before coming to NPR as an intern in 2009.
She lives in Washington, DC, with her spouse and kids.
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As the first full year since Roe v. Wade was overturned closes, the abortion landscape in the U.S. has changed legally, politically and medically. -
Dr. Austin Dennard is an OB-GYN who is going to give birth very soon. She also had to leave Texas to terminate a previous pregnancy because the fetus had a fatal condition. -
Some doctors in Texas are so worried about the abortion bans, they hint to patients with pregnancy complications, "I've heard traveling to Colorado is really nice this time of year." -
A new report assessed the impact of laws in the 15 states that have banned or heavily restricted abortion since June 24. -
Americans' life expectancy dropped for the second year in a row and is the biggest drop since the 1920s. COVID-19 is driving the downward trend, according to CDC data. -
Physicians must treat in line with patients' wishes and standards of care. Some medical ethicists say that abortion bans will force doctors to disregard these obligations in order to follow the law. -
NPR talks to Claire Hannan, who has helped navigate vaccine rollouts in all 50 states, about some of the challenges involved in quickly getting shots out to millions of young kids. -
Thanks to at-home testing, official reports are missing a lot of the COVID cases circulating now. Is the U.S. in the midst of an invisible surge? Here's how to assess the situation where you live. -
A large share of the nearly 1 million people who died of COVID in the U.S. may have lived if they'd gotten vaccinated. A new analysis shows how many lives could have been saved across the country. -
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held only two telebriefings in 2021. That lack of transparency has prompted criticism — and a pledge from director Dr. Rochelle Walensky to be more open.
