With new hire, AHCJ puts firearm violence and trauma front and center in public health reporting

About Erica Tricarico

Taking care of Editor Erica Tricarico is a graduate of Howard College and the master’s method in journalism at CUNY. Tricarico arrives to AHCJ from MJH Life Sciences in Cranbury, N.J., exactly where she managed an editorial group producing written content on animal treatment. In advance of that, she was a freelance overall health care reporter for Day to day Health.

Kaitlin Washburn

AHCJ just lately welcomed Kaitlin Washburn, a Chicago-centered unbiased health reporter, as the organization’s first firearm violence and trauma HealthBeat leader (formerly recognized as core topic chief).

Funding for the new function will come from the Joyce Basis, which also delivered help for AHCJ’s slide summit in 2022 on firearm violence as a community health and fitness difficulty. 

Washburn, a San Diego native and graduate of the University of Missouri College of Journalism, covered gun violence for two years for The Kansas Metropolis Star as a Report for The usa (RFA) corps member. There she described on neighborhoods most difficult hit by firearm violence in Kansas City and St. Louis as properly as the impact of firearm suicides in rural locations. 

She also examined prevention endeavours outside the house of regulation enforcement and the influence that other variables — poverty, housing and community infrastructure — have on gun violence. Washburn also wrote about the forms of gun violence that typically go underreported but travel gun fatalities and accidents, like domestic violence and suicide.

“We truly just employed just one of the most seasoned firearm violence reporters in the Midwest for this new function,” stated Katherine Reed, director of instruction and information for AHCJ. “Kaitlin is familiar with this subject inside and out and has shown what a public overall health body seems like when applied to this matter. I feel her expertise will be very useful to our associates.”

Making use of land bank facts and taking pictures locations, Washburn noted on how vacant plenty and deserted buildings can add to increased gun violence premiums. Her coverage also involved the initiatives of a teen-staffed crisis hotline in St. Louis committed to minimizing stigma and ending the silence all-around youth suicide, and the a long time-extended exertion by the Missouri legislature to roll back gun legal guidelines, leading to a spike in gun fatalities in the condition.

Beforehand, she was an agriculture reporter covering the omnipresent business in California’s Central Valley for The Solar-Gazette, also as a section of RFA.

“It’s essential for health and fitness treatment journalists to address this subject because gun violence poses a single of the greatest threats to the overall health and very well-currently being of communities throughout the place. Gun violence has harmful impacts on an individual’s and a community’s health,” she reported.

 “In this purpose with AHCJ, I will consider what I’ve learned from reporting on the gun violence defeat and offer functional guidelines for reporters to greater address the difficulty. I will describe the important troubles that intersect with gun violence and community overall health and I will share suggestions and most effective tactics for how to include gun violence in any community from a general public well being point of view.”

Handling Editor Erica Tricarico is a graduate of Howard University and the master’s system in journalism at CUNY. Tricarico arrives to AHCJ from MJH Daily life Sciences in Cranbury, N.J., in which she managed an editorial group manufacturing information on animal treatment. Just before that, she was a freelance health and fitness care reporter for Daily Overall health.