Jason Beaubien
Jason Beaubien is NPR's Global Health and Development Correspondent on the Science Desk.
In this role, he reports on a range of issues across the world. He's covered the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, mass cataract surgeries in Ethiopia, abortion in El Salvador, poisonous gold mines in Nigeria, drug-resistant malaria in Myanmar and tuberculosis in Tajikistan. He was part of a team of reporters at NPR that won a Peabody Award in 2015 for their extensive coverage of the West Africa Ebola outbreak. His current beat also examines development issues including why Niger has the highest birth rate in the world, can private schools serve some of the poorest kids on the planet and the links between obesity and economic growth.
Prior to becoming the Global Health and Development Correspondent in 2012, Beaubien spent four years based in Mexico City covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. In that role, Beaubien filed stories on politics in Cuba, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the FMLN victory in El Salvador, the world's richest man and Mexico's brutal drug war.
For his first multi-part series as the Mexico City correspondent, Beaubien drove the length of the U.S./Mexico border making a point to touch his toes in both oceans. The stories chronicled the economic, social and political changes along the violent frontier.
In 2002, Beaubien joined NPR after volunteering to cover a coup attempt in the Ivory Coast. Over the next four years, Beaubien worked as a foreign correspondent in sub-Saharan Africa, visiting 27 countries on the continent. His reporting ranged from poverty on the world's poorest continent, the HIV in the epicenter of the epidemic, and the all-night a cappella contests in South Africa, to Afro-pop stars in Nigeria and a trial of white mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea.
During this time, he covered the famines and wars of Africa, as well as inspiring preachers and Nobel laureates. Beaubien was one of the first journalists to report on the huge exodus of people out of Sudan's Darfur region into Chad, as villagers fled some of the initial attacks by the Janjawid. He reported extensively on the steady deterioration of Zimbabwe and still has a collection of worthless Zimbabwean currency.
In 2006, Beaubien was awarded a Knight-Wallace fellowship at the University of Michigan to study the relationship between the developed and the developing world.
Beaubien grew up in Maine, started his radio career as an intern at NPR Member Station KQED in San Francisco and worked at WBUR in Boston before joining NPR.
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The two cases are the first in the country since 1999. The virus spread from neighboring Cameroon. When polio is on the move in Central Africa, the toll can be tragic. -
The $31.3 billion given by wealthy nations, aid groups, charities, large foundations and others in 2013 reflects the shifting mix of donors backing international health projects, an analysis suggests. -
When doctors ran out of treatment options for her dying husband, Oxana Rucsineanu took matters into her own hands. The costly new drug she got for him has menacing side effects, but it might save him. -
The world is at greater risk than ever from pandemics and biological weapons, health officials said Thursday. In response, the U.S. government is spearheading a global effort to build an early warning system for infectious diseases, drug-resistant microbes and possible bioterror agents. -
Since 1990, nearly 2 billion people have gained clean toilets, or at least decent outhouses. And many more children in the developing world now eat better, go to school and get medical treatment. The advances mean that fewer children are dying of preventable diseases. -
One-third of adults worldwide are overweight. Globalization has made high-calorie foods readily available at low cost almost everywhere. In 1980, less than 40 percent of Mexican women were overweight. By 2008, almost 70 percent were. -
Malaria remains one of the deadliest diseases worldwide. But the U.S. successfully wiped out the mosquito-borne parasite from the American South in the early part of the 20th century. One researcher thinks this successful campaign offers lessons for how to stop malaria worldwide. -
A baby born today in Ethiopia is three times less likely to die before age 5 than one born in 1990. This reduction in child mortality isn't due to expensive international aid but rather to an investment in bare-bones health clinics run by minimally trained community workers.
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NPR's Jason Beaubien and David Gilkey have covered calamities all over the globe. But the recent aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines was particularly daunting. Jason describes the extreme challenges they faced. -
This year was on track for a record-low number of polio cases. But polio pushed back hard. It reappeared in some places and spiked in others. Still, global health officials remain confident that polio can be defeated soon.
