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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Studies worldwide show that queer people tend to have more older brothers than other kinds of siblings. Justin Torres, a queer novelist and the youngest of three brothers, asks: Should it matter? -
How far do women have to travel to access abortion care? An economics professor has been tracking that data since 2009. Interactive maps show how access has changed dramatically since 2021. -
The case could affect not just abortion access but oversight of the drug industry and the authority of federal agencies. The court hears arguments Tuesday. -
That's the highest number in more than a decade, according to new research. Medication abortion made up a larger share of the total than in 2020. -
The peer-reviewed study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology says a pregnancy checkbox on national death certificates inflates the death rate. The CDC "disagrees with the findings." -
The study looks at 6,000 patients who got abortion pills after an online appointment. It found that 99.7% of those abortions were not followed by any serious adverse events. -
A research paper that raises questions about the safety of abortion has been retracted. The research is cited in a federal judge's ruling about the abortion pill mifepristone. -
In Boulder, Colo., the county is investing in sustainable farming and helping people buy local produce. It's been called "a triple win" – for customers, farmers and the economy. -
A sudden appendectomy as a child made Heather Smith curious about what the appendix is for and why it gets inflamed. Now as an anatomy researcher, she's finding answers. -
Researchers estimate nearly 65,000 rape-caused pregnancies have happened in states with abortion bans in effect since Roe v. Wade was overturned. The report is in JAMA Internal Medicine.
