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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Nearly a third of us are overweight, and some of the worst rates of obesity are in the developing world. All this corpulence takes a huge economic toll.
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Hundreds of people in Mali may have been exposed to Ebola. And there's concern that the country doesn't have the resources or experience to stop this outbreak before it gets out of control.
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The virus appears to have taken two new victims in the West African country. The government is stepping up its quarantines and contact tracing to prevent an outbreak.
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The number of U.S. troops fighting Ebola in West Africa is set to increase dramatically this month, and the first two field hospitals erected by U.S. troops in Liberia will open in the coming days.
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Govs. Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo have called for mandatory quarantine for "high risk" individuals returning from Ebola-stricken countries. The New England Journal of Medicine begs to differ.
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JFK hospital shut down when several doctors died of Ebola. Now it's open again. And the staff is taking rigorous measures to make sure the virus doesn't make its way past the front gate.
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At least 7,000 health care workers are needed to staff new Ebola treatment centers in Liberia alone. Those doctors, nurses and hygienists must learn how to protect themselves — and how not to panic.
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He likely contracted the virus when he carried an ailing pregnant woman into her home. Relatives and neighbors in Liberia miss his jovial spirit — and lash out at their government and the U.S.
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Last month, the U.S. promised to build treatment centers for health care workers and for the general public. Our photo gallery checks in on the progress thus far.
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There's a company town in Liberia with 80,000 residents. Ebola was first detected in March. Firestone's resourceful response has kept the virus from spreading.