
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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Coronavirus cases are beginning to surge again in the U.S., just weeks after the discovery of the omicron variant. Data from the U.K. shows it is even more transmissible than delta.
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Physicians weigh in on what you need to know about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and how to think about the risks and benefits of vaccinating your kid
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Many families are under financial stress, parents see kids seriously behind in school, huge rent bills and looming evictions and delayed medical care has negative consequences, to name a few.
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The rate of new cases of COVID-19 among babies and children under 4 years old in the U.S. recently surpassed the rate of new cases among adults older than 65. Here's how to protect newborns.
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Mask mandates and other interventions can help stop a surge, even where vaccination rates are low, say scientists who've reviewed states' data. When the measures start and how long they last matters.
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When his friends started to get sick after a week of parties, Michael Donnelly started keeping track. His work — and his community's willingness to help — led the CDC to a major pandemic discovery.
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The CDC advises wearing masks indoors if hospitals are overloaded and the coronavirus is spreading widely where you live. Find out the level of virus transmission in your county.
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New estimates show the U.S. is on track to see a big rise in cases and more than triple the number of deaths by October.
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With news about vaccinated people getting coronavirus infections, should you be worried? How common are breakthrough infections? Here's what scientists know and what they're trying to learn.
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The highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is spreading fast and driving new cases and hospitalizations. Here's what you need to know to keep yourself and your kids from getting sick.