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.
-
As states begin to require people to requalify for the free health insurance, many who are eligible are losing coverage because of administrative snafus. -
Ahead of oral arguments in a federal appeals court over access to mifepristone, more than 150 people shared stories with NPR about how they used the medication — and how it changed their lives.
-
NPR talked to hundreds of people over the course of the pandemic. As the emergency declaration ends on May 11, we asked some of them for their reflections on the past three tumultuous years.
-
Three years ago, the emergency declaration enabled certain tools for fighting the pandemic and protecting Americans. Now that it's expiring, here's what is changing — and what's not.
-
Jaci and Dustin Statton didn't think Oklahoma's abortion bans would affect them. They were open to having more kids. They didn't imagine Jaci would face a life-threatening pregnancy, though.
-
A new study shows women who call the hospitals in Oklahoma get confusing information about the state's abortion bans. One family lived through that confusion with dire consequences last month.
-
In a state that bans abortion, anxiety about rape and getting pregnant drove this teen to start on birth control, though she's not having sex.
-
The start of pregnancy — as well as exactly when that happens — is a hot topic in some state legislatures and U.S. courts. Understanding the nuances of what happens when has never been more important.
-
A national poll finds that a majority of Americans have felt the effects of gun violence in their personal lives.
-
When she gave birth to her baby with a fatal condition two months early, Samantha Casiano scrambled to raise funds for the funeral. Anti-abortion advocates say Texas laws are "working as designed."
