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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The man charged in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was critical of U.S. health care. Experts say the system's problems are complex and can't be pinned on one player or industry. -
NPR staff recommend 5 non-fiction books for reading over the holidays or anytime, really: "The New India," "Unshrinking," "We're Alone," "New Cold Wars," and "Between Two Sounds."
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The outpouring of online rage following a health insurance CEO's killing has shocked some. Polling shows that people who really need their health insurance find it lets them down in fundamental ways.
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The death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson triggered a deluge of painful stories about health care denials on social media. -
Republicans spent $222 million on anti-trans and LGBTQ advertising in the campaign. Various policy initiatives are on the incoming administration's to-do list. -
President-elect Trump continues to pick his new administration. He will nominated Dr. Mehmet Oz — known for The Dr. Oz Show on daytime TV — to head the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid.
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RFK Jr. has embraced fringe health care ideas for decades. If Trump wins, he will likely be able to influence promotion and funding for these things.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claims about fluoride in the drinking water are linked to Cold War conspiracy theories about the substance. -
Enrollment in Affordable Care Act health plans has grown every year of the Biden administration, leading to record low numbers of people who are uninsured. -
As more states ban gender care for youth, doctors and clinics in Minnesota are building up capacity to help the influx of trans patients who are traveling or moving to the state for care.
