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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When public health specialists look at the annual case counts, some see a trend that raises questions about how realistic the goal of a polio-free world might be.
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Data was released briefly, then rescinded. As NPR reported previously, there is already strong evidence pointing to these animals in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. -
Camps in Syria have become overcrowded in the northwest of the country after the February 6 earthquake. NPR talks to Dr. Mego Terzian of Doctors without Borders about his assessment of the situation. -
Carter targeted diseases primarily affecting the poor in remote areas — notably "Guinea worm disease." Because of his commitment, case numbers plummeted from 3.6 million a year to just 13 in 2022. -
It's a supersoup during this humanitarian crisis. Easy to make, it warms the displaced, fuels rescue crews and comforts residents traumatized by the disaster. -
NPR follows one of the hundreds of building inspectors in Turkey's earthquake zone to learn about the massive challenge of figuring how who can return to their homes. -
With so many killed suddenly in the quake, Turkey faces the challenge of burying tens of thousands of people. Multiple funerals are happening at once and the process of burying the dead is constant. -
Days after the Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, hopes of finding people alive is waning. One U.S.-based team uses search-and-rescue dogs to try to find people still trapped days after the quake. -
One of the world's poorest countries, Somalia is coping with conflict, a historic drought and a devastating food crisis. But there's another side to the country. Just take a look at the capital city. -
Dusty camps of displaced people have sprung up on the outskirts of cities. They ran from their homes because of drought, famine and fighting that involves the militant group al-Shabaab.
