Award-Winning Health Journalism

How to Stay Calm in a Stressful News Cycle

Illustration of a woman in a calming meditation post to combat stress from the news.

Fact checked by Derick Wilder It’s easy to get sucked into the news cycle’s doom and gloom. There’s no shortage of strife: bird flu, upheaval at the major health agencies, measles outbreaks. Just to name a few.  There’s also no limit on how we can access the news: newspapers, TV, magazines, podcasts, and the endless […]

How to Cut Through the Noise

Cell phone with a cluster of newspapers flying out of it. Concept of how to vet health information and reliable sources.

Where to turn for sound health information Fact checked by Jim Lacy If you think it’s harder these days to discern which information to use to make health decisions, you may be right.  Normally, there is alignment between the federal health agencies — such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes […]

Our Top 10 Stories of 2024

  One of the best things about the new year is reviewing our most-read articles from the previous year. This exercise gives us an opportunity to find out what our readers most wanted to read, to remind ourselves of the health events that unfolded, and to review our breadth of coverage and our writers’ talents. […]

How to Talk About Guns

Image of a vault representing the concept of safety

Tough discussions with friends and family around gun safety Fact checked by Shannon Sparks   When Bob Kristie’s daughter, Nell, would go to a friend’s house for a play date, there were three things he would always ask the other parent. “I’d say, ‘Let me see your smoke detectors, your carbon monoxide detectors, and where […]

Pedal to the Metal

Senior man setting up his E-bike

Comparing the health benefits of standard bikes and e-bikes   Fact checked by Derick Wilder   Whether it’s older adults, work commuters, or kids behind the handlebars, there’s no doubt that e-bikes have taken the country by storm. Between 2019 and 2022, the e-bike market in the United States grew by 269%; as of 2023, the […]

Read Our 2023 Award-Winning Stories

Caregiving and Chicago Health magazines’ editorial and design teams once again received many honors for their outstanding work. This isn’t just a bragging point. To us, this type of recognition fortifies our efforts to tell engaging, impactful stories that reflect our communities. Congratulations to all, and please enjoy reading through our honored entries.   Oh, […]

To Vaccinate or Not?

A man in a red tank top, white surgical mask, and brown baseball hat stares into the distance as a gloved hand gives him a vaccination.

Researcher Caitlin Fields explores how people decide whether to get the Covid-19 vaccine. When the Covid-19 vaccine first became available, Caitlin Fields was puzzled. After a series of lockdowns, social distancing and masking, and hundreds of thousands of deaths from Covid, she struggled to understand why there was so much hesitancy and debate about getting […]