April Dembosky
April Dembosky is the health reporter for The California Report and KQED News. She covers health policy and public health, and has reported extensively on the economics of health care, the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act in California, mental health and end-of-life issues. Her work is regularly rebroadcast on NPR and has been recognized with awards from the Society for Professional Journalists (for sports reporting), and the Association of Health Care Journalists (for a story about pediatric hospice). Her hour-long radio documentary about home funeralswon the Best New Artist award from the Third Coast International Audio Festival in 2009. April occasionally moonlights on the arts beat, covering music and dance. Her story about the first symphony orchestra at Burning Man won the award for Best Use of Sound from the Public Radio News Directors Inc. Before joining KQED in 2013, April covered technology and Silicon Valley for The Financial Times, and freelanced for Marketplace and The New York Times. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Smith College.
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Democratic leaders in California and Oregon are becoming more open to using involuntary psychiatric commitment to combat homelessness, drug abuse and untreated mental illness. -
CA voters are expected to approve a constitutional amendment on abortion rights. But critics say it would actually expand abortion rights, because the amendment ignores the concept of fetal viability.
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More than half of these deaths occur well after the mom leaves the hospital. To save lives, mothers need more support in the "fourth trimester, that time after the baby is born," one researcher says. -
With roughly half of U.S. states likely to ban abortion, volunteers in California are mobilizing to help women travel there for care. State lawmakers want to support some of those efforts too. -
A proposed bill would require cannabis products to carry large warnings, similar to cigarettes. But the state's legal pot industry says more rules make it harder to compete with the illicit market. -
California lawmakers are considering 13 bills that would expand access to abortion and welcome women from states where abortion is being banned or restricted. -
A spike in pandemic pets is increasing shortages and burnout among veterinarians — a field that already had high rates of suicide. A new mental health initiative offers professional help for free. -
People with schizophrenia are three times as likely to die from the virus, giving scientists an opportunity to study the potential relationship between the immune system and mental illness. -
Having schizophrenia has emerged as the second biggest risk factor for dying from COVID-19, after advanced age. This finding could help drive new research about mental illness and the immune system.
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Many Americans with mental illness report waiting weeks for care, even for serious depression or suicidality. Now California has a new law for insurers, limiting those wait times to two weeks or less.
