Side Effects Public Media

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We're a health news initiative exploring the impacts of place, policy and economics on America's health. Our reporting sheds light on root causes of community-wide health problems—from chronic disease, to mental health and addiction, to infant mortality—and on new efforts to solve them.

We are headquartered at WFYI Public Media in Indianapolis, and work in partnership with KBIA in Columbia, Missouri; St. Louis Public Radio; Illinois Public Media in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; WNIN in Evansville, Indiana; and WOSU Public Media, in Columbus, Ohio. We also work with contributing reporters from other public radio stations around the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. We're intent on telling stories from under-covered communities and hidden-away places.

Series

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3 Pieces

In rural America, older people face more health issues, like chronic illness, mental illness and complications from loneliness and isolation. This series looks into those issues in rural Kentucky.

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0 Pieces

An unusual court in Columbus, Ohio, offers a therapeutic approach instead of a punitive one to sex workers. In this two-part series, we hear the story of Stephanie Rollins' recovery from two decades of addiction and sex work, and the judge who offered her a new path for her life.

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4 Pieces

This series explores the health needs and concerns of foster children.

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2 Pieces

In 2007, 12,000 inmates with mental illness sued the Illinois Department of Corrections, alleging the agency punishes inmates with mental illness instead of properly treating them. A settlement was reached in 2016, when the state agreed to revamp mental health care and provide better treatment. But a federal judge has ruled that care remains “grossly insufficient” and “extremely poor.”

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4 Pieces

In the grips of an opioid addiction epidemic, many communities are increasing efforts to prevent overdose or stem the easy access to drugs. Meanwhile, long-term recovery for many people struggling with drug or alcohol addiction remains elusive. Despite advances, addiction has strikingly high relapse rates. This series explores obstacles that hold people back from treatment and new approaches to care that can help people stay well in the long term

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3 Pieces

Sick is a podcast about the things that can happen to our bodies—and how we respond.

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50 Pieces

Our health journalism collaborative explores the impacts of place, policy and economics on Americans' health.

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5 Pieces

Personal experiences of people in recovery shared at a live storytelling event in Indianapolis.


Pieces

Caption: Janice McClain poses beside the Use What You've Got Prison Ministry bus, which connects people with their incarcerated family members., Credit: Emily Forman/Side Effects Public Media
The lack of literal human connection in prison can take its toll on inmates and their families. A grassroots bus service in Indiana transports fami...

Bought by WRST-FM Oshkosh, KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio, and WAMC Northeast Public Radio


  • Added: Oct 12, 2017
  • Length: 03:40
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Students wait on a bus during a tour of some of St. Louis' poorest neighborhoods., Credit: Carolina Hidalgo/St. Louis Public Radio
Every year, for the past 15 years, a group of first-year medical students in St. Louis, Missouri have boarded buses and taken tours through the som...

Bought by WRST-FM Oshkosh and KSFR


  • Added: Sep 14, 2017
  • Length: 03:45
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Chelsea Goodlow and her daughter Kaylee at the Indiana Black Breastfeeding Coalition picnic in August., Credit: Sarah Fentem/ Side Effects Public Media
The "breast is best" message seems often to miss black women, who breast-feed at a rate much lower than other races. Why?

Bought by KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio and WAMC Northeast Public Radio


  • Added: Sep 12, 2017
  • Length: 03:45
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Current residents of the Wee Ones Nursery, Credit: Allison Greene/Indiana Women's Prison
A pregnant woman in prison typically has 48 hours with her baby after it’s born before it’s taken away. A program inside an Indiana women's prison ...

Bought by WAMC Northeast Public Radio


  • Added: Aug 31, 2017
  • Length: 03:45
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Aaron Murray pops a wheelie at the ParaQuad gym in St. Louis, Credit: Durrie Bouscaren
For every person shot and killed in the U.S., there are two who make it out alive. Those close calls can leave victims with a lifelong disability...

Bought by WRST-FM Oshkosh


  • Added: Aug 29, 2017
  • Length: 03:35
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Krista Brucker, emergency physician and director of Project Point., Credit: Jake Harper / Side Effects Public Media
Thousands of people overdose every year across the U.S. The ones who survive are often taken to emergency rooms. In 2014, there were 538,100 opioid...

Bought by WOSU


  • Added: Aug 22, 2017
  • Length: 03:42
  • Purchases: 1
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For thousands of moms with opioid addiction, this is their struggle: keeping their disease under control during and after pregnancy, in order to ke...

  • Added: Aug 16, 2017
  • Length: 04:30
Caption: Phillip Kirby sys he felt pressured into taking Vivitrol for his heroin addiction by his drug court treatment program. "Like I couldn't come into the program until I got it," he says., Credit: Jake Harper / Side Effects Public Media
Some courts offer participants a full range of evidence-based treatment, including medication-assisted treatment. Others don't allow addiction medi...

  • Added: Aug 04, 2017
  • Length: 05:55
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One proven way to help people with addiction is to give health care providers access to their patient's prescription narcotic history. For years, M...

  • Added: Aug 03, 2017
  • Length: 03:31
Caption: Dr. Tara Benjamin(left) specializes in high risk pregnancies. Most of her patients are in treatment for opioid addiction., Credit: Grace Hollars
Doctors who can prescribe a medication for opioid addiction, and accept Medicaid, are already scarce. But even fewer will treat pregnant women. At ...

Bought by WAMC Northeast Public Radio


  • Added: Aug 02, 2017
  • Length: 03:44
  • Purchases: 1