Scott Hensley
Scott Hensley edits stories about health, biomedical research and pharmaceuticals for NPR's Science desk. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has led the desk's reporting on the development of vaccines against the coronavirus.
Hensley has worked on award-winning investigations in collaboration with journalistic partners.
He was the lead NPR editor on an investigation with the Center for Public Integrity in 2018 that exposed drug industry influence on the choices of preferred medicines by Medicaid programs. The work won the 2019 Gerald Loeb Award for audio reporting.
In 2017, Hensley was the lead NPR editor on an investigation with Kaiser Health News that showed how the pharmaceutical industry exploits government incentives intended to encourage the development of treatments for rare diseases. The stories won the 2019 digital award from the National Institute for Health Care Management.
Hensley has been editing in his current role since 2019. He joined NPR in 2009 to launch Shots, a blog that expanded to become a digital destination for NPR health coverage.
Before NPR, Hensley was a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal. He was the founding editor of The Wall Street Journal Health Blog, which focused on the intersection of health and business. As a reporter, he covered the drug industry and the Human Genome Project.
Hensley served on the board of the Association of Health Care Journalists from 2012 to 2020.
He has a bachelor's degree in natural sciences from Johns Hopkins University and a master's in journalism from Columbia University.
Before becoming a journalist, Hensley worked in the medical device industry. He remains, now and forever, a lover of Dobermans, lacrosse and Callinectes sapidus.
-
The latest NPR-IBM Watson Health Poll finds that medical visits for symptoms of infections are common and that many people get an antibiotic under those circumstances. But a talk is in order first.
-
A third of people under 35 said cost led them to put off some form of health care, compared with only 8 percent of people 65 and older, a poll by NPR and IBM Watson Health found.
-
A surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Gawande is probably best known for his work writing about how to improve quality and lower costs in health care .
-
A July letter from Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini to the Justice Department said the company would pull back from health insurance exchanges if the government opposed the company's merger with Humana.
-
Among the quarter of American adults who have had a concussion, most said they had sought medical treatment, according to the results of a poll conducted by NPR and Truven Health Analytics.
-
An NPR poll found that a majority of people favor regulation of e-cigarette. Support rose with education. Nearly two-thirds of people with college or graduate degrees supported regulation.
-
Since 1970, the national colorectal cancer death rate has been cut in half. But progress has lagged in the Lower Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and counties in eastern Virginia and North Carolina.
-
Abuse of narcotic painkillers is a national problem. But it turns out that where you live can make a big difference in how likely you are to get a prescription for the medicines.
-
The legal wrangling over who should be allowed to buy the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill without a prescription came to an end this year. A federal judge ruled that the emergency contraceptive couldn't be withheld from girls 16 and younger. Despite the legal ruling, many Americans support age minimums and parental consent.
-
The federal government is divvying up $67 million among more than 100 groups that applied for grants to help people navigate new health insurance options. Insurance health exchanges open for business in October.