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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The return of methamphetamine is overwhelming police, ERs and treatment centers — especially west of the Mississippi. But, unlike opioid dependency, meth addiction has no reliable treatment. -
The Death Certificate Project aims to weed out doctors who are overprescribing opioids, but some physicians say the investigations are having a chilling effect on the legitimate treatment of pain. -
Postpartum psychosis is rare but very real, doctors say. And, unlike in some countries, U.S. moms who need inpatient psychiatric care can't bring along their babies, adding to the trauma. -
Pain medications commonly used in labor present medical and mental challenges for pregnant women recovering from opioid addiction. -
Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange, will exclude hospitals from insurance networks if they don't reduce their numbers of C-sections, back scans and opioid prescriptions. -
California's legislature will soon take up a bill requiring doctors to screen new mothers. Many doctors oppose the idea, and similar laws elsewhere haven't increased the number of moms treated. -
A package of mental health bills in California aims to make it easier for new moms to get help and to build awareness among more health workers of postpartum mood disorders. -
Cremated loved ones were in some of the thousands of homes incinerated by wildfires in October. Archaeologists and search dogs are now looking for lost urns and human cremains among the rubble. -
Fire victims are putting up Christmas trees in lots where their homes used to be in Santa Rosa, Calif. The working-class neighborhood was razed by the Wine Country fires earlier this year. -
For Vietnam veterans who have lived a lifetime with the memories of war, what some say they want in death is often more nuanced and complicated than a civilian's desire.
