Jason Beaubien
Jason Beaubien is NPR's Global Health and Development Correspondent on the Science Desk.
In this role, he reports on a range of issues across the world. He's covered the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, mass cataract surgeries in Ethiopia, abortion in El Salvador, poisonous gold mines in Nigeria, drug-resistant malaria in Myanmar and tuberculosis in Tajikistan. He was part of a team of reporters at NPR that won a Peabody Award in 2015 for their extensive coverage of the West Africa Ebola outbreak. His current beat also examines development issues including why Niger has the highest birth rate in the world, can private schools serve some of the poorest kids on the planet and the links between obesity and economic growth.
Prior to becoming the Global Health and Development Correspondent in 2012, Beaubien spent four years based in Mexico City covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. In that role, Beaubien filed stories on politics in Cuba, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the FMLN victory in El Salvador, the world's richest man and Mexico's brutal drug war.
For his first multi-part series as the Mexico City correspondent, Beaubien drove the length of the U.S./Mexico border making a point to touch his toes in both oceans. The stories chronicled the economic, social and political changes along the violent frontier.
In 2002, Beaubien joined NPR after volunteering to cover a coup attempt in the Ivory Coast. Over the next four years, Beaubien worked as a foreign correspondent in sub-Saharan Africa, visiting 27 countries on the continent. His reporting ranged from poverty on the world's poorest continent, the HIV in the epicenter of the epidemic, and the all-night a cappella contests in South Africa, to Afro-pop stars in Nigeria and a trial of white mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea.
During this time, he covered the famines and wars of Africa, as well as inspiring preachers and Nobel laureates. Beaubien was one of the first journalists to report on the huge exodus of people out of Sudan's Darfur region into Chad, as villagers fled some of the initial attacks by the Janjawid. He reported extensively on the steady deterioration of Zimbabwe and still has a collection of worthless Zimbabwean currency.
In 2006, Beaubien was awarded a Knight-Wallace fellowship at the University of Michigan to study the relationship between the developed and the developing world.
Beaubien grew up in Maine, started his radio career as an intern at NPR Member Station KQED in San Francisco and worked at WBUR in Boston before joining NPR.
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From his childhood as a herd boy, Nelson Mandela went on to lead the African National Congress' struggle against South Africa's racially oppressive apartheid regime. For his efforts, he spent 27 years behind bars as a political prisoner. In 1994, he became his country's first elected black leader. Mandela died on Thursday. He was 95. -
Typhoon Haiyan, like many disasters that preceded it, created a critical shortage of gasoline. This hampered ordinary Filipinos trying to rebuild their lives, as well as aid organizations trying to help them. One U.S. group has made it its mission to provide free gas. -
On Sunday, people made their way to church through the rubble and debris caused by Typhoon Haiyan. Parishioners say that in the days after one of the world's most powerful storms crashed into Tacloban, the church has been a focal point for the community, a place to be together and to mourn. -
In the typhoon-ravaged heart of the Philippines, many hospitals were badly damaged or destroyed by the storm. NPR photojournalist David Gilkey takes a look at one hospital that continues to operate despite a lack of food, water or medical supplies.
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American entrepreneurs in Kenya are attempting to fundamentally transform education for some of the poorest kids in the world — while making a profit. -
More than 600,000 have been left homeless and hungry by the devastating storm. In response, humanitarian agencies are mounting the largest relief operation since the Haitian earthquake in 2010. The biggest challenge right now is getting the basics — clean water and food — to the hardest hit areas. -
The recent discovery of polio in Syria and Israel should be a wake-up call to European health officials, scientists say. Low vaccination rates in some regions could offer the crippling virus a chance to reenter Europe and possibly gain a foothold. Vaccines used there also make it more likely that people can spread the virus. -
Health officials said that they were mistaken about a polio outbreak in Somalia spreading to South Sudan. Despite previous reports, South Sudan has not recorded any polio cases this year. The new information means that the spread of the virus around the Horn of Africa is more limited than previously thought.
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The number of polio cases globally sank to an all-time low in 2012. But outbreaks in Syria and Somalia this year are jeopardizing efforts to eradicate the virus. A recent visit to the Somali-Ethiopian border highlights just how easily polio can regain a foothold in rural, insecure communities. -
Syria used to have one of the highest rates of polio vaccinations in the region. But since the civil war began, rates have plummeted. Now the crippling virus has likely returned to the country, health officials say. Initial tests indicate that polio has paralyzed at least two children.
