Erica Hensley
Verified
Health & data journalist @FullerProject reporting on reproductive health in the Deep South. @USCAnnenberg @HMJatUGA alum, ATL born & raised.
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Erica Hensley
Reporting on the far right: A toolkit
Many far-right movements are organised, globally networked and getting better at hiding it. The language used often sounds like human rights. The funding is obscured through foundations and donor-advised funds across borders. The tactics, from institutional capture to strategic litigation to algorithm gaming, are replicable and spreading. Fuller built this toolkit because headlines alone don't give you the framework to see the pattern.
Reporting on the far right? Here’s what you need to know
Across Europe, far-right movements and political parties are , from Britain's Reform UK to Germany's Alternative für Deutschland. Understanding the reasons why this is happening means peeling back layers to uncover the organized and well-funded engine behind it. Much of the far-right ideology is rooted in racist, sexist narratives that rely on gender-based disinformation, like ‘the great replacement’ conspiracy theory and global anti-abortion misinformation networks.
‘It’s which door she walks through’: How provider preference and hospital culture drive C-section rates
Though they can be life-saving, growing research suggests that cesarian sections, or C-sections, are vastly overused in the United States, especially among first-time moms who are low-risk. At best, this can strip autonomy from new parents. At worst, it can cause irreversible infertility and complications that can result in death. C-sections are major abdominal surgeries with immediate and long-term risks, including infection, hemorrhage and future placenta problems.
AI is transforming the fight against trafficking. Some advocates are raising the alarm
When Santander’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology flagged unusual activity on a customer’s account last year, the bank’s staff had no idea it would lead to a human trafficking network being uncovered. On their own, the transactions didn’t look like much. A 34-year-old man was making regular payments to budget airlines, mobile phone providers and Vivastreet and Gumtree, websites that can be used to advertise genuine adult services but also sell everything from cars to computers.
These hospitals challenge the C-section status quo
This is the second story of a two-part series. Read the first story here. Three hospitals with some of the lowest use of low-risk C-sections in Mississippi vary in almost every way — location, size and the type of providers who deliver babies. Wayne General is a small, rural hometown hospital in eastern Mississippi. Baptist DeSoto is a large regional hospital just outside of Memphis.
Search your hospital's C-section rate
Despite national pressure to reduce the use of low-risk C-sections, Mississippi’s rate has stayed high across the last decade — peaking at 32.5% in 2018, according to data obtained from the Mississippi State Health Department. While the state’s overall prevalence of these surgeries is high, there is extreme variation across otherwise similar hospitals. Use this database to access your hospital’s C-section and birth data. Read the full series here.
Mississippi’s C-section problem: A third of low-risk women are undergoing surgery for their first birth
Three hospitals with some of the lowest use of low-risk C-sections in Mississippi vary in almost every way — location, size and type of providers who deliver babies. Wayne General is a small, rural hometown hospital in eastern Mississippi. Baptist DeSoto is a large regional hospital just outside of Memphis. And Singing River is a mid-size hospital network in the southern coastal part of the state that boasts low rates at all three of its delivery locations.
Mississippi's C-section problem - Mississippi Today
This is the first story in a two-part series. Read the second story here. Warning: This article contains references to suicidal thoughts. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text the Crisis Text Line to reach a crisis counselor at 741741. When Jennifer Sloan-Ziegler became pregnant with her first child in 2020, she knew she wanted to experience her inauguration into motherhood with a natural birth.
Mississippi’s C-section problem: A third of low-risk women are undergoing surgery for their first birth
Warning: This article contains references to suicidal thoughts. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text the Crisis Text Line to reach a crisis counselor at 741741. When Jennifer Sloan-Ziegler became pregnant with her first child in 2020, she knew she wanted to experience her inauguration into motherhood with a natural birth.
How Major Abortion Laws Compare State by State: Map
In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years recognized a nationwide, constitutional abortion right. The 6-3 decision in Jackson Women’s Health Organization vs. Dobbs means that each state is now free to fashion its own laws limiting abortion access or banning it altogether. Currently, abortion is completely illegal, with few exceptions, in 13 states.
A Conservative Blueprint Calls for More Abortion Surveillance
Dr. Nisha Verma wants her patients to know that they don’t have to tell any doctor that they have ever had an abortion. She wants them to know that no doctor can tell the difference between a natural miscarriage and one caused by medication, and she wants her patients to know that they don’t have to report what’s causing their bleeding if, for some reason, they visit an emergency room for care.
Will young women be her superpower?
During her short campaign for the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris has reinvigorated the nation’s youngest voters—particularly women under 30, who support her by a massive 3:1 margin, according to a new national poll released Tuesday by the Institute of Politics at Harvard. Harris also gained support among young men, and enjoys a 2:1 lead over the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, among likely voters under the age of 30, the Harvard Youth Poll reported.
As Bangladesh celebrates a revolution, a group of mothers wait in anguish to find out what happened to their abducted sons
Donate Groundbreaking reporting on women Email Address* CAPTCHA This article was republished from a Fuller Project newsletter on September 23, 2024. Subscribe here. Human rights groups say thousands of people, mostly opposition members, were abducted and then secretly killed or detained indefinitely without charges during the 15-year rule of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was overthrown in a mass uprising in August.
Activist who transformed Kenya’s approach to trafficking warns more women now at risk
Last Tuesday, marked the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. In recent years, progress has been made in combating human trafficking — according to the 2022 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the number of victims of trafficking detected at the global level decreased by 11 percent.
In a new government report, a doctor seeks answers to her mother’s health conditions
|
“This is not the first report on women’s health and it won’t be the last,” says Dr. Eve Higginbotham, lead author of Advancing Research on Chronic Conditions in Women, a sweeping review published this month by the influential National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) into the lack of research on chronic conditions that predominantly affect women. The Fuller Project has certainly been here before.
By Erica Hensley Verified, Allan Olingo Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
The Supreme Court Upholds Access to Mifepristone Amid Ongoing Abortion Rights Battle
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that women in the U.S. may continue to use mifepristone for abortion medications, a drug deemed “essential” by the World Health Organization. The WHO considers mifepristone and misoprostol, which are often used in combination, to be life-saving medications because they give women who live in places that restrict abortion an alternative to dangerous back-alley procedures.
Claudia Sheinbaum has already made history - there will be pressure on her to make more
Mexico has elected its first woman president. It’s a campaign we’ve followed with great interest. In our Full Story column with Foreign Policylast June, we asked “do gender quotas in elections work?”, exploring why they were effective in some contexts and not in others. One after another, the experts agreed: when it came to gender quotas, Mexico was a star.
From drought to floods: Climate crisis after crisis keeps women on edge in East Africa
Unprecedented rainfall has hit much of eastern Africa over the past nine weeks, causing some of the worst flooding the region has seen in almost two decades. Many had hoped the wet season would bring much-needed relief for a region already reeling from its worst drought in 40 years. Instead, the heavy rains that lashed Kenya, Burundi, Somalia, Rwanda, and Tanzania have caused enormous destruction, with flash floods claiming more than 500 lives and displacing almost half a million people.
East Africa’s second-hand clothes markets - a major source of work for women - are under threat
|
At Kampala’s sprawling Owino market, Millicent Mukwezi opens up a bundle of second-hand clothes while her assistant keeps an eye on the buyers eagerly rifling through in search of bargains. Mukwezi buys the clothing from a trader in the Ugandan capital who imports them from the United States and takes them to the market to sell. She favors U.S. clothing because the quality is reliable.
By Erica Hensley Verified, Aaron Glantz Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
Artificial Intelligence: Veteran Suicide Prevention Algorithm Favors Men
Warning: This newsletter contains references to suicide throughout. Why did the suicide rate for female veterans spike 24% in the most recent U.S. government report? That’s the question we wanted to answer. Experts pointed to a wide range of factors — the high rate of sexual trauma experienced by women in the military, pregnancy, menopause, intimate partner violence and the elevated prevalence of firearm ownership among female veterans compared to women who never donned the uniform.
Artificial Intelligence: Veteran Suicide Prevention Algorithm Favors White Men
An artificial intelligence (AI) program designed to prevent suicide among U.S. military veterans prioritizes white men and ignores survivors of sexual violence, which affects a far greater percentage of women, an investigation by The Fuller Project has found. The algorithm, which the Department of Veterans Affairs uses to target assistance to patients “with the highest statistical risk for suicide,” considers 61 variables, documents show.
Guttmacher study reckons with damage done by Trump-era restrictions on women in Ethiopia, Uganda
|
Former President Donald Trump brags about packing the Supreme Court with enough anti-abortion justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. What he doesn’t mention is that he also imposed tougher abortion restrictions than any other president on foreign organizations that accept U.S. aid — rules that led to an estimated 108,000 maternal and child deaths during his four-year term.
By Erica Hensley Verified, Louise Donovan Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
Reporter’s Notebook: ‘Incredibly unjust’ - How medical research feeds a vicious cycle of inequality
Of the 7 million Americans with Alzheimer’s, two-thirds are women. A new drug offers them a chance at slowing the cognitive decline that comes with this terminal illness. But there will always be a crucial asterisk when it comes to the development of Leqembi, approved last year by the Food and Drug Administration: Its tests in the U.S. only included 10 Black women, despite Black women being twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease compared to white women.
‘My community is still dying’ - How the dearth of Black women in clinical research worsens health disparities
For many, the July 2023 announcement was a cause for celebration and optimism: The Food and Drug Administration had approved a new Alzheimer’s drug, Leqembi, that appeared to slow the progression of the disease in its earliest stages. But would it help Black women, the group of people that data shows is most disproportionately impacted by the disease? Researchers wish they could say — but a critical shortage of Black women in the study leaves them unable to adequately assess the answer.
Online images are making gender bias worse, research shows
Images of men dominate the Internet, and the imbalance can worsen people’s already biased perceptions about men and women, a team of U.S. researchers has found. While gender-neutral language is fast becoming the norm, images on Google, Wikipedia and elsewhere are doing just the opposite, Douglas Guilbeault, researcher at the University of California, Berkeley who studies communication, and colleagues found. “According to the Internet, most people are men,” Guilbeault said.
Tea companies have agreed to slow mechanization after Kenya protests – but for how long?
Imagine you show up to work one day and your boss introduces you to a machine they say will make your job easier. Over time, though, this machine slowly takes over, forcing you to work harder to meet productivity targets. This story is all too familiar for the tea pickers of Kericho, Kenya’s largest tea-growing region. Over the past decade, as harvesting machinery has been introduced to tea plantations, tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs, most of them women.
While many Black women in US abandon hair relaxers linked to cancer, sales climb in African countries
It was just before Christmas. A family tradition, the first for 8-year-old Gloria Moraa. She sat holding a broken mirror in her hands, watching her aunt paint her coily hair with chemicals that would straighten every strand. “All the young girls would get matching hairstyles for the holidays, and relaxers were fashionable back then,’’ said Moraa, who lived in Mombasa, Kenya at the time. With each application of the relaxer, the chemicals began to irritate her scalp, and Moraa started to cry.
Nearly Three Decades of Data on Women in Construction is Missing - Here’s How That Could Change
For the first time in nearly three decades, the government is poised to require companies to disclose every month how many women and people of color they employ on federally-funded construction projects. The new rules, proposed in late February by the Biden administration, follows a story by The Fuller Project in December that revealed women have been systematically left out of the booming alternative energy sector – including construction jobs in solar and wind.
New syphilis cases in the U.S.
|
Get our groundbreaking reporting on women Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly
By Erica Hensley Verified, Louise Donovan Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
‘We’re waving our white flag’: What physicians say they need from the U.S. to stop syphilis spread
|
Skyrocketing rates of syphilis — a disease that once seemed to be on the wane — is imperiling the lives of thousands of newborns as mothers who have gone untreated pass the sexually transmitted aliment on to their babies, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows. If it isn’t diagnosed and treated promptly, syphilis can cause seizures, heart failure and permanent organ damage in children and adults.
By Louise Donovan Verified, Erica Hensley Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
From South Korea’s feminists to the secret beauty salons of Afghanistan, read women’s inspiring stories from around the world
|
In Afghanistan, women are turning their apartments into secret beauty salons — and, in doing so, risking their lives by defying the Taliban. In Morocco, a women’s football revolution is underway. And in South Korea, meet the feminists vowing not to marry in protest against conservative societal attitudes. These are just some of the more than 30 stories brought together by Towards Equality, an international collaborative journalism program, to mark International Women’s Day on Friday.
By Erica Hensley Verified, Aaron Glantz Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
Gender-related killings of women and girls in Kenya
Get our groundbreaking reporting on women Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly
‘We want accountability’ - As femicide deaths surge, Kenyan women demand an end to violence
Get our groundbreaking reporting on women Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly
Global Snapshot
Get our groundbreaking reporting on women Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly
India has made remarkable progress cutting maternal deaths. Could climate change pose a threat?
|
Sonu Bohra’s first pregnancy coincided with one of the longest dry spells she had seen in her home village, high in the Indian Himalayas. By the time she went into labor, it hadn’t rained for almost six months and the taps had run dry for days. When her waters broke, an ambulance came to take her to the medical center in the nearest town. But they refused to admit her, saying they’d run out of water.
By Erica Hensley Verified, Allan Olingo Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
Living on the Edge: how the “benefits cliff” holds women back
SAN FRANCISCO: For two years, Virdell Hickman managed to avoid getting a raise. In the summer of 2020, the education nonprofit where she works launched a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative. Hickman, a Black woman, saw her salary bumped up. But she pleaded with her employers to not raise her pay. What should have been a cause for celebration has instead become a headache.
Eating last and least: Widening gender hunger gap raises climate alarm
JHARGRAM, India—The U.N. World Food Programme describes it as “eating last and least.” Alaka Mahato calls it “eating light.” The small rice and vegetable field behind her home that supplies much of her family’s food yielded only 40% of its normal half-ton harvest after unusually heavy rains last November, well after the monsoon ended in September.
Somaliland's Frankincense Brings Gold to Companies. Its Women Pay the Price.
*Warning: contains offensive language in paragraph 37 “I’m not speaking metaphorically—a bottle of doTERRA essential oil can change the world,” says David Stirling, a mild, clean-cut, middle-aged man. His largely female audience cheers and whistles, as if for a celebrity. Stirling, then-CEO and co-founder of doTERRA, a Utah-based multi-level marketing company that sells essential oils, is making his opening remarks in September 2021 to the packed Salt Palace Convention Center, in Salt Lake City.
Female migrant workers speak out about harassment in Qatar’s World Cup hotels
As Hope* arrived to start her cleaning shift, her eyes anxiously scanned the room. If she spotted him, her heart sank. She might spend the next eight hours dodging his requests for a date, for a kiss, for more than that. Over an 18-month period from mid-2020, Hope’s male supervisor at the hotel in Qatar where she was employed repeatedly sexually propositioned her, she says. When she refused his advances, he gave her extra housekeeping work for no additional pay.
From abortion to wellness: an “indie” clinic pivots to survive in the post-Roe landscape
|
ATLANTA — As abortion clinics across the Southeast closed their doors this summer, one independent Atlanta clinic found itself expanding. Independent abortion clinics — providers not affiliated with national organizations such as Planned Parenthood — operate at the very frontlines of the abortion battleground. “Indies,” as they’re called, make up only a quarter of all abortion clinics, but they provide more than half the abortions in the country.
By Erica Hensley Verified, Jessica Washington Verified
|
Fuller Project for International Reporting
Verified
“Neither a widow nor a wife”: India’s abandoned brides
New Delhi: Paulomi Biswas had been married for only two weeks when her husband stunned her with a sudden announcement: He was leaving for Canada the very next day – without her. “The news came as a shock. It was difficult for me to accept it as a newlywed bride,” recalled the 30-year-old. “That was the last time I saw him.” Anay Kumar Biswas had seemed like a great candidate for an arranged marriage – working in Canada, with a permanent resident application already in progress.
“Neither a widow nor a wife”: India’s abandoned brides
Donate Groundbreaking reporting on women Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly There's a scam in India, where fraudster husbands get married and promise to take their brides abroad. But once the men receive a dowry, they abandon the women, leaving the new wives behind as they pursue solo lives overseas.
The Ukrainian women farmers fighting to keep the world fed
It’s a late July morning, high summer in southern Ukraine, and Nadiia Ivanova’s farm blooms with waist-high sunflowers, golden stalks of flax and bushes of cilantro. The earthy smell of freshly harvested wheat lingers in the air. Ivanova is doing her rounds of the sprawling farm, inspecting bags of mustard seeds, ensuring her dried peas are getting enough air and checking on the barley.
India is trying to reduce maternal mortality without engaging with a key contributor: suicide
Donate Groundbreaking reporting on women Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly Get The Fuller Project in your inbox weekly Health , South Asia , World Co-published with Scroll and Health Policy Watch India has made enormous strides in reducing maternal mortality. But that success has exposed a largely unaddressed phenomenon: high rates of suicides among pregnant people. Suicide rates among Indian women and girls is twice the global average, according to a 2021 study published in The Lancet.
How a network of college students is preparing for post-Roe campuses
AUSTIN—Nikita Kakkad is on her hands and knees, grabbing packs of condoms from a cardboard box underneath her bed, pregnancy tests and pamphlets from another. She divvies them up between a dozen or so plastic grocery bags, adds two boxes of Plan B — the most common “morning-after pill” — and then ties them up and stuffs them in her tote bag. “Repro kits,” she calls them.
How a network of college students is preparing for post-Roe campuses Original
AUSTIN—Nikita Kakkad is on her hands and knees, grabbing packs of condoms from a cardboard box underneath her bed, pregnancy tests and pamphlets from another. She divvies them up between a dozen or so plastic grocery bags, adds two boxes of Plan B — the most common “morning-after pill” — and then ties them up and stuffs them in her tote bag. “Repro kits,” she calls them.
The mental health crisis facing Black mothers in the South
The last thing Tomeka Walker remembers that day was making pasta salad for a Memorial Day cookout. Despite the Birmingham humidity hanging heavy, her family was excited to celebrate a milestone: Walker was halfway through her first pregnancy. But while getting ready for the party at her parents’ home, where she lived at the time, she started having what felt like period cramps. She later found out they were contractions.
The mental health crisis facing Black mothers in the South
The last thing Tomeka Walker remembers that day was making pasta salad for a Memorial Day cookout. Despite the Birmingham humidity hanging heavy, her family was excited to celebrate a milestone: Walker was halfway through her first pregnancy. But while getting ready for the party at her parents’ home, where she lived at the time, she started having what felt like period cramps. She later found out they were contractions.
The mental health crisis facing Black mothers in the South
The last thing Tomeka Walker remembers that day was making pasta salad for a Memorial Day cookout. Despite the Birmingham humidity hanging heavy, her family was excited to celebrate a milestone: Walker was halfway through her first pregnancy. But while getting ready for the party at her parents’ home, where she lived at the time, she started having what felt like period cramps. She later found out they were contractions.
Air pollution is worsening reproductive health outcomes for women
The pandemic is always on the back of Riya Gupta’s mind. As a pregnant commuter in Delhi, one of the world’s most densely populated cities, she worries about reports that COVID-19 can result in complications and affect her baby’s development. But while the sense of urgency around the pandemic recedes, another source of concern looms larger: air pollution. If COVID-19 is a “direct killer”, Gupta, who works in public health communications, calls air pollution “the slow killer”.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Erica
Contact Erica, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack