Sofia Moutinho
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Sofia Moutinho’s Journalist Portfolio
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Awards
See all 3 awards →American Association of Health Care Journalists Award
2020 - Public Health - large-publication category
First Place: Hidden Epidemics (Columbia Journalism Investigations, Center for Public Integrity and The State) For decades, scientists have warned that climate change would harm our health, spurring an unprecedented rise in deadly heat, infectious disease and disaster-related trauma. But the U.S. public health system, hampered by underfunding and political resistance at every level of government, is ill-prepared for the climate crisis, as documented in a 16-month investigation by Columbia Journalism Investigations and the Center for Public Integrity called "Hidden Epidemics." Americans are suffering the consequences. Judges' comments: Hidden Epidemics is a collection of articles focusing on the intersection of health and climate change, based on impressive reporting. The vibrio story, for instance, seemed like the perfect example of a hidden epidemic, perhaps one that's about to take off. The piece about heat casualties required unique data modeling and was able to demonstrate that heat is linked to deaths that might not otherwise be deemed heat-related. The stories also emphasize the dangers that occur when scientific facts are treated like political differences of opinion.
American Association of Health Care Journalists Award
2021 - Public Health (large)
Second Place: Dangerous heat, unequal consequences; Sofia Moutinho, Elisabeth Gawthrop, Columbia Journalism Investigations and Center for Public Integrity Our investigation revealed how today's heat illnesses connect to decades-old discrimination. We focused on heat-related illnesses in Arizona and Florida, two states that have seen sharp spikes in summertime temperatures over the last century. While Arizona is considered the hottest state in the U.S., and Phoenix the hottest city, in Florida the combination of heat and humidity makes it one of the nation's most dangerous places. The investigation looked into federal data on emergency room visits and hospitalizations in both states and then identified the ZIP codes with higher rates of heat-related illnesses. Then we looked into the socioeconomics of those areas and conducted shoe-leather work to find what was behind the data. We discovered that the top ZIP codes with higher rates of heat-related illnesses in both states are low-income neighborhoods with a long history of racial segregation. Our story also showed that in these investment-starved areas, hurt by racist policies like redlining, people are neglected by local governments failing to robustly prepare for and mitigate the increasing heat. What's unique about the main analysis underlying this story: It uses real patient data. Many heat-related health analyses in both the media and scientific literature use vulnerability indices to estimate where people are most at risk for heat illness, based on temperature and demographic data. We believe we are the first to do statewide analyses using patient data to identify the ZIP codes where the rates of heat illness are actually highest. Acquiring and analyzing that data was challenging, which is why it's rarely attempted.
National Press Foundation’s Stokes Award
2020
Honorable mention for the series "Danger Beyond the Beach” which examined the health toll that climate change is already taking on the people who live and work in the Carolinas. Judges found the work broke new ground in examining how toxic bacteria called vibrio killed a crabber in South Carolina in 2017 and a growing number of other victims. The stories explained why rising seas and storm surges make the flesh-eating bacteria a growing threat to swimmers, fishermen and others who work in coastal waters around the world. And they reported on the increased asthma and illnesses from mold that have become a chronic health problem after increasingly powerful storms. The seven-part series was funded by Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Columbia Journalism Investigations and produced by Lynn Bonner, Sammy Fretwell, Adam Wagner, Aaron Sanchez-Guerra, Josh Boucher, Travis Long, Julia Wall, Ali Rah and Sofia Moutinho. It was edited by Dan Barkin and published by the News & Observer.