Mississippi Today (https://mississippitoday.org/author/ehensley/)
Erica Hensley, a native of Atlanta, has been working as an investigative reporter focusing on public health for Mississippi Today since May 2018. She is a Knight Foundation fellow for our newsroom’s collaboration with local TV station WLBT and curates The Inform[H]er, our monthly women and girls’ newsletter. She is the 2019 recipient of the Doris O'Donnell Innovations in Investigative Journalism Fellowship. Erica received a bachelor’s in print journalism and political science from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and a master’s in health and medical journalism from the University of Georgia Grady College for Journalism and Mass Communication.
Dr. Deborah Birx, on a tour of college campuses, noted Oxford is one of the top cities in the U.S. for new COVID-19 cases per capita.
Mississippi sees some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the country, despite known health and economic benefits. A group of health advocates in the Delta is working to change the stigma and biases that stand in the way.
About half of homes across Mississippi likely have lead paint. But just one grant is actively helping low-income families rid their homes of the neurotoxin.
Mississippi leads the U.S. for new COVID-19 infections per capita after weeks of hovering in the top few spots, despite almost all of the state’s disease metrics having improved.
Attorneys say Mississippi’s currently blocked 15-week abortion ban should not be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, though if justices do take up the case it would be the first of recent bans to make it that far.
The average number of tests administered has fallen to a three-month low, meaning Mississippi could be failing to identify and isolate cases.
As schools reopen across the state, a new report shows Mississippi has one of the highest rates of children diagnosed with COVID-19.
Ryan Dennis, Mississippi Museum of Art’s new curator, is excited to move slower and deeper, connecting dots at the intersection of public art, history and equity in downtown Jackson.
Angie Thomas doesn’t shy away from her complicated relationship with her home state, Mississippi. That’s why winning a new award for Youth Literature from home means so much.
More than 16,000 children with dangerous levels of lead in their blood have fallen through the cracks in Mississippi due to a nuance in the type of blood test a child gets.
The mayor of Oxford, Miss. found more than 100 cases of COVID-19 that were not counted locally by the state health department. The discrepancy highlights a major problem state officials are facing when it comes to contact tracing.
New research is digging further into reproductive health disparities among Black women in Mississippi. The findings aren’t new per se, but some of the nuance is.
Mississippi’s “sea of outbreaks,” fueled by community COVID-19 transmission, is creating dangerous working conditions in factories across the state.
After four days without full data updates, the first full single-day data report since June 17 showed the most-ever new cases reported in a single day.
Since Memorial Day, new cases have reversed previous flat or downward trends with new upward trends despite average tests trending down, and hospitalizations have followed