Rhitu Chatterjee
Rhitu Chatterjee is a health correspondent with NPR, with a focus on mental health. In addition to writing about the latest developments in psychology and psychiatry, she reports on the prevalence of different mental illnesses and new developments in treatments.
Chatterjee explores the underlying causes of mental health disorders – the complex web of biological, socio-economic, and cultural factors that influence how mental health problems manifest themselves in different groups – and how our society deals with the mentally ill. She has a particular interest in mental health problems faced by the most vulnerable, especially pregnant women and children, as well as racial minorities and undocumented immigrants.
Chatterjee has reported on how chronic stress from racism has a devastating impact on pregnancy outcomes in black women. She has reported on the factors that put adolescents and youth on a path to school shootings, and what some schools are doing keep them off that path. She has covered the rising rates of methamphetamine and opioid use by pregnant women, and how some cities are helping these women stay off the drugs, have healthy pregnancies, and raise their babies on their own. She has also written about the widespread levels of loneliness and lack of social connection in America and its consequences of people's physical health.
Before starting at NPR's health desk in 2018, Chatterjee was an editor for NPR's The Salt, where she edited stories about food, culture, nutrition, and agriculture. In that role, she also produced a short online food video series called "Hot Pot: A Dish, A Memory," which featured dishes from a particular country as made by a person who grew up with the dish. The series was produced in collaboration with NPR's Goats & Soda blog.
Prior to that, Chatterjee reported on current affairs from New Delhi for PRI's The World, and covered science and health news for Science Magazine. Before that, she was based in Boston as a science correspondent with PRI's The World.
Throughout her career, Chatterjee has reported on everything from basic scientific discoveries to issues at the intersection of science, society, and culture. She has covered the legacy of the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984, the world's largest industrial disaster. She has reported on a mysterious epidemic of chronic kidney disease in Sri Lanka and India. While in New Delhi, she also covered women's issues. Her reporting went beyond the breaking news headlines about sexual violence to document the underlying social pressures faced by Indian girls and women.
She has won two reporting grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and was awarded a certificate of merit by the Gabriel Awards in 2014.
Chatterjee has mentored student fellows by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, as well as young journalists for the Society of Environmental Journalists' mentorship program. She has also taught science writing at the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop.
She did her undergraduate work in Darjeeling, India. She has two master's degrees—a Master of Science in biotechnology from Visva-Bharati in India, and a Master of Arts in journalism from the University of Missouri.
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Research shows that a toxic mix of past traumas and the stresses of resettlement puts refugee kids at significantly higher risk of long term mental health challenges. A new effort aims to mitigate those risks by supporting parents and children in refugee families. -
Getting mental health care covered by insurance can be really tough. Reporters spoke to hundreds of therapists who left their insurance networks to find out why. -
The latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey says 40% of high school students report feeling persistently sad and hopeless. Still, that's down from 42% two years ago, a small but significant change. -
Psychologists say it's normal to feel stress and negative emotions in times of uncertainty. There are also things you can do to take care of yourself. -
The 988 lifeline has been contacted by about 10 million people either by phone, text or chat. It's gotten better over the two years, but it still has a long way to go to connect people to care. -
Researchers following a group of American children for decades found that even short periods of housing instability increased the chances of poor mental and physical health years later. -
New research documents how many children lost a parent to an opioid or other overdose in the period from 2011 to 2021. Bereaved children face elevated risks to their physical and emotional health. -
When marijuana becomes a Schedule III instead of a Schedule I substance under federal rules, researchers will face fewer barriers to studying it. But there will still be some roadblocks for science. -
About 60,000 children a year in the U.S. lose a sibling. Zion Kelly joined that unlucky group in 2017 when his twin, Zaire, was killed. Zion has learned a lot about grief, and himself, since then. -
A report from the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general finds a dire shortage of mental health care providers in Medicaid and Medicare, which together serve some 40% of Americans.
