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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The World Health Organization tallied over 112,000 measles cases in the first quarter of 2019 — up more than 300% compared with the same period in 2018. -
Bangladesh wants a million Rohingya refugees to go back to Myanmar. But 18 months after most of them fled violence, they are too afraid to go back and are making new lives for themselves in camps. -
The number of cholera outbreaks is on the rise — and vaccines are in short supply. Why is this ancient disease still a global health problem? Here's an explainer: What it is, how it spreads. -
Despite being the world's second largest economy, China continues to borrow heavily from the World Bank. Some critics of the bank and China say that should change.
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Measles cases rose sharply last year around the globe according to a new report from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Mexico and the U.S. send cattle back and forth, so much so, that a head can cross the border multiple times before reaching its final destination.
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Monsoon floods won't stop these kids from going to school in Bangladesh — especially if the school comes to the student! -
Hundreds of thousands of refugees languish in the camps. UNICEF estimates that more than half the refugees are children. Some aid groups have warned that these children could become a lost generation. -
This week marks a year since hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled attacks in Myanmar. As refugees, they now live in huge camps in Bangladesh, with difficult conditions made worse by monsoon rains. -
One year after Myanmar soldiers launched what human rights groups say was a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are still living in perilous conditions in Bangladesh.
