Mary Brophy Marcus

Mary Brophy Marcus is the deputy managing editor of Think Global Health. She is a health journalist who specializes in medicine, health policy, and global health. She has been a health reporter and editor for CBS News, USA Today, and U.S. News & World Report.

A man wades through knee-deep water in his home, carrying damaged furniture in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, on September 20, 2022. REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo
Environment

Puerto Rico—Still Waiting for Power After Hurricane Fiona

A fragile health system, vulnerable elderly, and food insecurity worry University of Puerto Rico's Carmen Vélez Vega

A close-up photo of a hand in a black medical glove shows Dr. Mayank Amin preparing a Moderna COVID booster vaccine targeting BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants, at Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, September 8, 2022.
Governance

Is It the End of COVID-19 as We Know it?

by Mary Brophy Marcus

IHME Director Christopher Murray weighs in on the state of the pandemic, the new omicron vaccine, and flu season

A caravan of green trucks carry child evacuees displaced during Hurricane Katrina
Poverty

Seventeen Years Later, HBO Film "Katrina Babies" Asks Child Hurricane Survivors How They Feel

by Mary Brophy Marcus

"In America, especially during disaster, Black children are not even a thought"

A close-up of the hands of Charles Norman Shay, a member of the Penobscot Nation and a World War II veteran, holding a picture of his mother Florence. Photo taken in Bretteville l'Orgueilleuse, France, on May 18, 2019.
Aging

The Disturbing Details Behind a Dip in U.S. Life Expectancy 

by Mary Brophy Marcus

A deep drop among American Indian and Alaska Native peoples is linked to policy failures that predate the pandemic

A woman in a white and black t-shirt wears a face mask uses a handheld fan as she walks on a street on a hot day, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China July 19, 2022. A colorful white, green, pink and yellow mural is pictured in the background.
Governance

Omicron BA.5: What to Know About COVID-19's Latest, More Contagious Variant

Public health expert Ali H. Mokdad answers our COVID questions this week 

A close up image of a field of winter wheat growing outside Bashtanka, in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine, on June 9, 2022
Food

Seeds: An Unlikely Casualty of the War in Ukraine

How history—and future crops—were lost when Russia attacked a scientific warehouse for valuable plants and seeds

Hundreds of women dressed in pink and white traditional North Korean gowns stand in rows in a central area of Pyongyang, North Korea, on Women's Day in March 2022.
Governance

North Korea's COVID-19 Crisis: An Impossible Outbreak in the "Impossible State"

Victor Cha, Korea chair at CSIS, on the health, political, and economic factors shaping North Korea's outbreak

A mother with long brown hair reads the label of a formula can in front of partially-empty grocery store shelves amid a nationwide shortage in Houston, Texas, on May 19, 2022.
Food

How the U.S. Baby Formula Shortage Affects Low-Income Families

Families living in poverty are making impossible trade-offs between food, rent, and essentials like formula and diapers

A masked pedestrian walks over Westminster Bridge in London, on January 27, 2022.
Governance

What to Know About "Stealth" Omicron 

Professor Ali H. Mokdad gives the rundown on the omicron subvariant BA.2

Sunkirum, a solar-powered canoe, sails on the Pastaza River in the Amazon in Ecuador, where the Achuar Indigenous people have lived for thousands of years.
Environment

Indigenous Land Guardianship Around the World 

An interview with conservationist and Nia Tero founder Peter Seligmann 

The Parkroyal Collection Pickering, in Singapore, is a "green" hotel, designed with naturally ventilated corridors, solar-powered irrigation, rain water retention and sun shading.
Urbanization

Urban Design and the Shift from "Doing Less Harm" to "Doing Good"

Architects Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ on building design that gives back to the community, city, and environment

Refugees who fled from the Russian invasion in Ukraine rest inside a temporary camp at the train station in Przemysl, Poland, March 2, 2022.
Migration

The Fallout for People Forced to Leave Ukraine

by Mary Brophy Marcus, Lillian Posner

The short- and long-term health effects of the Russia-Ukraine war