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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You can help prevent suicide, researchers say, by knowing the signs and reaching out. More boys and men in the U.S. take their own lives than women and girls, but that difference has narrowed. -
The EPA administrator wants to restrict the science used by the agency in its decision-making. Scientists are concerned it eliminates all good science in the process. -
A nationwide survey found that most women have experienced some form of sexual harassment, many since their teenage years. The results illustrate why the #MeToo movement was so successful. -
Scientists have found stone tools in India dating back to 385,000 years ago. The sharp tools were made with a Stone Age technique thought to have originated in Africa and Europe. -
Scientists have discovered a part of a fossilized human skull that's around 180,000 years old. It is now the oldest human fossil outside Africa. -
President Trump attacked his former adviser Steve Bannon after Bannon criticized the Trump campaign in a new book. Also, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is suing the Justice Department.
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This powerful storm was created by a cold jet stream colliding with warm air over the Atlantic. It is similar to Superstorm Sandy but is likely to cause less damage. -
African-American women are more likely to lose a baby in the first year of life than women of any other race. Scientists think that stress from racism makes their bodies and babies more vulnerable. -
Scientists have uncovered the fossil of an ancestral penguin off the east coast of New Zealand. It was one of the earliest known species of penguin and also one of the largest. -
Jocko Fajardo grew up in Arizona eating Mexican food. But his go-to comfort dish is a Chinese-American classic with a little Mexican thrown in. He tells us how the dish came to his family.
