White papers, ebooks, reports, scripts. Need these? I can write them conversationally or technically on topics that include environmental and public health—wildfire prevention, inland and coastal flooding prevention, water technology and policy. Other possibilities are health, health tech, nonprofits, and universities. Samples above and below are longform and shortform technical articles.
Marketing and editorial strategy. Available to plan editorial and marketing strategy for websites, blogs, social media, white papers, and other materials. Before starting my writing business, I spent nearly three years as a communications strategist at a 4,000-employee diagnostic laboratory, ARUP Laboratories, a nonprofit enterprise of the University of Utah. Work included co-managing a blog and writing for an annual digital magazine, Magnify, covering health, science, and human stories. Also present for a B2B rebrand.
Here are examples of my work:
Assessing Risk in Water
Worldwide, diarrhea causes 4% of deaths and 5% of health loss to disability, and usually results from contact with contaminated water…Concerns like this drove Dr. Jennifer Weidhaas to become a water risk assessor. “It’s not enough to say ‘yes, there are pathogens and people can get sick,’” says Weidhaas. “We need to get suggestions to decision-makers so they can improve their system.” This profile is for the University of Utah Water Center blog.
Understanding How Low Levels of Domoic Acid Affect Brain Development
Alfred Hitchcock may have taken inspiration for his film The Birds from an episode of shellfish poisoning. These days, mass die-offs in wildlife populations such as the California sea lion have been attributed to the same thing, domoic acid poisoning. Do current regulations adequately protect vulnerable humans who regularly eat seafood? This piece is for the University of Washington Center on Human Development and Disability.
Wildfires, Population Growth, 50 Years of Salt Lake Water: An EPA Study
In 2015, wildfires burned in a watershed supplying parts of Napa County, California. As climate change causes more wildfires in the western United States, such erosion is expected to increase within watersheds. A researcher and his colleagues are studying this and other impacts of drought and extreme events on water quality in an area of the Intermountain West where the population is expected to nearly double by 2050. This environmental health and public health piece is for the University of Utah Water Center.
Wildfires, COVID Deliver One-two Punch to West Coast Cities
Wildfire season, during which a mix of gases and fine particles are exhaled from burning trees and materials into surrounding communities, lasts an average of 78 days longer now than in the late 1970s. Even for a healthy person, wildfire smoke can cause coughing, breathing difficulties, chest pain and other symptoms, according to the CDC.
“We already know smoke exposure is harmful to our health whether we’re in a pandemic or not — and smoke exposure hinders our ability to combat COVID-19,” said Nadège Dubuisson, an environmental toxics program specialist at Multnomah County Health Department in Portland, OR. “For folks at risk, spending days in smoky air can worsen a vulnerability, for sure.”
Non-Opioid Pain Management: Searching for Natural Compounds to Replace Opioids (Q&A)
For snail-venom research, the Department of Defense awarded a $10 million grant to be paid over four years to a multi-disciplinary team, some of whom worked on a University of Utah Health study. This article is for the ARUP Laboratories blog; ARUP is a partner to the University of Utah, and has an extensive pain management panel. Photo by My Huynh.
Syphilis Cases: Easily Treated, But Rising Every Year Since 2000, says CDC
A public-health update in the ARUP Laboratories blog, about rising cases of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, with input from ARUP medical director Dr. Marc Couturier.
No Flea-Sized Research
The plague’s bacterial agent is one subject of ARUP medical director Mark Fisher’s five-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. So is something more contemporary, anti-microbial resistance.
How Lab and Pharmacy Collaborations Are Changing The Healthcare Landscape
A persistent issue facing healthcare providers is that the most effective medication for a patient can also be the most expensive. For example, infliximab (Remicade), which is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn disease, costs an average of $1,910 per patient, per month. This high cost makes infliximab a good candidate for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) to ensure that positive patient outcomes balance the expense to the patient, the insurer, and the healthcare system.
You, Zebrafish, and Liver Cancer: What’s The Connection?
You may have seen zebrafish in aquariums: small, striped, darting fish, originally found in slow streams and rice paddies in the Indian subcontinent. Did you know they’re also our virtual cousins?
Want to see more? Check out some of my work in environment and public health, journalism, B2B, or editing.