Pitches wanted (public health, governance, etc.) (US, Global South) | £300 per story

  [This opportunity was posted 30+ days ago and has expired.]  

I'm  still looking for pitches before the end of the month  (looking to commission them by Monday or Tuesday). Guidelines for what  I'm after here:

GUIDELINES:

I'm  starting a month-long gig as editor of a global learning  platform for public servants with more than 50,000 members in more than  170 countries, finishing off an 18-month-long project, funded by the  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in the US, which has involved a number of  interventions aimed at sharing best practice from around the world on  health and wellbeing with policymakers, particularly policymakers in the  US.

The journalism is solutions-focused, looking to  give these people practical ideas for how to solve the challenges they  face, whether that be a policy idea, an approach to making policy, or a  new skill.

Within this project, we are focusing  on ways that governments are helping to give their populations better  opportunities to live healthy lives, both mentally and physically. So  that’s quite a broad remit — in the past they've covered some more  obviously “health” stories, but they’ve also covered, for example, urban planning through a health lens. 

For the final phase of the project, however, they’re looking into five key headings. These are:

• Community and Civic Engagement
• Engaging Global Indigenous Leaders
• Gender Equity
• Sustainable and Equitable Urban Development
• Well-Being

These can be on covid or non-covid topics. 

However,  one very important consideration: approximately 40% of them need to  focus on the global south. If the story features multiple countries,  then it needs to substantively deal with an idea from/issue in the  global south within that.

Things we’re particularly looking for are:

• Mental health, substance abuse, and the potential increase in deaths of despair as a result of COVID-19
• Chronic disease and preventable infectious disease
  • Heart disease, diabetes etc. aren’t as well managed with less connection to healthcare
  • Immunizations are getting behind
  • STD testing and services
• Workforce
  • Surge in need for contract tracers and community outreach workers
    • Community health workers
• The loss of life and culture of underrepresented communities as well as the financial loss we are facing 
• Equity in local government budgeting 
• Terminology for gender and how governments are handling this: E.g.,  people who menstruate versus people who don’t menstruate; Governments  using “man, woman, other” on forms 
• Gender and AI - including data capture: How governments are incorporating ethics teams around this 
• Pregnancy intentionality 
• Maternal health - mortality and morbidity (with an equity lens)
• Disinformation
• Wellbeing: How are governments defining, measuring, and bringing  measurements and engagements around wellbeing into policy (eg budgeting)

Stories are 700-1,000 words, two or three interviews in each,  and pay is a flat £300 per story (they pay promptly, I can say from  experience).

I have 20 stories to commission, edit and  run before the end of June. If you have ideas, please email brief  pitches, plus a sentence or two about your prior writing experience.

LOCATION: Writers can be outside the US. We can take pitches worldwide.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

  [This opportunity was posted 30+ days ago and has expired.]