Katie Scarlett Brandt
Katie Scarlett Brandt

Journalist & Editor

Katie
Scarlett
Brandt

photo by Stephanie Bassos

photo by Stephanie Bassos

Hello.

Katie Scarlett Brandt is an award-winning journalist, Editor-in-Chief for Chicago Health Magazine, and a 2023 Journalists-in-aging reporting fellow with The Gerontological Society of America and the Journalists Network on Generations.

In my reporting, I specialize in untangling complex social issues with no easy answers. These issues so far have included public health, environmental health, and even internet access!

I’m a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Association of Health Care Journalists. The Solutions Journalism Network has featured my stories, and recently, "Rising Concerns”, my piece on where flooding and sewage treatment meet — and how both impact people’s health — is a finalist in the Chicago Headline Club’s Peter Lisagor Awards. I also learned a ton working on this series about America’s unhoused older adults, which I was able to dig into thanks to a funding from The Gerontological Society of America, The Journalists Network on Generations, and The John A. Hartford Foundation.

Thank you for visiting my website!

 

Publications

Chicago Health Magazine
Caregiving Magazine
Native Science REport
Insider
Huffington Post
Brain Facts
Medicine on the Midway
Positive MagazinE
The Athens News

FELLOWSHIPS

— Journalists in Aging
— National Cancer Institute-AHCJ

Favorite Features

Over the Threshold: America’s Unhoused Older Adults
Caregiving Magazine
If you live in most urban areas, you’ve seen the tents, the people at intersections asking for help. This in-depth series looks at the state of older adults and homelessness in the U.S. (part 1), what puts women at particular risk (part 2), how street medicine meets people where they are (part 3), and potential solutions (part 4 - released May 12). It asks how we got here, how we as a society respond, and what possible futures look like.

A Shared Future
Native Science Report
The American Buffalo, a new Ken Burns documentary, argues that bison and Native Americans share a common history. Today, tribes are working to heal their communities by rebuilding herds.

Rising Concerns
Chicago Health Magazine
Where increased flooding and sewage treatment meet — and how both impact human health.

An Urban Oasis
Native Science Report
Located on a once-abandoned lot, Chicago’s First Nations Garden thrives as a gathering space for the city’s 65,000 Native residents.


Life After Death
Chicago Health Magazine
Some answers only reveal themselves after a person dies. For those paying attention, the information can change perspectives and save lives.

Lifelong Learners
Caregiving Magazine
Whether they’re changing careers, rerouting after detours, or envisioning a brighter future for their communities, the people featured here — all over age 60 — don’t conform to traditional ideas about college or aging.

Family Mysteries to Family Trees
Caregiving Magazine
Leonard Kofkin, 89, grew up thinking he had lost all of his family beyond Chicago to the Holocaust. Things changed, though, when he opened a shoebox of old family photos.

8 Ways Climate Change Affects Chicagoans’ Health
Chicago Health Magazine
In Cook County, 80% of people say they believe global warming is happening. Yet, only 52% believe that it’s personally harming them. Here are eight ways climate change is already impacting Chicagoans’ health.

Gathering Fuel for the Fire
Native Science Report
Jasmine Neosh missed the occupation of Standing Rock in 2016, but it inspired her to go to college. Now graduating with a degree in public administration from the College of Menominee Nation, she’s already deep in the fight for environmental justice.

Connecting Families
Chicago Health Magazine
Pregnancy and childbirth come with potentially fatal health risks, including blood clots and high blood pressure. Black women die of these conditions at six times the rate of white women in Chicago, but what is the city doing about these disparities?

Strength in Numbers
Native Science Report
Twyla Baker started her career as a researcher, focusing on Native elder health. Now, as president of Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, she argues for the importance of data sovereignty.


Health Disinformation Abounds Online
Chicago Health Magazine
Inaccurate health information is deeply problematic. But disinformation is nothing new — it’s just more easily spread now.

The Great Unequalizer
Chicago Health Magazine
Chicago faced severe health inequities long before Covid-19. Whose job is it to solve them?

The Backroad to Broadband
Native Science Report
Studying from cars parked within reach of a wi-fi signal, writing papers on smartphones, and sending assignments by snail mail — Covid-19 has revealed how many students lack internet access.

Covid-19 Coverage
Chicago Health Magazine, Insider, Native Science Report

The Battle Within
Chicago Health Magazine
For veterans, PTSD is often a slippery disorder, entrenched in substance abuse, suicidal depression, homelessness and struggles that splinter relationships.


Sovereignty by the Barrel?
Native Science Report
Tribes sit on vast reserves of oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium. But they don’t always agree on how to handle them. Find Part 2 here. And Part 3 here (part 3 also featured in the Solutions Journalism Story Tracker).


Lead’s Dangerous Legacy
Chicago Health Magazine
When my water tested high for lead, I needed to find out what that meant—and how Chicago Public Schools is keeping kids safe.

Finding Hope in a Hopeless Place
Chicago Health Magazine (and featured in Solutions Journalism)
Key groups in Chicago want to give the city’s 5,889 homeless people a chance at a better life, saving the city and taxpayers millions in the process.

Conducting Fieldwork in the Shadow of DAPL
Native Science Report
Ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk is decolonizing medicine and proving that oil pipelines threaten more than water.

Healing Society’s Soul
Chicago Health Magazine
Physicians make the case for treating gun violence as a public health epidemic.

I Am a White Person Who Went to Standing Rock
Huffington Post
I decided to experience Standing Rock first as a human being, instead of as a member of the press.

Five Things I’ve Learned from a Pioneering Cancer Geneticist
Huffington Post
Janet Rowley discovered the link between cancer and genetics, revolutionizing cancer treatment. I was her biographer.

For the Love of Fish
Positive Magazine
One of the best fishermen on Martha’s Vineyard stands at just over 5 feet tall. She speaks about fishing like it’s a drug and about fish as art.

Biographies

Janet Rowley, MD: Janet’s work revolutionized the way we think about and treat cancer today. After making a startling observation in the 1970s, Janet discovered the elusive but critical link between cancer and genetics. Her revelation that a specific exchange – translocation – caused some types of leukemia led to the development of one of the most effective cancer therapies available and laid the groundwork for discovering others.

However, this story goes beyond Janet, exploring how two extraordinarily gifted individuals, she and her husband Donald Rowley, forged a unique life together and redefined medicine as we know it. The book relates how these imaginative and independent scientists influenced each other as they raised a family and dealt with the challenges and successes of their professional careers. Also a history of scientific discoveries over the past sixty years, the story relates the art of their research – Janet’s detection of startling genomic rearrangements in human cancer cells and Donald’s many groundbreaking discoveries in the human immune system. Their efforts, which have forever changed their respective fields, led to significant advances in medicine that have helped alleviate suffering and defy the death sentence that so often accompanies a cancer diagnosis. This story draws back the curtain from private life to reveal the intersections where science and life meet and influence each other. It serves also as a demonstration, especially for young women in demanding fields.

Photography