Erica Hensley is a public health and data reporter based in and covering the South, with a particular focus on reproductive health and equity.
Before joining The Fuller Project, she freelanced and worked as an investigative reporter focusing on public health for one of the first Southern non-profit digital outlets, Mississippi Today, where she was a Knight Foundation fellow and her COVID-19 work helped put national attention on Mississippi’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was the inaugural recipient of the Doris O'Donnell Innovations in Investigative Journalism Fellowship and won Atlanta Press Club's investigative reporting award for her work on lead exposure in Georgia.
Erica received a bachelor’s in print journalism and political science from the University of Southern California and a master’s in health and medical journalism from the University of Georgia. She now splits her time between Mississippi and Georgia.
States owe Historically Black Colleges and Universities billions, disproportionately harming Black women
How abortion restrictions compare, state-by-state
Related: How a network of college students is preparing for post-Roe campuses
Author Cat Bohannon on post-Roe America, asteroids and the medical “male norm”
The Carolina Abortion Fund: A lifeline for Southern women, struggles to meet demand amid state bans
Women left out of 9/11 benefits finally eligible for health care, compensation
The only cancer that won’t get covered for women of 9/11
From abortion to wellness: an “indie” clinic pivots to survive in the post-Roe landscape
How a network of college students is preparing for post-Roe campuses
The mental health crisis facing Black mothers in the South
Research on maternal and infant deaths disparities is now catching up to what many Black women already know: The difference in outcomes is not because of race, but racism. Black mental health advocates and providers in the South are using their own pregnancy-related tragedies to help a community heal.
Related: Why deaths by suicide often go uncounted in states’ maternal mortality studies