You may have noticed some changes on our website in the last week. North Carolina Health News got a makeover!
Of course, we love our clean, sleek new look, but the goal behind our website redesign was to give you — our readers — a better experience.
“We wanted to give readers more opportunities to explore and find stories that are of interest to them,” said Rose Hoban, NC Health News founder and editor. “There are so many more ways to get around and dig deeper into topics.”
For example, the homepage and the “topics” tab is now organized by the different health care areas our reporters cover regularly, including:
- Aging
- Children’s health
- Environmental health
- Gender health
- Health disparities
- Medicaid
- Mental health
- Oral health
- Prison health
- Public health
- State health policy
- Rural health
Select any of these topics and you’ll find archived stories in that area going back to early 2012.
That’s right, 2012.
This is a big year for us, it’s been 10 years since NC Health News was founded, on Nov. 7, 2011, with our first story published in January 2012. With the launch of our new website, you get better access to the latest, in-depth health stories. You’ll be able to better find and read a decade worth of local health news. The new website is easier to navigate, and tags — such as “environmental health” — at the top of stories make it easier for you to dive more deeply into a given topic.
On the back end, we’re better able to create “Read more” boxes that will get you to stories to add more context.
Because we’re focused solely on health care in this state, our reporters have been able to dig in and report on complex topics, such as climate change on the coast, how different countries have tried to reduce opioid overdoses, lapses in mental health parity and the increase in involuntary commitments to psychiatric hospitals. Investigative series and others are now accessible under the “series” tab on our homepage.
“Taylor Knopf’s series on opioid overdose prevention strategies in Europe was a national award winner,” Hoban adds. “We were even contacted by the State Department in 2019 so they could learn more. It’s really been a game-changing set of stories.”
North Carolina Health News is a nonprofit news outlet, and we’re dedicated to keeping our work accessible to everyone. We allow other media outlets to publish our work on their platforms at no cost. We consider our work a public service to the people of North Carolina, especially during a global pandemic when trusted health updates and information are so necessary.
We’re going to continue to keep our content free. However, website redesigns and covering 12 different health beats cost money. We’re so thankful to the dedicated readers and foundations that have kept us going for 10 years.
If you find our work valuable and are able to give, consider investing in the future of health journalism in this state. Today is also the start of our annual end-of-year fundraising campaign. Donations to NC Health News will be doubled through NewsMatch. Now is a great time to show your support!
The website redesign was made possible through Newspack, a platform designed specifically for news publishers. We’re working with an awesome team of engineers to give you a flawless experience on the new website. However, converting close to 3,200 stories over to a new platform takes a little time and there have been some glitches. We’re actively working on them. If you have any issues or if you see any problems, please let us know.
