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Tanya Ott

News Director, WBHM-FM
Former Producer and Host, The Village WUFT/WJUF-FM
Website:

Topic: The state of mental health care in juvenile justice and foster care systems: radio documentaries

Published Work:

Mental Health and Productivity in the Workplace
Depression and anxiety tend to peak as the holidays approach - either because of the stress of the season or simply the weather, with seasonal affective disorder brought on by darker, gloomier days. A new review of previous studies finds that depression and anxiety exact an enormous toll on U.S. businesses.

Boarding Home Inspections
Hundreds of people with mental illness live in boarding homes scattered across the Birmingham metro area, and starting this week, there's effectively no inspection program to make sure those homes are clean and safe.

Hurricane Clean-up
Clean-up crews in New Orleans and across the storm-ravaged Gulf are making progress, though it will be many months before things return to normal. Mental health advocates say the emotional impact of Hurricane Katrina could linger even longer for survivors and some of those who watched the events unfold on television.

Small Business and Mental Health
Mental illness is a biological brain disorder … a physical illness of the brain – a human organ, just like the heart or lungs or liver. But mental health advocates have been fighting an uphill battle to get mental health included in health insurance plans.

Mental Health and Housing
There's no denying a link between mental illness and homelessness. Approximately one in every four adults who's homeless also suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness.

Mental Health Counseling
This is mental health counseling awareness week in Alabama, and the state's 1,700 licensed counselors have their work cut out for them, according to Dr. Angela Stowe.

Mind's Eye: Art and Mental Illness
Scientists are increasingly focusing on whether there's a common gene that predisposes people to creativity and mental illness. Tanya Ott and Adam Allignton collaborate on a story looking at the connectedness.

Mental Health and Poverty
It's a long-standing debate… what causes mental illness? At a recent seminar sponsored by Birmingham-area mental health advocacy groups, the message was mixed. Tanya Ott reports on the link between mental illness and poverty.

Autism Rates
The rate of autism has skyrocketed ten-fold in the last two decades. Researchers now estimate that one in every 166 children has some sort of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Medical Bankruptcy
Each year 1.5 million American families file for bankruptcy. They're your neighbors, your friends -- perhaps your self.

Whatley k-8 school in Birmingham, Alabama, is just one of many battlefields for special education right now. Whatley's students are overwhelmingly black and low-income and a lot of the school's students - about 16% - are special needs. Principal Michael Wilson says combine that with a teacher shortage -- and he feels like his hands are tied.

Hurricane Katrina Aftermath: The Mental Health Needs (link no longer available)
Clean-up crews in New Orleans and across the storm-ravaged Gulf are making progress, though it will be many months before things return to normal. Mental health advocates say the emotional impact of Hurricane Katrina could linger even longer for survivors and some of those who watched the events unfold on television.

Music therapy is at once - old and new. Still considered a "new age" alternative treatment by many - the practice actually dates back centuries. In the Old Testament, King David is said to have cured an illness by playing on the harp. Ancient Greek philosophers hypothesized that music could restore balance and in Africa, tribal medicine men use drums and other instruments to drive out evil spirits.

The rate of autism has skyrocketed ten-fold in the last two decades. Researchers now estimate that one in every 166 children has some sort of Autism Spectrum Disorder. A study in this month?s issue of Pediatrics documents the rise in autism. It finds a particular jump in kids born between 1987 and 1992.

News headlines are filled with stories about Jefferson County's budget crisis. The county put nearly a thousand employees on unpaid administrative leave over the weekend. The Birmingham News reports long lines for drivers' licenses and car tags. The New York Times says the county-run nursing home doesn't enough money to bury indigent residents.

Hurricane season starts in just a few weeks, and experts say it's going to be an active year. They're predicting 15 named storms. Four of them "major" hurricanes. Cornell University climatologist Mark Wysocki tells WBHM's Tanya Ott that if a tropical storm hits while there's still oil in the gulf waters, it would be disastrous for the Alabama coastline and several miles inland.

Several southeastern states are digging out today after a violent storm system that spawned dozens of tornadoes. Alabama was hardest hit. The full scope of the devastation is still unknown, but at least 162 people are dead in Alabama and thousands of homes, businesses and government buildings were destroyed.