Brett Sholtis

Brett Sholtis is WITF’s Transforming Health reporter, covering health care policy and community health issues across Pennsylvania. Topics of interest include mental health services, price transparency, and access to care. Previously, Brett was a business reporter at York Daily Record, where his work includes award-winning examinations of restaurant food safety and commercial nuclear waste storage. He’s a University of Pittsburgh graduate and saw some of his first bylines as a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette intern. In his life before journalism, Brett served in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in Kosovo and worked in the motorcycle industry in Southern California.

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Ellen Saracini touches a memorial plaque for her husband Victor that is illuminated by late afternoon sunlight. Victor, who piloted one of the doomed planes before being killed by terrorists, is one of 2,973 victims of the terror attacks remembered at the Garden of Reflection. (Brett Sholtis / WITF)

Community

Bucks County lost 18 on Sept. 11. Two decades later, a memorial in their honor offers solace

As the memory of 9/11 fades for some, the Garden of Reflection has become a place to teach children and a peaceful place for those grieving losses.

2 months ago

Marilou Yingling holds an x-ray fluorescent

Health

Lead paint poisons thousands of Pa. children each year. Advocates say now is the time to act

Lead poisoning prevention experts are calling on the state to fund remediation and testing.

4 months ago

Pediatrician Charles Goodman, left, explains to Frank Fierro, the father of 1 year-old Cameron Fierro, the need of getting the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, or MMR vaccine at his practice in Northridge, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. Some doctors are adamant about not accepting patients who don't believe in vaccinations, with some saying they don't want to be responsible for someone's death from an illness that was preventable. Others warn that refusing treatment to such people will just send them into the arms of quacks. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Health

WITF

Pediatricians say GOP vaccination proposal in Pa. could put children, newborns at risk

The law would require doctors to let parents set their children’s immunization schedules.

6 months ago

Health

WITF

Pa. restaurants expand service while grappling with COVID-19 case increase

Looser restrictions are complicated by a rise in cases fueled in part by more infectious variants.

7 months ago

Tiffany Husak, left, a nursing student at the Community College of Allegheny County, receives her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, during a vaccination clinic hosted by the University of Pittsburgh and the Allegheny County Health Department at the Petersen Events Center, in Pittsburgh, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021. (Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

Health

‘Don’t hold back any doses’: How a conference call with the Pa. Health Department led to vaccine delays

Pennsylvania health systems believed they were following state orders when they used vaccines that were supposed to be set aside for people awaiting their second doses.

8 months ago

This community vaccination clinic in Sullivan County last month could serve as a model for other places in the state where access to vaccine providers and other limitations pose distribution challenges. (Fred Adams/Spotlight PA)

Health

Forced to compete for COVID-19 vaccines, some older people in Pa. are struggling to book appointments

Social media networks and online research skills give some younger people an edge, even as older people overall face higher risk of hospitalization and death.

9 months ago