Karen Bouffard is an award-winning investigative health care reporter at the Detroit News, where she works to focus the public’s attention on the real-life consequences of health care policy. Her 2013 series “Surviving through age 18 in Detroit” was awarded the Keck Futures Communication Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; the National Associated Press Media Editors Public Service Award; and a national Association of Health Care Journalists Award. In 2016, Bouffard and a Detroit News colleague were jointly named Journalist of the Year by both the Michigan Press Association and the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and won an investigative reporting award from AHCJ, for their six-month investigation of dirty surgical instrument at five Detroit Medical Center hospitals. Her reporting in 2017 on high levels of lead poisoning in Michigan cities, and large quantities of opioid prescriptions filled in every county in Michigan, won first- and second-place awards respectively in the SPJ-Detroit Awards for best localization of national news stories. Bouffard also contributes to the USC-Annenberg Center for Health Journalism blogsite, The Health Divide.