Rebecca Whittaker
Rebecca Whittaker is a health reporter at The Independent who focuses on turning new medical research and public health developments into clear, practical stories. Her coverage joins rigorous reporting on studies and expert opinion with a consumer angle, showing how genetics, climate and everyday services shape people’s health risks over time. She writes in an accessible style that keeps technical detail, but always brings it back to what it means for an ordinary person reading about their own health.
Health research translated for everyday readers
Whittaker’s core work tracks new medical and scientific studies and explains their findings in plain language. She reports on genetics research such as the identification of multiple genes that increase obesity risk, unpacking how inherited factors and lifestyle interact rather than reducing the story to a single cause. She covers research on the health impact of losing the sense of smell, treating it as a serious clinical sign on par with major neurological events rather than a minor inconvenience. Alongside these pieces she writes on nutritional interventions and supplements in later life, examining what the evidence really shows about benefits for older adults. Across these stories, she foregrounds the underlying methodology and limits of each study while making the implications graspable without specialist training.
Ageing, chronic disease and sensory loss
A recurring thread in Whittaker’s reporting is the way health risks accumulate with age. She returns to topics such as obesity, cardiovascular risk and age-related decline, using individual studies as a way to explore long-term patterns rather than isolated findings. Her coverage of smell loss and its comparison to the impact of a stroke places sensory changes in the broader context of brain health, mortality risk and quality of life for older people. When she writes about nutrients and vitamins in old age, she treats them as part of a wider toolkit for healthy ageing rather than quick fixes, balancing potential benefits with what remains unproven. The result is a body of work that helps readers connect specific symptoms, test results or lifestyle choices to the larger trajectories of ageing and chronic disease.
Climate, weather and public services
Whittaker also reports on the intersection of environment, public services and health. Her coverage of bin collection rules during a heatwave looks at how extreme temperatures disrupt basic infrastructure and what that means for hygiene, pests and neighbourhood well-being. By tying an apparently mundane policy change to broader climate and health pressures, she shows how extreme weather can affect vulnerable residents long before it becomes a medical emergency. This strand of her work complements her science coverage: instead of focusing only on clinics and laboratories, she follows how external conditions and local systems shape health outcomes on the ground.
Background in health features and general news
Before specialising in health, Whittaker reported across general assignments and science for The Independent, building familiarity with a wide news agenda and fast-moving stories. She has experience writing health features for a national online news outlet, covering consumer health, wellness and medical research for a mass audience. Her earlier work at a regional newspaper added day-to-day reporting on local issues and communities, sharpening her eye for how national health stories land in specific places. Taken together, this background underpins her current beat: she brings feature-writing experience, local-reporting instincts and science literacy to health coverage that is both evidence-led and grounded in the realities of everyday life.
4 more health journalists.
Alex Storey
Alex Storey is a journalist at LBC whose work is driven by specific cases that test professional conduct and accountability in health and the public sector. He covers health as his main beat, focusing on the point where individual decisions by clinicians or officials meet public trust in institutions. His reporting is incident-first and case-led, using concrete episodes to show how rules, ethics and policy work in real life. Recent pieces include a disciplinary case where a nurse was struck off after linking a patient’s cancer to Covid jabs, and coverage of civil servants being “paid to play Grand Theft Auto” as “lived experience” training. Across these stories, he examines how professionals, regulators and officials explain their decisions, and what that reveals about trust, responsibility and the standards expected of people in positions of authority.
Alexandra Thompson
Alexandra Thompson is an assistant news editor focused on health who treats health claims as hypotheses to be tested rather than messages to be repeated. She works at New Scientist, combining editing with frontline reporting on ageing brains, cognitive health, chronic illness, contested treatments and infectious disease. Her beat centres on how neuroscience and psychology intersect with everyday health choices and on how scientific findings translate into real-world outcomes for people living with illness. She examines lifestyle advice, rehabilitation programmes and outbreak guidance against current evidence, clarifying risk without overstating it and giving space to controversy without sensationalising it. Alongside written news she appears in audio and video formats, bringing the same clear, news-driven approach to live discussions and helping shape the daily health agenda while keeping a tight focus on evidence and impact.
Alice Wilkinson
Alice Wilkinson investigates how everyday habits, products and routines shape sleep and long-term wellbeing, using test-driven health features to separate hype from real benefit. She holds a senior role on The Telegraph’s health features team, writing and shaping consumer-focused coverage that blends personal trial with clear expert evidence. Her core beat is sleep as a practical, solvable part of daily life, from detailed comparisons of magnesium supplements to service pieces on how sleeping position affects health over time. She treats supplements as a crowded, over-claimed market that demands careful testing and clear-eyed reporting. Alongside long-form features she writes weekly health desk dispatches on sleep, stress and concentration. Across her work she combines substantial self-testing, specialist insight and plain, unfussy prose to give readers measurable, realistic changes they can make.
Ally Head
Ally Head connects performance-focused fitness reporting with women’s health, sustainability and relationships, using her own endurance training and health history to stress-test trends against expert guidance. She is Senior Health, Sustainability and Relationships Editor at Marie Claire UK, where she shapes the health agenda across training, wellbeing and conscious living and writes and commissions news, topical features and SEO-led long-form pieces. A ten-time marathoner and Boston-qualifying runner, she focuses on structured, realistic training plans, strength and conditioning for women who run, and performance longevity. Her women’s health work centres on hormones, chronic conditions and fact versus fiction wellness claims. She also covers sustainability as conscious living and relationships, mental resilience and lifestyle features, favouring plain language, lived experience, specialist commentary and clear, repeatable routines. She has previously produced similar content for Women’s Health, Stylist, Glamour and Grazia.