Jayne O'Donnell
Jayne O'Donnell is founder and CEO of the Urban Health Media Project (UHMP) and the former health policy reporter for USA Today.
UHMP, launched in March 2017, trains diverse high school students from marginalized communities to do multimedia health and social issue journalism. Jayne was a USA Today reporter from 1994 to April 2021, most often as a consumer reporter covering auto and product safety, airlines, retail, and white collar crime. She spent the last eight years covering healthcare policy, mental health, childhood trauma and patient safety.
An author and aTV and radio contributor, Jayne has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and C-Span and been published in magazines including Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, Parents and Autoweek.
She has won several awards for her work, most notably for her 1996 articles in USA Today on the dangers air bags posed to children. That reporting prompted many government actions including the "smart" air bags and warning labels in every new vehicle.
She has spoken at and appeared on panels at SXSW and dozens of other conferences, including those sponsored by the National Retail Federation, the Business Roundtable, AARP and the Association of Health Care Journalists.
A graduate of University of Maryland's College of Journalism, Jayne did graduate work at George Washington University's School of Business. She lives in McLean, Virginia, with her husband and daughter.
