Tag Archives: health

A workout at work and/or my 15 minutes of fame

Information Graphics September 19, 2011 katdowns Leave a comment

To create this graphic about exercises you can do at the office, the entire graphics department of the Post got together twice a day to do the exercises. It was a hilarious group activity — we attracted a lot of stares from passersby in the newsroom. I really enjoyed jumping around a little bit in the middle of the day to get the blood pumping. The graphic was a fun collaboration between Laura Stanton, who illustrated many of the department members, Sohail Al-Jamea, who created…

Games: Testing your memory

Information Graphics December 20, 2010 katdowns Leave a comment

I worked on these games last Monday for publication with Tuesday’s health section. Reporter Leslie Tamura collected a whole bunch of tests that indicate how you’re aging compared to peers. We decided to take some of those tests and replicate them for our online readers. We decided on word recall, face recognition and response time. Simple, but fun. Check them out!

The Cost of War

Multimedia October 7, 2010 katdowns Leave a comment

This past Sunday “Coming home a different person” launched, a project I worked on with Whitney Shefte and Alberto Cuadra, alongside reporter Chris Davenport. It features an overview video that covers the increases in traumatic brain injury cases and what doctors are doing to treat it, as well as five case studies of three soldiers and two Marines, and a graphic that explains the science of brain injury. I initially heard about the story Chris Davenport was working on and thought, wow, this is an…

New county map: Ultra-high Medicare Billing Rates

Maps March 29, 2010 katdowns Leave a comment

I re-purposed the unemployment map for this story about ultra-high billing rates at skilled nursing facilities in the U.S. It shows where facilities are billing ultra-high rates. The Washington Post found that nursing homes have flooded ‘ultra-high’ billing categories with patients, and the amount of waste and abuse could reach billions of dollars a year. Check out the graphic or read the story by Scott Higham and Dan Keating.

Darfur & FFI

Multimedia November 28, 2006 katdowns Leave a comment

Two fun items on the agenda: Darfur: Who Will Survive Now? and FFI The Holocaust Memorial Museum had a special display of photographs on the outside of their building last week to raise awareness about the situation in Darfur. They projected enormous photographs onto the three walls on the outside of the building, which were accompanied by music. The images, which were taken by several photojournalists, were hauntingly beautiful. The multimedia presentation was incredibly effective. If you check out the links above, you can see…

The Betrayal of the Breakfast Bar

Random Thoughts October 10, 2006 katdowns Leave a comment

As a faithful fan of breakfast bars, I bought some this weekend on my massive grocery trip. I decided to try something new (I usually go with Nutri-Grain Muffin Bars, Banana Nut- delish), and I picked out Smart Start Healthy Heart Bars, in Strawberry Vanilla. DO NOT GO THERE. This morning, I innocently took a bite at my desk. On first bite, I was a bit disgusted, as I don’t like overly sweet things. My criteria for a delicious breakfast bar: -moist, but not sticky-yummy-doesn’t…

Foods for fullness

Random Thoughts September 17, 2006 katdowns 1 Comment

An article about the top 10 foods that keep you full in Women’s Health magazine listed the following foods: White potatoesEggsOatmealBeansFishSoupApplesBeefSaladPopcorn What this means for me and you is that if you eat these foods often, you’re less likely to spend your money on food, which is critical at this point. My plan is oatmeal in the morning, soup for lunch, and beef — it’s for dinner. Yum.