Courtenay Harris Bond

courtenay harris bond

Courtenay Harris Bond is the staff writer covering health for PhillyVoice. She enjoys writing about behavioral health, maternal health and inequities in the healthcare system, as well as human rights and criminal justice. A veteran daily newspaper reporter, Courtenay has also written for national outlets, including KFF Health News, Undark Magazine and Filter. She was a 2018 Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism and has master's degrees from Columbia Journalism School and the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.

courtenay@phillyvoice.com

February 6, 2026

Parenting

Quality time at family meals may lower teens' risk of using alcohol, marijuana

Quality time at family meals helps reduce the risk of adolescents using alcohol or drugs, a new study finds. But there is an exception: the findings did not hold true for children who had experienced significant amounts of adversity.

February 5, 2026

Prevention

Possible measles exposure reported at Montgomery County urgent care clinic

A possible measles exposure occurred Jan. 29 at the Patient First Primary and Urgent Care in Collegeville, Montgomery County officials say. Anyone who was at the clinic between 1:15 p.m. and 4:15 p.m. is advised to monitor for symptoms and to verify their vaccination statuses.

February 5, 2026

Opinion

Minute Maid is discontinuing its frozen juices. For this writer, there's no love lost

Minute Maid is retiring its frozen juices, which date to 1946. The news left some feeling nostalgic, but this writer is shedding no tears. Mixing the frozen concentrate was a tiresome task while she was growing up, and the orange juice also played a role in a traumatic childhood experience.

February 5, 2026

Women's Health

Pregnancy, breastfeeding may offer some protection against cognitive decline

Pregnancy and breastfeeding are linked to higher cognitive function later in life. Postmenopausal women who had been pregnant and who had breastfed scored higher on cognitive and memory tests than women who had never been pregnant or who had never breastfed, new research shows.

February 4, 2026

Health News

Cooper Health's new mobile unit brings primary care to people with autism and other developmental disabilities

Cooper University Health's new mobile unit provides care to people with autism, cerebral palsy or Down syndrome in their homes. It aims to reduce the stress of medical visits for these people and to remove barriers to care.

February 3, 2026

Wellness

Playing 'pink noise' sounds, like rainfall, to fall asleep may harm REM sleep

Using 'pink noise' apps to fall asleep may disrupt REM sleep, Penn Medicine researchers say. Using earplugs was effective against blocking out background sounds without harming REM sleep, their study found.

February 3, 2026

Prevention

Most Americans with high blood pressure have not controlled it, leaving them susceptible to heart issues

Nearly 80% of Americans with high blood pressure have not controlled it, new research shows. Often, that's despite having access to adequate health care and being within a range for medications to bring it down to a healthier level.

January 29, 2026

Adult Health

Nearly half of U.S. adults may have obesity by 2035, new study says

Nearly half of U.S. adults will have obesity by 2035, a new study says. Researchers found just over 19% were obese in 1990, compared to 42.5% in 2022. An estimated 46.9% of people in the U.S. will have obesity by 2035.

January 29, 2026

Addiction

A 'fentanyl drought' may be a bigger factor in overdose deaths falling than increased prevention efforts

A 'fentanyl drought' may be primarily responsible for the nationwide drop in overdose deaths, a new report suggests. Increased access to Narcan and medications for opioid use disorder may have helped, but cannot fully explain the decline, the authors say.

January 28, 2026

Prevention

To reduce HIV, Philly adds webpage that connects people to prevention and treatment services

To reduce HIV, Philadelphia has added a new webpage that connects people to health care providers that provide HIV testing and prevention drugs like PrEP and PEP. HIV rates were down in Philly in 2023, the last year with data available.

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