Susan Dentzer is an on-air correspondent with The NewsHour, where she leads a unit dedicated to providing in-depth coverage of health care, health policy and Social Security. The unit, begun in 1998, is funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The health unit is the recipient of multiple awards. Its October 2004 piece, "Osteoporosis," received a first-place Gracie Allen award for public television news from American Women in Radio and Television. The unit's two part investigative series on importation of prescription drugs, broadcast in March 2004, earned a second place prize for radio and television programming from the American Health Journalists Association. Coverage in 2002 of the "Eden Alternative" approach to nursing home reform garnered a 2003 Gabriel Award from the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals. And a 1999 report on schizophrenia earned the 2000 Robinson Electronic Media Award from the American Psychiatric Association.
Prior to joining The NewsHour in 1998, Dentzer was chief economics correspondent and economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report, where she served from 1987 to 1997. In a series of columns and stories for U.S. News, she reported extensively on the debate over reforming and partially "privatizing" Social Security and over such health policy issues as regulation of managed care. Before joining U.S. News, Dentzer was at Newsweek, where she was a senior writer covering business news until 1987.
Dentzer's work in television has included appearances as a regular analyst or commentator on ABC's Nightline, CNN's News Night with Aaron Brown and The McLaughlin Group. Dentzer's writing has also earned her several fellowships. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University for the 1986-87 academic year, she studied health economics and other disciplines. A U.S.-Japan Leadership Program Fellow in 1991, Dentzer conducted research on U.S.-Japan economic relations and the effects of the aging Japanese population.
A graduate of Dartmouth, Dentzer holds an honorary Master of Arts degree from Dartmouth and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Muskingum College, New Concord, Ohio. She served on the Dartmouth Board of Trustees from 1993 to June 2004 and was the first woman ever to serve as Chair of Dartmouth's board from 2001 to 2004. She is a former trustee of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and currently serves as a member of the Board of Overseers of Dartmouth Medical School.
Dentzer is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Rescue Committee, the nonprofit organization that works in relief, rehabilitation, protection, post-conflict development and resettlement services for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression worldwide. At IRC, Dentzer heads the Board's Health Committee, which oversees the organization's health programs in 25 countries. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Health Council, the world's largest membership organization of groups involved in global health, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Japan Society of New York. She chairs the advisory board of the California Health Benefits Review Committee and is a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. Dentzer is also on the board of directors of the Friends of the National Institute for Nursing Research.
Dentzer, her husband and their three children live in the Washington DC area.