Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga
Reporter, The Midwest NewsroomContact: r.shackelford@kcur.org
Job Title: Reporter
Topic Expertise: Healthcare; health equity; maternal health; health insurance/financing
Location: Kansas City
Geographic Expertise: Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri
Education: Bachelor's Degree, University of Missouri - Kansas City
Language: English
Honors & Awards:
- U.S. Maternal Health Press Fellowship, Every Mother Counts, 2026
- Association of Health Care Journalists, Kansas-Missouri Health Journalism Fellow, 2024-26;
- Kansas Association of Broadcasters, 2025 Sports Feature, “The death of a beloved former Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader spotlights maternal mortality”
- 1st Place Kansas Press Association 2024 & 2025 Excellence in Coverage of Diversity (team award)
- 2nd Place PMJA 2023 Long Documentary, “Parade Park offered Black Kansas City families a chance for home ownership. Now it's crumbling”
- 1st Place, Kansas Association of Broadcasters, News Feature (2026)
- 1st place, Kansas Association of Broadcasters, Public Affairs Program (2026)
Membership: Bek is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists
About Bek
Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga is a reporter at The Midwest Newsroom and KCUR. She previously worked at the Kansas News Service (also based at KCUR) as a health equity reporter. At the Kansas News Service, Bek broke news on one of the largest tuberculosis outbreaks in the state and reported on a wide array of topics, such as the shortage of Black sperm donors or rural hospitals at risk of closure.
Bek is passionate about maternal health and how factors like quality of care, location, health care accessibility, race and cultural practices impact a persons' birth experience. She's covered stories about women's access (or lack of access) to freestanding birth centers, how maternal mortality disproportionately impacts women of color and how more women in their 40s are having babies than before.
Bek is known for her ability to find the needle-in-a-haystack type of sources, and she uses her expertise as a health reporter to uplift real peoples' voices and hold health systems, local government and other leaders accountable.
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Giving birth without a doctor or midwife present or foregoing prenatal care are increasingly popular practices. They’re attracting people who mistrust the healthcare system or believe in all-natural approaches to birthing. -
A parasite that causes severe diarrhea has sickened more than a thousand people in Kansas and Missouri. Federal officials are still investigating the cause of the outbreak, but it’s making some people scrutinize where their produce comes from. -
Heavy rain and thunderstorms swept through Kansas City on Thursday, forcing the Fan Festival to close early. But the World Cup match kicked off as scheduled, with the Dutch national team beating Tunisia 3-1. -
The program is meant to soften the coming cuts to Medicaid. The state health department recently announced the first round of Kansas grantees. Hospitals are using the money to increase healthcare access to rural patients. -
Rural Kansans could see longer drives to access healthcare or fewer health services because of hospital closures. A report found that Kansas has 28 rural hospitals at immediate risk of closure. -
Research Medical Center closed its labor and delivery and neonatal intensive care departments last year. Emergency room nurses say pregnant patients still come, and staff don’t have the tools to safely treat them. -
The lawsuit alleges CVS secretly kept prescription drug discount savings instead of passing them on to the University of Kansas Hospital Authority. The suit says CVS then terminated its contract when the hospital asked for an audit. -
A growing partnership between a Kansas organization and an Oklahoma breast milk bank is expanding access to donated milk and donation drop off locations in Kansas. Breast milk is critical in situations like premature birth. -
The 1,000-bed facility is currently holding 249 detainees. The board is intended to hold the CoreCivic facility to its agreements with the city and ensure inmates and employees are being treated fairly. -
A community health center in southeast Kansas hopes exposing kids to health care careers through fun activities could lead them into the field in the future. It’s one way to hopefully fight a long-term shortage of health care workers in rural areas.
