Lucette Lagnado is a senior special writer in the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal. She covers hospital and health systems in the U.S., concentrating on the poor, the elderly and the uninsured. She joined the paper in 1996 as a New York-based reporter covering health care and was named to her current position in May 2000.

Prior to joining the Journal, Ms. Lagnado was an investigative reporter for columnist Jack Anderson from 1980 to mid-1987 and a New York based reporter for the New York Post from 1987 to 1990. She was the “urban guerrilla” columnist for the Village Voice from 1990 to 1993. In September 1993, she joined the Forward, an English edition of a Jewish news weekly, and was both a senior and an executive editor for the publication.

Ms. Lagnado has received numerous journalism awards. The Columbia Journalism Review bestowed a “Laurel” upon Ms. Lagnado in its July/August 2003 issue, praising her work on hospital billing and collection. In 2002, she was the recipient of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's Mike Berger Award for outstanding reporting on the lives of ordinary citizens for her page-one story, “Old Notions,” about the aging residents of the Belnord, an Upper West Side apartment building. She has also received three Newswomen’s Club of New York Front Page Awards?one in 2003 for “in-depth” reporting on hospital billing and collection, one in 2002 for a specially established category of reporting on 9/11, and one in 2001 for Specialized Writing.

In 2004, Ms. Lagnado was named a finalist for the USC Annenberg School’s Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. She was recognized for her articles on billing and collection practices toward the uninsured. In 2003, Ms. Lagnado won the New York Press Club award in the Feature Category and the Exceptional Merit Media Award for Exceptional Feature Story for her November 2003 page one story titled “Rough Treatment.” In 2001, Ms. Lagnado won the New York Press Club Heart of New York award for her front-page story about Calvary Hospital, an institution in the Bronx that cares for the dying. That year she also received the top prize in the Big Apple Journalism Awards best reporting on New York City category, sponsored by New Yorkers Need to Know. She received the award for her page-one story “Offshore Assets,” about the city’s Floating Hospital.

Ms. Lagnado's book, “Children of the Flames: Dr. Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz,” was published by William Morrow and Co. in 1991.

Born in Cairo, Ms. Lagnado and her family were forced to leave Egypt when she was a small child. They spent more than a year as Jewish refugees in Paris before settling in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, N.Y. Ms. Lagnado received a bachelor's degree from Vassar College.

She and her husband, Douglas Feiden, live in New York City.