Evidence from decades of research has convinced many public health professionals that there is no single factor more important to healthy living than a minimum standard of income and no single factor more harmful to health than persistent poverty.
by V. Tinney, J. Paulson, and E. Webb In recent months, spikes in birth defects, and stillborn and neonatal deaths in drilling-dense regions of Colorado and Utah has raised the attention of local communities, researchers, and public health officials. There is still much to be studied to be able to determine if there is in […]
New happenings on public health intersecting with activities of U.S. espionage agencies.
Health Impact Assessments
Tennessee’s Jekyll and Hyde Moment: Should Pregnant Women Who Use Drugs Be Treated as Criminals?
By Sara Satinsky: Should pregnant women who use drugs be charged as criminals or given help? From a public health perspective the choice is clear: provide treatment to help women quit drugs before their use harms their child. Less than a year ago, Tennessee adopted a progressive policy to provide such treatment, but now is on the brink of taking a big step back.
Cholera had spared Haiti for a century or more, so it was not unreasonable that people asked where did the pathogen come from in 2010. But public health people might have explained that the question was a distraction. Why so? Very simply, knowing how Vibrio cholerae arrived in Haiti would not help control its spread or prevent future outbreaks.
By Jonathan Heller. Author Nicholas Freudenberg advocates that we “return to the public sector the right to set health policy and to limit corporations’ freedom to profit at the expense of public health.” We should also think specifically about obligations corporations have to their workers, at a time when the minimum wage is inadequate, wage theft is common among low-wage workers, and millions of US workers lack paid sick time.
The New York Times editorial page warns that genocide looms in the Central African Republic. It’s worth re-reading a Commentary from Elihu Richter in the Journal of Public Health Policy, which focuses on the Rwandan genocide but is relevant today.
The quality of public housing is a key determinant of health among low-income populations, but much of the public housing in the United States is in disrepair – unhealthy, unsafe, even uninhabitable. A health impact assessment of San Francisco’s Rental Assistance Demonstration project highlights some of the considerations for local governments working to assure safe, well-maintained housing for their most vulnerable residents.
I am always just a little skeptical about public health education. Do students learn to apply the principles they learn? Recently, I was able to answer in the affirmative, at least about a single occurrence.
Flavoring Workers' Lung (Popcorn/Diacetyl)
Flavored java, coffee bean workers, and deadly lung disease
MMWR describes cases of bronchiolitis obliterans diagnosed in two individuals who worked— not at a microwave popcorn plant—-at a Texas coffee bean processing company. (Re-post, by Celeste Monforton)