Recent pieces address the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, Pruitt’s attempt to restrict EPA’s use of science, police shootings of unarmed black men, and more.
This year’s County Health Rankings elevate the intrinsic connections between health and opportunity, underscoring the considerable inequities that put certain communities at greater risk of poor health and disease.
About two weeks ago, federal health officials released a new funding announcement for the nation’s Title X family planning program, which serves millions of women each year. In the entire 60-page document, you won’t find the words “contraception” or “contraceptive” mentioned even once.
New data finds one American is dying from alcohol, drugs and suicide every four minutes — that’s the highest number recorded so far.
Guns are the third leading cause of injury-related death in the country. Every year, more than 12,000 gun homicides happen in the U.S., and for every person killed with a gun, two more are injured. Whether Congress will do anything about this violence is a whole other (depressing) article. But there is evidence that change is possible.
One of the more heartbreaking ripple effects of America’s opioid addiction epidemic is a massive increase in newborns experiencing drug withdrawal. Public health officials have tracked a 400 percent increase in such cases — technically known as neonatal abstinence syndrome — with one impacted baby born every 25 minutes as of 2012.
Another day, another study on the life-saving benefits of vaccines.
Public health workers have two main tools for HIV screening: a blood test that detects HIV a couple weeks after infection or a saliva test that detects the virus more than a month after infection. With a trick of chemistry, however, scientists at Stanford University have combined the best attributes of both — and the result could mean a serious boost for HIV prevention.
As a state, Texas’ infant mortality rate is below the national average, at 5.7 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. But within the state, some communities experience much higher rates, with stark differences between ZIP codes sitting only a few miles apart.
On the risk of vaccine exemptions, the science is clear — it would take a relatively small decline in immunization rates to produce big jumps in disease and health care spending. The trick is keeping communities above the danger threshold.