Public Health & Medicine

Is the FDA too lax? Do bears go to the bathroom in spotless marble-floored lavatories? Is the Pope an Anabaptist?

But it’s never too late (nor too soon) to take these preventive steps

How the Brazilian butt lift, one of the world’s most dangerous plastic surgery procedures, went mainstream.

A new Yale study shows that limited upward mobility has serious consequences on the life expectancy of young adults, particularly among Black males.

Some have been used in hospitals, despite not being properly tested. But the pandemic could help make medical AI better.

A variant discovered in Colombia is now showing up in South Florida hospitals. Time and vaccination efforts will determine how quickly it could spread, experts say.

On this episode, we dive into the changing conversation about race and ethnicity in medicine. We hear stories about why it’s harder for Black Americans to get kidney transplants, why “Asian” is too broad of a category when it comes to public health, and how we could collect better, more meaningful data.

Yes, even for healthy people.

Infections in vaccinated Americans are rare, compared with those in unvaccinated people, the document said. But when they occur, vaccinated people may spread the virus just as easily.

In communities with growing caseloads, vaccinated and unvaccinated people should return to wearing masks indoors in public areas, health officials said.

Volume 44 (2021) - Article 52 | Pages 1271–1294

A new study finds that health care has become the country’s largest source of debt in collections. Those debts are largest where Medicaid wasn’t expanded.

COVID-19 consistently displays a higher mortality in males. This sex-specific difference in outcomes is seen not only in the current COVID-19 pandemic, but also in prior viral epidemics and pandemics. Sex hormones, such as testosterone, play a clear role ...

Some anti-vaccination groups on Facebook are changing their names to euphemisms like “Dance Party” or “Dinner Party,” and using code words to fit those themes.

Cases of the variant have popped up in several states. But neither the WHO nor the CDC considers it a variant of concern, and the fast-spreading delta variant continues to dominate U.S. cases.

Today's pollution is very different from the Brown Cloud of the '70s and '80s but it could be just as bad.

Objective To estimate changes in life expectancy in 2010-18 and during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 across population groups in the United States and to compare outcomes with peer nations. Design Simulations of provisional mortality data. Setting US and 16 other high income countries in 2010-18 and 2020, by sex, including an analysis of US outcomes by race and ethnicity. Population Data for the US and for 16 other high income countries from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Human Mortality Database, respectively. Main outcome measures Life expectancy at birth, and at ages 25 and 65, by sex, and, in the US only, by race and ethnicity. Analysis excluded 2019 because life table data were not available for many peer countries. Life expectancy in 2020 was estimated by simulating life tables from estimated age specific mortality rates in 2020 and allowing for 10% random error. Estimates for 2020 are reported as medians with fifth and 95th centiles. Results Between 2010 and 2018, the gap in life expectancy between the US and the peer country average increased from 1.88 years (78.66 v 80.54 years, respectively) to 3.05 years (78.74 v 81.78 years). Between 2018 and 2020, life expectancy in the US decreased by 1.87 years (to 76.87 years), 8.5 times the average decrease in peer countries (0.22 years), widening the gap to 4.69 years. Life expectancy in the US decreased disproportionately among racial and ethnic minority groups between 2018 and 2020, declining by 3.88, 3.25, and 1.36 years in Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White populations, respectively. In Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black populations, reductions in life expectancy were 18 and 15 times the average in peer countries, respectively. Progress since 2010 in reducing the gap in life expectancy in the US between Black and White people was erased in 2018-20; life expectancy in Black men reached its lowest level since 1998 (67.73 years), and the longstanding Hispanic life expectancy advantage almost disappeared. Conclusions The US had a much larger decrease in life expectancy between 2018 and 2020 than other high income nations, with pronounced losses among the Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black populations. A longstanding and widening US health disadvantage, high death rates in 2020, and continued inequitable effects on racial and ethnic minority groups are likely the products of longstanding policy choices and systemic racism. Data sharing: Requests for additional data and analytic scripts used in this study should be emailed to RKM (Ryan.Masters@colorado.edu).

The decline, which is the largest seen in a single year since World War II, reflects the pandemic’s sustained toll on Americans, particularly the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on communities of color.

To hear an audio spoken word version of this post, click here.   One of the favorite parts of my job is thinking about issues in ways other people often do not. That might include identifying where consensus may be wrong (Inflation, Urban Exodus, Insurrections) or market values responding differently than expected. Even for issues…Read More

Colorado overdose deaths increased 38% in 2020, the largest year-over-year jump since at least 2000. Fentanyl deaths more than doubled.

The highly infectious version of the virus ‘is gaining ground,’ one Southern governor warned amid an uptick of recorded infections in almost every state.

No spelling out of letters is needed for a paralyzed person to use the first-of-a-kind neuroprosthesis

An H.I.V. infection increases the odds of dying from Covid-19 by at least 30 percent, researchers said.

The coronavirus pandemic and the continued spread of illegal fentanyl took a devastating toll on drug users, experts said, as the government reported a staggering increase in fatalities.

Leap in malnutrition during Covid shows urgent need to overhaul global food systems, report warns

Federal regulators concluded that the risk of developing the syndrome was low, and that the benefits of the vaccine still strongly outweigh it.