By Nurith Aizenman
Last weekend's massacre in Las Vegas is only the latest reminder of the persistent gun violence in the United States. And a new set of statistics on the rates of gun violence unrelated to conflict underscores just how outsize U.S. rates of gun deaths are compared with those in much of the rest of the world.
By Emily Sohn
Where can people expect to live the longest?
The answer to that question is usually pretty predictable and often dependent on wealth: People generally live longer in richer countries. Like Japan and Switzerland, where average life expectancies exceed 83 years.
In lower income countries, expected years of life are often far shorter — hovering below 55 in a number of sub-Saharan countries, including Chad, Mozambique and Sierra Leone.
As a doctoral student at the University of Washington School of Public Health, Dr. Bradley Wagenaar laid the foundation for a career in global mental health research and implementation science.
A study published from his dissertation for the department of epidemiology described patterns of mental health care in central Mozambique’s Sofala province. Additional studies showed the high rate of suicide attempts and deaths and the lack of essential mental health medication.
By Steve Hanley
Most of us learned about photosynthesis when we were in high school. Plants use carbon dioxide and sunlight to make the food they need to grow. That means higher carbon dioxide levels should be good for plants, right? Absolutely, says Republican Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas. He is a firmly committed climate change denier who is the chairman of the House Committee on Science.
By Sarah Boseley
Poor diet is a factor in one in five deaths around the world, according to the most comprehensive study ever carried out on the subject.
Millions of people are eating the wrong sorts of food for good health. Eating a diet that is low in whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and fish oils and high in salt raises the risk of an early death, according to the huge and ongoing study Global Burden of Disease.
By Joanne Silberner
Later this month, global health luminaries will gather in Seattle to celebrate the anniversary of a relationship that had a rocky start back in 1986, when a brash young Rhodes scholar marched into the World Health Organization office of an epidemiologist who had published research papers on mortality in Africa.
“Are you Alan Lopez?” the visitor asked. “Yes,” Lopez remembers answering. “Well, I’m Chris Murray, and everything you’ve written about Africa is wrong.”
By Sandi Doughton
With more than $40 billion in assets and the world’s richest man at the helm, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation might seem well-positioned to ride out any political storm.
But the Trump administration’s proposal to slash funding for the global health and development causes the Seattle foundation holds dear sent shivers through even the country’s most powerful philanthropy.
By Susan Scutti
Are nations around the globe on track to meet health-related sustainable development goals for the year 2030? A new analysis finds outstanding achievements -- but a great deal of work still needed -- before the goals can be reached.
By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter
Fewer adult women are becoming infected with human papillomavirus (HPV), a trend that includes females who have never received the HPV vaccine, a new study reports.
It appears that enough women have gotten the HPV vaccine to create "herd immunity" that will provide some protection to females who go unvaccinated, said lead researcher Dr. Abbey Berenson.
By Rahul Sachitanand