Tobacco-style public health campaigns are needed to spell out the full extent of the harms of ultra processed foods, argue public health experts in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. Despite strong evidence linking these products to serious health consequences, the public are in the dark about the real dangers of these ‘foods’ and have...
Why should two individuals with exactly the same risk factor profile for developing heart attacks or strokes be treated differently based purely on their race? Is it race that alters risk of these people or is race a surrogate for other factors that may be elevating risk? And how large can these race-related differences in...
Alcohol sales and consumption increased during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the effect of the increase in consumption on population health is not fully understood. In new research published in Hepatology, a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) projected rates of liver disease and associated deaths due to increased alcohol consumption...
Twenty-one months into the global pandemic, millions of Americans continue to believe misinformation about vaccination and Covid-19, and these beliefs are associated with hesitancy to get themselves and their children vaccinated – or, if they are vaccinated, to get a booster for added protection against the omicron and delta variants. In the fourth survey conducted...
An analysis of data from 16 U.S. states suggests that the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic saw increases in wine and spirit sales, accompanied by notable changes in the relationship between alcohol sales and people’s visits to businesses that sell alcohol. University at Buffalo researchers Yingjie Hu, Brian M. Quigley and Dane Taylor...
Packed with rifles and explosives, the SUV hurtled down a Florida interstate beneath bright blue autumn skies, passing other motorists with little notice. It was November 2018, and the driver, Tyler Sumlin, was uncomfortable. Clammy. The husky, bearded former U.S. Army soldier was getting a cold, and understandably tense: He was transporting a platoon’s worth...
The spread of misinformation on social media is a pressing societal problem that tech companies and policymakers continue to grapple with, yet those who study this issue still don’t have a deep understanding of why and how false news spreads. To shed some light on this murky topic, researchers at MIT developed a theoretical model...
American democracy is in crisis—a majority of scholars and the public agree. Allegations of unfair voting practices, such as voter suppression and gerrymandering, abuses of executive power, and mounting concerns about the legitimacy of elections have become regular occurrence in the United States, rather than isolated events. If we accept the premise that politicians and...
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Rising house prices may change the personality make-up of US cities within a few years, with residents becoming increasingly open-minded – not just as wealthier people move in, but also among longer-term locals. This is according to a University of Cambridge-led study of almost two million people in the US living across 199 cities. Psychologists...
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that for-profit long-term care homes had worse patient outcomes than not-for-profit homes. A new study found that of those for-profit homes, long-term care homes (LTCs) owned by private equity firms and large chains have the highest mortality rates. The study conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo traced the growing...
