Andrea Amelse knows hand-washing. For the past eight years, she’s been washing her hands pretty much every time she passes a sink. When she’s near a bottle of antibacterial gel, she uses it. She makes a point of avoiding people with contagious illnesses, even though it can be uncomfortable to ask to work from home...
Health
ACA Helped Make Health Insurance Access More Equal, but Racial and Ethnic Gaps Remain
As the Affordable Care Act turns 10 years old, a new study shows it has narrowed racial and ethnic gaps in access to health insurance and health care – but definitely not eliminated them. Just before the ACA’s insurance programs took effect, nearly 25% of African-American adults under 65 and 40% of Hispanic adults in...
To Predict an Epidemic, Evolution Can’t Be Ignored
When scientists try to predict the spread of something across populations–anything from a coronavirus to misinformation–they use complex mathematical models to do so. Typically, they’ll study the first few steps in which the subject spreads, and use that rate to project how far and wide the spread will go. But what happens if a pathogen...
Study Shows Rising Age of First Drug Use in Teens, Young Adults
The average age at which teens and young adults start using drugs has been rising, according to a study published today in JAMA Pediatrics. The study examined changes in the average age of first drug use for 18 different drugs–including alcohol and tobacco products–between 2004 and 2017 and found that average ages had increased for the majority of...
Researchers Study Role Culture Plays in Feeling Sick
The physical and mental sensations we associate with feeling sick are a natural biological response to inflammation within the body. However, the strength and severity of these sensations go beyond biology and may be affected by gender, ethnicity and various social norms we’ve all internalized. These are the latest research findings, according to social scientists...
Mapping Childhood Malnutrition
The scope of childhood malnutrition has decreased since 2000, although millions of children under five years of age are still undernourished and, as a result, have stunted growth. An international team of researchers analysed the scope of global childhood malnutrition in 2000 and 2017, and estimated the probability of achieving the World Health Organization Global Nutrition Targets...
Alcohol Ads Lead to Youth Drinking, Should Be More Regulated, Experts Say
The marketing of alcoholic beverages is one cause of underage drinking, public health experts conclude. Because of this, countries should abandon what are often piecemeal and voluntary codes to restrict alcohol marketing and construct government-enforced laws designed to limit alcohol-marketing exposure and message appeal to youth. These conclusions stem form a series of eight review...
Childhood Physical Abuse Linked to Heavy Cigarette Use Among Teens Who Smoke
Researchers have known that kids who are at high risk of being mistreated at home – who live in poverty or have parents who use drugs or have mental health problems – are more likely to start smoking. Because abused and neglected children are often unsupervised, these teens have easy access to cigarettes and other...
New in the Hastings Center Report: A Call to Confront Mistrust in the U.S. Health Care System
“For those who have faced exploitation and discrimination at the hands of physicians, the medical profession, and medical institutions, trust is a tall order and, in many cases, would be naïve,” writes Laura Specker Sullivan in “Trust, Risk, and Race in American Medicine.” Specker Sullivan calls on medical providers to take action, writing that caring and competence...
Stress May Drive People to Give as Well as Receive Emotional Support
Stress has a justifiably bad reputation for making people feel crummy. But new research suggests that despite its negative side effects, it may also lead to a surprising social benefit. In a study, a team of scientists including Penn State researchers found that experiencing stress made people both more likely to give and receive emotional...