WASHINGTON – Today’s shocking CDC announcement that US life expectancy has declined for 3 years has added extra urgency to a summit of policymakers, experts, innovators and others gathered in the nation’s capital to discussion public health solutions.
Opioid overdoses claimed 42,000 lives in the US in 2016. Air pollution causes 200,000 Americans to die too soon each year. About 1 million violent crimes are committed in the US annually.
Could video games help military veterans with mental or behavioral health problems? Michelle Colder Carras, PhD, interviewed 20 US vets who were in treatment at a Veterans Administration facility. Colder Carras, now an assistant professor at the Netherlands’…
South African law allows mental health patients to be admitted to designated hospitals for 72 hours of assessment and to determine treatment. But when patients are volatile, getting them there poses a major challenge. The family of a schizophrenic patient found medical…
In a season of hurricanes, wildfires, gun violence and the still-churning opioid epidemic, the list of problems afflicting health in the US seems long—and short on answers. But public health professionals, policymakers and other experts are developing new strategies for…
HOUSTON – Peter Hotez has 2 words for his fellow scientists: Speak up. A venerable vaccine researcher and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Hotez says he and other scientists of his generation were taught to do science and…
NUNAVUT—89-year-old Eenoapit Sageatook remembers starting her days with a breakfast of Canada goose or duck eggs and later filling up on cooked or raw meat.
In response to at least 13 suicides across the region this year, Inuit villages in Nunavik, northern Quebec, are on alert. Inuit leaders are pleading with the Quebec government to train more Inuit social workers and psychologists, rather than flying around a handful of…
Called kufungisisa (Shona for “thinking too much”), depression is a high burden in Zimbabwe. In 2006, a paucity of providers—there are 12 psychiatrists for the entire country—led Dixon Chibanda, director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative, to establish the…
The Indonesian government now shackles and confines fewer people with mental health conditions. It’s a promising development, but the practice—banned since 1977—persists in communities and institutions. Following up on a 2016 report that found thousands of people with…
