Public Health

Given recent headlines, you may be wondering why polio is even an issue in 2022. For more than 60 years, vaccines against the poliovirus have protected virtually everyone in the…

In 2015 the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) launched a project called the Health Equity Zones (HEZ) initiative, with the goal of creating a new public health approach. Rather…

By the spring of 2020, the century-old industrial plant on Birmingham’s 35th Avenue was literally falling apart. Chunks of the metal doors fronting several of the 1,800-degree ovens — which…

People who have received periodontal maintenance care stayed in the hospital for the shortest time after a heart attack, a new study shows. The conventional wisdom is that medical and…

Wildfires are burning more severely and more often, urban noise pollution is growing into a global public health menace, and phenological mismatches – disruptions in the timing of life-cycle stages…

“Low reimbursement, staffing shortages, low patient volumes, regulatory barriers, and Covid-19 disruptions all played a role in the shuttering of 136 rural hospitals between 2010 and 2021, including a record…

Fears of polio gripped the U.S. in the mid-20th century. Parents were afraid to send their children to birthday parties, public pools or any place where children mingled. Children in…

Despite dramatic improvements in air quality over the past 50 years, people of color at every income level in the United States are exposed to higher-than-average levels of air pollution. While…

From 2010 to 2020, a larger proportion of rural Americans smoked cigarettes—and their odds of quitting smoking were lower—compared to those living in urban areas, according to a new study.…

Something unusual happened this year in Idaho. Fire and health officials began issuing warnings about the health risks of wildfire smoke several weeks earlier than normal. With almost the entire…

Climate change is already affecting much of the world’s population, with startlingly high temperatures from the Arctic to Australia. Air pollution from wildfires, vehicles, and industries threatens human health. Bees and pollinators are dying in unprecedented numbers that may force changes in crop production and…

For the Laudick family of Greensburg, Indiana, life forever changed on Aug. 5, 2013. That was the day 4-year-old Leah Laudick told her mom, Shelly, that she had a bad…