Public Health News

April 30, 2025

Top Headlines

London's Low Emission Zones Save Lives and Money

Apr. 23, 2025 — Study finds a 18.5% reduction in sick leave following LEZ implementation in Greater London compared to areas in England without low emission ...

Experts Stress Importance of Vaccination Amidst Measles Outbreaks

Apr. 14, 2025 — Pediatric infectious diseases experts stress the importance of vaccination against measles, one of the most contagious viruses, which is once more spreading in the United ...

School-Based Asthma Therapy Improves Student Health, Lowers Medical Costs

Apr. 11, 2025 — Millions of U.S. children have asthma and benefit from taking anti-inflammatory medications at least once a day as prescribed by their health care provider. This school-based asthma therapy program enables school nurses to help students take their ...

Deadly Rodent-Borne Hantavirus Is an Emerging Disease With Pandemic Potential

Apr. 11, 2025 — Virginia Tech researchers seek to understand the environmental factors that influence the distribution of hantavirus in rodent populations across the United ...

Latest Headlines

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Carb Restriction Offers Relief from Calorie Counting

Apr. 8, 2025 — The intermittent fasting diet, which involves periods of severe calorie restriction, may be on the way out, as research is suggesting that rather than drastically reducing calories, people can ...

Parents' Metabolic Traits Can Affect the Child's Health Over Time

Apr. 8, 2025 — Research shows that the biological parents' genes affect the child's insulin function and capacity to regulate blood sugar levels and blood lipids in different ways. Such knowledge may be used to to ...

Wildfire Recovery: What Victims Say They Need Most

Apr. 9, 2025 — Wildfire victims have a range of needs, including mental health support and information about wildfire smoke, according to a new ...

Is AI in Medicine Playing Fair?

Apr. 7, 2025 — As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly integrates into health care, a new study reveals that all generative AI models may recommend different treatments for the same medical condition based solely ...

When It Comes to Obesity-Related Cancers, Where You Shop for Food Matters

Apr. 2, 2025 — Obesity is at epidemic proportions in the United States where more than 40% of adults are obese and more than 70% are overweight. One common policy intervention to tackle this urgent issue is to try ...

My Robot Therapist: The Ethics of AI Mental Health Chatbots for Kids

Mar. 31, 2025 — AI mental health apps may offer a cheap and accessible way to fill the gaps in the overstretched U.S. mental health care system, but ethics experts warn that we need to be thoughtful about how we use ...

Discrimination-Related Depression, Anxiety Pronounced Among Multiracial, White, Asian Populations

Mar. 28, 2025 — A new study found that over half of US adults experienced some form of discrimination, and individuals with high exposure to discrimination have more ...

Research Highlights Urgent Need for National Strategy to Combat Rising Eating Disorders

Mar. 27, 2025 — The increasing number of people with eating disorders and a lack of national guidance for support teams has led to researchers calling for a new ...

Children of Moms Who Smoked or Were Obese Are More Likely to Become Obese Adults

Mar. 26, 2025 — A study finds that factors beyond a person's control, like socioeconomic status and whether their mom smoked or was obese, can influence whether they ...

Avoidable Deaths Are on the Rise in the United States, Yet Falling in Many Peer Nations

Mar. 24, 2025 — In most high-income countries around the world, the number of avoidable mortalities is going down. But in the United States, avoidable deaths have ...

Multi-Virus Wastewater Surveillance Shows Promise at Smaller, Site-Specific Scales

Apr. 9, 2025 — In a new study, wastewater surveillance for multiple pathogens at five different sites identified local trends that were not captured in larger surveillance programs, and some sites used the data to ...

Stroke Deaths and Their Racial Disparities Increased Over Last 20 Years

Apr. 9, 2025 — Over the last two decades, ischemic stroke mortality rates in the U.S. have grown, with almost 3 in 10 deaths occurring at home, and increases particularly among racial minorities and rural ...

Long COVID Patients Feel Pressure to Prove Their Illness Is Real, Study Finds

Mar. 27, 2025 — People living with Long COVID often feel dismissed, disbelieved and unsupported by their healthcare providers, according to a new ...

Weather Emergencies Affect Older Adults' Views on Climate and Health

Mar. 20, 2025 — Nearly 3 out of every 4 older Americans have experienced at least one extreme weather event in the last two years, a poll finds. And living through such an event appears to make a big difference in ...

Adopting Zero-Emission Trucks and Buses Could Save Lives, Prevent Asthma

Mar. 18, 2025 — Researchers used community input to design Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) air-quality model experiments. Community asked for ACT policy simulations that convert 48% of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles ...

'Doomsday Clock' and Patterns of Mortality and Mental Health in the United States

Mar. 12, 2025 — A new study investigated the mortality and mental health correlates of the iconic Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday ...

Study Quantifies Loss of Disability-Free Years of Life from COVID-19 Pandemic

Mar. 11, 2025 — Among 289 million adults in 18 European countries, more than 16 million years of life were lost from 2020 through 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new ...

How London's Ultra Low Emission Zone Is Changing the School Run

Mar. 3, 2025 — London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is transforming children's journeys to school by making streets safer, improving perceptions of air quality and encouraging children to live ...

Lifestyle Choices During Pregnancy Can Impact Child's Motor Development Up to the Age of 5-6 Years

Feb. 25, 2025 — A healthy diet in early pregnancy supports the child's motor development at the age of 5-6 years. Higher maternal body fat mass, on the other hand, has an adverse effect on the child's ...

Telemedicine May Help Reduce Use of Unnecessary Health Tests

Feb. 24, 2025 — A research team has found that telemedicine may help to reduce the use of low-value ...

Impacts of Workplace Bullying on Sleep Can Be 'Contagious' Between Partners

Feb. 21, 2025 — Workplace bullying affects not only the employee's sleep but their partner's too, according to new research published ...

U.S. Facing Critical Hospital Bed Shortage by 2032

Feb. 19, 2025 — The new post-pandemic national hospital occupancy average is 75% -- a full 11 percentage points higher than the pre-pandemic average, largely due to a reduction in staffed hospital beds. This puts ...

Advances in AI Can Help Prepare the World for the Next Pandemic, Global Group of Scientists Find

Feb. 19, 2025 — Scientists across Africa, America, Asia, Australia, and Europe outline for the first time how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can transform the landscape of infectious disease research and improve ...

We Are No Longer Living Longer: Study Across Europe

Feb. 18, 2025 — The rise in human life expectancy has slowed down across Europe since 2011, according to new research. A new study reveals that the food we eat, physical inactivity and obesity are largely to blame, ...

Adults Don't Trust Health Care to Use AI Responsibly and Without Harm

Feb. 14, 2025 — A survey of adults found most had low trust in their health care system to use artificial intelligence responsibly or to make sure an AI tool would not harm ...

Blood Test Paves the Way for Better Heart Attack Prevention

Feb. 13, 2025 — The test, which is not yet widely available, is being developed so that it can eventually be used at the ...

Research Shows Blood Test May Provide Personalized Dietary Therapy for Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Feb. 13, 2025 — Study participants who went on an IgG-based elimination diet--based on a novel blood test--experienced less abdominal pain than those on a sham ...

Long Drives and High Costs Stand Between Americans and Safe Surgery -- Especially in Rural Areas

Feb. 12, 2025 — When they need surgery, nearly one in three Americans may find themselves in a precarious position: They live more than an hour's drive from a high-quality hospital, and their insurance plan may ...

ALS Survival May Be Cut Short by Living in Disadvantaged Communities

Feb. 7, 2025 — Living in a disadvantaged community may decrease the length of time a person can survive with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, by over 30%, a study suggests. Similar studies have shown that ...

Brain Waves Measure the Effect of Anti-Alcohol Campaigns

Feb. 7, 2025 — To evaluate the effectiveness of public video campaigns against risky alcohol consumption, psychologists used EEG measurements to examine the synchronization of brain activity in groups of viewers. ...