Coal-fired power plants produce air pollution that kills thousands of Americans every year. President Trump’s embrace of coal energy will delay a shift to cleaner fuels that is saving money and lives.
AIDS activists stage a ‘die-in’ in 1992 in Houston about lack of funding for AIDS research under President George H.W. Bush.
Rick McFarland/AP
New treatments and prevention programs have inhibited the spread of HIV/AIDS since June 5, 1981, when the CDC first reported what would become HIV. Here’s why it’s important not to cut funding now.
People with albinism often isolate themselves to avoid discrimination.
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People with albinism tend to identify with the black rather than the white community. Their physical differences, though, mean they don’t fit into either race group.
While smoking in young Australians is declining, roll-your-own cigarettes are becoming more popular.
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About three million people globally are ‘missed’ each year for Tuberculosis diagnosis. Many of them will die, some will get better, others will continue to infect others.
Australia’s policies on preventing heart disease are based on outdated research from the US.
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While we must put in place effective measures to protect against the malicious use of personal data, not using the information collected about Australians comes at a cost.
A byproduct of Australia’s fractured federalism is that both the Commonwealth and state governments fund public hospitals.
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Leaked documents of a secret ‘taskforce’ to reform public hospital funding reveal some controversial proposals. So how are hospitals funded and why might this need changing?
People who eat raw or undercooked meat from infected animals may get anthrax.
Thumbi Mwangi
Governments in anthrax endemic countries should build efficient surveillance systems that incorporate detection, confirmation and efficient data collation and feedback.
Sugary gummie vitamins are no substitute for a healthy diet.
It is our view vitamin “gummies” that contain food acids, and have a high sugar content, are not medicines consumers need and their sale should be prohibited on public health grounds.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the new Director-General of the World Health Organisation
Reuters/Denis Balibouse
The new director-general of the World Health Organisation has set universal health coverage as a priority. There are several ways to make headway with this goal.
If hitting below the belt, not the head, was the aim, then brain damage from boxing would disappear overnight.
from www.shutterstock.com
Forget tinkering with the rules of boxing. It’s time for a wholesale change. Let’s make hits to the groin the aim of the game and ban hits to the head.
Why have successive federal governments not regulated junk food marketing to control obesity? The reasons aren’t as obvious as you might think.
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No wonder obesity is a tough public health issue for governments to deal with. Our research has uncovered a range of barriers to tackling it, some more obvious than others.
Providing green space can deliver health, social and environmental benefits for all urban residents – few other public health interventions can achieve all of this.
Anne Cleary
Urban green spaces are most effective at delivering their full range of health, social and environmental benefits when physical improvement of the space is coupled with social engagement.
Tedros Ghebreyesus, the newly elected Director-General of the World Health Organisation.
Reuters/Denis Balibouse
There are a number of challenges that the World Health Organisation’s new leader, Ethiopian-born Tedros Ghebreyesus, will have to navigate during his tenure.
Karen Hofman, University of the Witwatersrand dan Charles Parry, South African Medical Research Council
Under pressure to create new markets, big alcohol producers are scouring the African continent in what promises to yield negative socioeconomic consequences.
Childhood trauma can have an impact across generations.
ambrozinio/Shutterstock
We’ve known for years that childhood trauma can have lifelong effects on our health. It’s time for medicine and public health to start addressing the problem head-on.
Hand sanitisers are popular as an alternative to washing hands using soap and water to kill germs.
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The poor quality of hand sanitisers in Kenya poses a health concern. If this market remains unregulated these products might encourage the undetected transmission of infectious pathogens in hospitals.
Antenatal care is important during pregnancy.
Reuters
Africa is expected to have among the steepest increases in the number of people affected by non-communicable diseases - it needs health care systems that can cope.
Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia develops silently often with no symptoms, particularly in the early stages.
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One of the confirmed causes of Chronic myeloid leukaemia is contact with an atomic weapon or nuclear radiation. Other risks factors of this type of cancer are still being established.
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
Principal Medical Scientist and Head of Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Professor and Programme Director, SA MRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand