A sustainable private health insurance system requires enough young, healthy people paying premiums and not making claims. But government policies haven’t achieved this. Here’s what to try instead.
In the absence of serious efforts by mental health centres, shelters and youth group homes to prevent people from running away from their facilities in the first place, police involvement is necessary.
Brian Allan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Chris Stone, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Holly Tuten, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jennifer Kuzma, North Carolina State University, dan Natalie Kofler, Harvard University
Release of GM mosquitoes in Florida is imminent. But a multidisciplinary team of scientists believe that more studies are needed first. They encourage a publicly accessible registry for GM organisms.
The danger of treating COVID-19 as an astronomically rare and improbable event is that we will treat it as such and fail to prepare for the next pandemic. And there will be another pandemic.
The tragedy at Whakaari/White Island highlights the need for consent forms to ensure tourists are fully informed when choosing to visit dangerous locations.
People have to make countless decisions on a daily basis that involve some degree of risk, from boarding a plane to crossing the street. The trouble is most of us don’t weigh risk well.
In response to mudslides that have killed at least 20 people in Southern California, a geologist calls for more resources to study and map landslide hazards so residents can understand the risks.
A disaster fantasy raises questions about tinkering with Earth’s climate. With real-life scientists exploring geoengineering, what conversations should we be having now around these technologies?
The true radiation risk from commercial flying has nothing to do with security scans. A radiation expert explains how much cancer risk the most frequent of flyers take on when they take to the skies.
A comprehensive analysis of Tasmania’s natural disaster risks has identified bushfire as the biggest threat, alongside emerging issues such as disease epidemics and heatwaves.
We need to carefully assess nanomaterials to ensure their safety, but there are questions over whether the existing practice of risk assessment is up to the task.
I once told a journalist that “the very fact that a piece of health research appears in the newspapers indicates that it is nonsense”. That may be too harsh, so I would like to suggest a slightly more…
Kate Mandeville, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
When new health threats emerge, the media is often accused of hyping up the risk to the public. But we tend to believe that health experts provide rational, independent viewpoints on the real risks posed…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne