#public-health

#public-health

A Code Orange air quality alert has been issued for thousands on Tuesday due to high levels of air pollution. The alert covers the Liberty and Clairton area in Pennsylvania, including Clairton, Glassport, Lincoln and Port Vue, as well as the Susquehanna Valley, including Dauphin, Lebanon, Cumberland, York and Lancaster counties. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) warned that pollution levels may become unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, the elderly, and people with asthma, heart disease, or other lung conditions.

The study, published in Addictive Behaviors Reports and titled "The effect of television advertising on gambling behaviour: a quasi-experimental study during the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup," analyzed betting behaviour among 365 men aged 18-45 in England during the 2022 tournament. According to the paper's abstract, "Frequency of betting on football was 16% to 24% higher during games televised on a channel with gambling advertising compared to one without."

The United States publishes the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) every five years. These guidelines have historically been established by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The new DGA for the years 2025-2030 focuses on the overall message of "eating real food." By shifting to a stronger emphasis on limiting added sugar intake in the diet, this marks a pivotal shift in the guidelines that drive American nutrition.

When Matt Hillier was in his 20s, he went camping with a friend who was a nurse. In the morning she told him she had been shocked by the snoring coming from his tent. She basically said, For a 25-year-old non-smoker who's quite skinny, you snore pretty loudly,' says Hiller, now 32. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.

The logic behind electric vehicles benefiting public health has long been solid: More EVs means fewer internal combustion engines on the road, and a reduction in harmful tailpipe emissions. But now researchers have confirmed, to the greatest extent yet, that this is indeed what's actually happening on the ground. What's more, they found that even relatively small upticks in EV adoption can have a measurably positive impact on a community.

The analysis of nearly 500 varieties of tinned and chilled soups sold in supermarkets found that 23% contained too much salt. Of the 481 soups Action on Salt and Sugar (AoSS) tested, nearly half (48%) of branded soups and 6% of supermarket own-brand soups still exceeded the government's voluntary salt target of 0.59g per 100g serving. The saltiest was Soup Head's Tom Yum soup, with 3.03g in a 300g pack more than half an adult's recommended total daily limit and saltier than eating two McDonald's cheeseburgers.

Smoking, being overweight, and exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and sunbeds are the top preventable causes of cancer, experts have warned. Researchers from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and its International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) analysed 30 risk factors that cause cancer, such as smoking, drinking alcohol and air pollution. Using data from across 185 countries, they estimate that about 7.1 million of the 18.7 million new cancer cases diagnosed globally in 2022 were preventable.

Dr Lucie Nield, co-lead investigator from the University of Sheffield, said: People deserve greater transparency about the food they are ordering online, and these businesses must be held to the appropriate regulatory standards. Without this, dark kitchens risk falling through the gap, with potential consequences for public health, particularly by encouraging increased use of online takeaways, greater availability and therefore greater consumption of high fat, salt or sugar food.

Brain drain refers to circumstances in which highly trained experts from underdeveloped and overexploited countries migrate to wealthier international job markets. Such loss of human capital can be catastrophic for a nation's development, as a shortage of trained workers tends to strain critical sectors like healthcare and education. Now the United States government - which once fielded as many as 281,000 scientists and engineers - is experiencing a similar phenomenon.

Last year, I found myself at a milk-themed basement dance party. At the time, perhaps, I should have turned around on the dance floor: I could have found an AI-generated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. behind me, swaying while sipping a glass of the white stuff. The exclusive invite for the party featured a black-and-white portrait of a gaunt child in wartime hugging bottles of milk.

The Massachusetts Nurses Association, a union representing nurses across the state, is planning vigils for Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents. The MNA plans to host vigils for Pretti, who worked at a veteran's hospital, Thursday night at Boston Medical Center, Worcester VA Clinic, and Northampton VA Medical Center, the union said. The MNA aims to honor Pretti's service as a nurse, his advocacy for human rights, and the veterans and communities he served, said a spokesperson for the union.

It's the result of not only the dissipation of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also waning death rates from all the nation's top killers, including heart disease, cancer and drug overdoses. What's more, preliminary statistics suggest a continued improvement in 2025. Life expectancy, a fundamental measure of a population's health, is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time.

Meth. We're On It.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Officials in Contra Costa County reported the death on Tuesday. The case is the latest in an "unprecedented outbreak" of wild mushroom poisonings due to Amanita phalloides or "death cap" mushrooms that have sickened 39 people and left four dead in California since November. Earlier this month, health officials from across the state warned residents to avoid foraging for mushrooms and said this might be the largest outbreak of wild mushroom-related poisoning in California.

A 38-year-old man, Evan Perez Villanueva, has been arrested in connection with the fatal January 15th shooting at 16th and San Bruno, in San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood. Villanueva was found on the 200 block of San Bruno Avenue, and a search of his car turned up a shotgun, the SFPD says. [KRON4] A large home went up in flames around 5 am this morning in Angwin, in Napa County, and appears to have burned to the ground. The fire was initially reported as a debris fire, before becoming a structure fire. [Chronicle]

The patchwork efforts to identify and safely remove contamination left by the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires has been akin to the Wild West. Experts have given conflicting guidance on best practices. Shortly after the fires, the federal government suddenly refused to adhere to California's decades-old post-fire soil-testing policy; California later considered following suit. Meanwhile, insurance companies have resisted remediation practices widely recommended by scientists for still-standing homes.

A bill that would have banned smoking on casino gaming floors in Iowa didn't go anywhere this week, after a Senate subcommittee voted to shelve the proposal indefinitely. The legislation, Senate File 2051, was introduced as "An Act relating to the elimination of the exemption of gaming floors from the prohibitions of the smokefree air Act." The bill proposed a change to state law by amending Iowa Code section 142D.4 "by striking the subsection" that currently allows smoking on certain gaming floors.

The 6-foot-7 inch Foege literally stood out in the field of public health. A whip-smart medical doctor with a calm demeanor, he had a canny knack for beating back infectious diseases. He was director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later held other key leadership roles in campaigns against international health problems.

Australians are struggling through one of the most brutal heatwaves and hottest summers on record. Day after day, temperatures into the high 30s are turning homes into ovens, workplaces into hazards, and everyday tasks into endurance tests. All of us are feeling it. But spare a thought for the millions of renters trying to survive this heat in homes that were never designed to cope with it.

"crowded" and "appalling" conditions.