10 steps the Trump administration can take to make America healthy again | STAT News

America’s poor health helped elect Donald Trump.

The United States has the worst health indicators among its peer nations, even though it spends far more money on health than any of those countries. Much of this health burden is borne by the same marginalized groupsthat found hope in the message of the president-elect.

The new administration should seize the opportunity to be bold and inventive and to take steps that can actually make a difference in the lives and the health of the people who elevated Trump to power. My own work, and that of others, suggests 10 key ways to accomplish such change.

The Unnecessary Persistence of Tuberculosis | HuffPost

The World Health Organization has just released its annual Global Tuberculosis Report. The report shows that even as tuberculosis (TB) rates continue to fall worldwide, the epidemic is larger than previously estimated, with 10.4 million new TB cases globally in 2015; over 95 percent of TB cases happen in low- and middle- income countries.

Gun control: California, Nevada and Washington tighten firearms regulations | The Conversation

With little action from the federal government on gun control, states have stepped into this void, passing legislation including laws that attempt to fill the background check loopholes in federal law.

On Nov. 8, California, Nevada and Washington passed ballot initiatives that restrict the sale of firearms in some way. We’ll take a look at what do these new laws do, and whether they might lower the toll of firearms violence.

What Corporate Wellness Program Get Wrong About Health | Fortune

To control soaring health care costs, many U.S. corporations have rolled out wellness programs on the idea that encouraging employees to adopt a healthy lifestyle would lead to fewer trips to the doctor and fewer missed work days. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, about three-quarters of HR professionals said their organizations offered some sort of a wellness program in 2014. While more than two-thirds of these respondents reported that such programs were “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in reducing health care costs, a closer look at other studies finds that the outcomes for these programs are not so clear. This suggests corporations should rethink wellness programs, bearing in mind that several other critical factors besides lifestyle predict a healthy life.

Shaping the Urban Brain | Scientific American Blog Network

It’s hard to believe, but not quite four decades ago the Chinese settlement of Shenzhen was a modest fishing village, with a population of roughly 30,000. Today, thanks to a policy begun in 1979 that was designed to encourage foreign investment, that sleepy village is a manufacturing hub with a population of roughly 10 million. The success of Shenzhen is consistent with the broader development of China’s Pearl River Delta. Once mostly agricultural land, it has become, according to a recent World Bank report, the largest urban area in the world. The cities in the region have a combined population of about 57 million—larger than the populations of many countries, including Canada, Argentina, and South Africa.

Fifteen Years Later: Learning From 9/11 | Dean's Note

Fifteen Years Later: Learning From 9/11 | Dean's Note

Fifteen years ago, at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, followed, 17 minutes later, by United Airlines 175, crashing into the South Tower. Two other planes, American Airlines 77 and United Airlines 93, were also hijacked that day, crashing respectively into the Pentagon and into a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001, and about 6,000 people were physically injured. The immediate aftermath of the attacks cost at least $10 billion in property damage and about $3 trillion in total costs. The long-term global consequences of the attacks continue to be felt to this day—9/11 resulted in the launch of global wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with about 500,000 people dying in Iraq and likely a comparable number of deaths in Afghanistan. In many ways, 9/11 changed everything: We continue to face what feels like an interminable string of terrorist attacks, that kill dozens of people at a time, despite a wholesale upgrading of security measures worldwide.

Uncertainty And The Zika Virus: Why Scientists Need To Think Like Poets | Cognoscenti

In an 1818 letter to his brothers, a former medical student, and burgeoning poet, named John Keats described what he considered to be the most important quality possessed by “a man of achievement.” He called it “negative capability” and defined it as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Learning from 9/11 and the long reach of disaster | The Boston Globe

For millions of people, Sept. 11, 2001, was the first mass disaster experienced in real time. Many who watched the event unfold on television can still remember with great clarity, as the 15th anniversary approaches, where they were, and how they felt, on that terrible day.

I was in New York City on 9/11, just starting my career as an epidemiologist. Along with countless other New Yorkers, I watched with horror as the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Stunned by the destruction, our research team quickly became concerned with the potential long-term mental health consequences of the attacks.