Denial of services to same-sex couples can harm their health | The Hill

In the Supreme Court hearing for Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, lawyers for the baker argued that he should not have to sell a cake to a same-sex couple because his religion does not support same-sex marriage.

Debates around this case have referenced potential implications for the dignity of sexual minority populations, but in the absence of data to ground the conversation.

In a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry, we found that state laws permitting the denial of services to same-sex couples are associated with a 46 percent increase in mental distress among gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults.

Why Public Health? Three Stories That Reflect Our Core Mission | Dean's Note

As we send this SPH This Week to print, news is emerging of yet another school shooting, this time in Texas, with 10 people so far confirmed dead.  It is worth remembering that these shootings are not random, not inexplicable.They are outbreaks of a preventable disease we could cure with commonsense gun safety legislation. Each day we choose not to is tantamount to allowing an epidemic to rage while we keep the vaccine on ice. We can do much better that this. I have written previously, always sadly, about this before. 

The Public's Health: The Microbiome and the Public's Health | Public Health Post

Each of us is a living ecosystem with trillions of microorganisms living on and in us, our microbiome. Each of us has her own collection of such microbes, inhabiting skin, mouth, gut, lungs. Yes, it’s surprising that identical twins are barely more similar to one another in microbial composition than are non-identical twins; that our personal menagerie changes over time; that a sufficiently extreme short-term dietary change can cause the gastrointestinal flora of different people to resemble one another within days. Yes, the microbiome may well turn out to play a critical role in an individual’s health, a very intriguing prospect. But when nearly two dozen federal agencies—NIH, FDA, EPA, NSF—join together to release a five-year strategic plan to bolster the study of microbiomes, we wonder why these same agencies can’t get together on another day to make a second strategic plan. This one a plan for public health, not private health, one that could save lives and reduce morbidities next year by focusing on what we know matters to our health: the policies that drive behavior.

Why There Can Be No Health Without Social Justice | Dean's Note

Next Saturday, members of the School of Public Health class of 2018 will walk across a stage at the BU Track and Tennis Center, and, in the presence of family and friends, receive the degrees they have earned. Reflecting on their accomplishment, I have found myself thinking about the central mission of public health. Our aim is to improve the social, economic, and environmental conditions that shape health, with special focus on closing health gaps and caring for the health of vulnerable populations. This mission is, at heart, a call to correct the underlying injustices in our society that can manifest as disease and injury. With each passing year, I become more convinced that there can be no health without social justice, and that public health must address injustice if it is to create a world that generates health, rather than a world that too often undermines it. With this in mind, we today rerun a modified Dean’s Note on the link between health and social justice, in the spirit of the class of 2018, with high hopes for all they will do to build a healthier, more just world.

The Public's Health: Public Health and the President's Racism | Public Health Post

President Trump has a history of statements that suggests he harbors racist sentiments and of actions that would back up these same sentiments. He seemed to lay to rest any doubt about his inclinations in reported statements in the Oval Office that the United States should not be granting admission to residents from “shithole” countries. 

The Public's Health: Volunteering for the Health of the Public | Public Health Post

The world is aging rapidly. There are now more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 5 worldwide. And we all want to age healthy.
 
Yet how do we do that? We propose one simple potential way to facilitate healthy aging: volunteering. We like to think of volunteering as a public health intervention, as a social model for health promotion.

Disasters and Public Health | Dean's Note

Before beginning today’s note, an acknowledgement of the recent tragedy in Toronto. Last Monday, 10 people were killed, and more than a dozen were injured, when a man drove a van into pedestrians. While the investigation into what caused him to allegedly commit this crime is still ongoing, he appears to have been motivated by hatred against women. I have written previously about the public health consequences of hate; sadly, there has been ample cause to revisit these thoughts in recent years, from the mass shootings we have regularly seen, to bombings like last Sunday’s attack in Kabul, to the hate that has infused much of our political discourse, both in the US and abroad. In this context, it is all the more important that we continue working to reduce hate and promote the values of empathy and community that are the basis for a healthy world.

The Public's Health: Health Systems and Public Health Thinking | Public Health Post

Every health care provider—from pediatrician to geriatrician—has seen how hunger and homelessness affect health. The disordered lives of patients disrupt appointment-keeping and medication adherence but also create problems themselves. For example, they drive depressive symptoms, high blood pressure, and hospitalizations for asthma.
 
Recognizing this, some health systems are paying attention. Our health system in Boston recently announced plans to subsidize housing to improve housing options for patients for whom it is accountable. 

This is the personal website of Sandro Galea. All photos are taken by Sandro Galea.