Open letter to Secretary Azar on breastfeeding stance at the World Health Assembly | ASPPH

Dear Secretary Azar: On behalf of the members of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, and the students, faculty and leadership of America’s public health schools and programs, I write to express our disappointment and dismay at the United States’ efforts to block a resolution offered at the World Health Assembly that called on all governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding.” We ask that you clarify the United States’ position on breastfeeding, including why we apparently now are opposed to its promotion and why the United States also now apparently is opposing efforts to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. Lastly, since you led the U.S. delegation to the World Health Assembly, we ask you to explicitly state who approved this radical change in U.S. policy

Roe v. Wade and Abortion Rights in the Post-Kennedy Era | Dean's Note

The announcement that Justice Anthony Kennedy will retire from the US Supreme Court has created deep uncertainty about a range of issues related to health. Kennedy was regarded as a swing vote on the court—while he generally sided with the court’s conservative wing, he famously joined with progressive opinion on the issues of abortion and LGBT rights. His successor will likely make decisions about these and many other issues, including the economy, voting rightsthe environment, and the basic ground rules of our politics, all of which will have ramifications for health.

Social Movements in the Trump Era | Dean's Note

Last week, we ran a Dean’s Note addressing the Trump administration’s decision to separate families at the US border, and how these separations threatened health, particularly the health of children. They were the latest in a series of actions taken by this administration that have undermined health in the US and around the world. From its reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, to its move to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, to its tolerance, even encouragement, of hate groups, to recent events concerning the Supreme Court, the presidency of Donald Trump has so far done much to dismay those who care about compassioninclusion, and health. Furthering this calumny, this week the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s travel ban on the grounds that it is within executive powers to create such a ban, even as this ban is clearly founded on xenophobia and Islamophobia, an appeal to the basest instinct of a political base that would keep us back from building a better and healthier world for all of us and for our children.

The Public's Health: The Census and Public Health | Public Health Post

The US Constitution mandates that every resident be counted at least every ten years. As the 2020 census approaches, the Trump administration’s decision to meddle with how to perform this head count by adding a question about citizenship to the census has already been criticized by the Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory committee and has become the target of lawsuits.

America Has A Health Care Gap, And Insurance Alone Won't Fix It | HuffPost

Health in America is characterized by profound divides; we have become a nation of health haves and health have nots. There is a 20-year life-expectancy gap between the country’s healthiest and least healthy counties, and a similar life-expectancy gap within counties.

These disparities are evident in every state, including Massachusetts, where residents have remarkable access to high-quality health care. The commonwealth has the most primary care physicians per 100,000 residents in the nation and the lowest rate of uninsured residents of any state, with less than 3 percent of the population without coverage.

POV: Harm of Border Separations Will Haunt US Future | BU Today

In recent weeks, much has rightly been written about the forced separation of families and children at the US-Mexican border. As details of the separations emerged, it became clear that we were witnessing an act of wanton cruelty carried out by an administration that has already done much to mainstream callousness in American life. Many of the detained children were being held in warehouse facilities; some, appallingly, were placed in cages. As former First Lady Laura Bush writes in the Washington Post, images of these facilities were “eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in US history.”

The Harm Done by Trump’s Border Separations Will Echo into the Future | Dean's Note

In recent weeks, much has rightly been written about the forced separation of families and children at the US border. As details of the separations emerged, it became clear that we were witnessing an act of wanton cruelty carried out by an administration that has already done much to mainstream callousness in American life. Many of the detained children were being held in warehouse facilities; some, appallingly, were placed in cages. As former First Lady Laura Bush wrote in The Washington Post, images of these facilities were “eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in US history.”

Thinking Better About the Unthinkable | Dean's Note

In recent weeks, a series of events have brought suicide to the forefront of the public debate. The subject was highlighted by a recent CDC report, which found suicide in the US increased by more than 25 percent since 1999. According to the report, suicide rose in nearly every state in the country. The report also found that suicides increased by more than 30 percent in over half of states, and about 45,000 people died from suicide in 2016 alone. The suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain put a pair of well-known faces to these alarming numbers, and the public mourning that followed these deaths prompted not just reminiscences of the lives lost, but renewed efforts to understand the intractable, unpredictable public health hazard that claimed them.