College students experience highs and lows. But with more than 10% of today’s students reporting suicidal thoughts, the highest rate since the first widespread surveying on campuses, the lows appear to have deepened. College counselors point to growing stress and distress among students, with more than a third reporting that they have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, most often anxiety or depression, but also increasingly with eating disorders and forms of self-harm. There is considerable variation across schools, not explained by school size or competitiveness, but there remains a consistently higher prevalence of all mental health problems among students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (financial stress is the most common risk factor) and among students with minority gender and sexual orientations.
Health Is an Extension of Politics | Dean's Note
If there is one lesson that recent years have taught us, it is that elections matter. The outcome of the 2016 election had consequences for our country, our world, and our health. Some of these consequences have been excruciatingly immediate. They include the physical and psychological harm done to children who have been separated from their families at the US border, the danger faced by women all over the world who lack basic reproductive care due to the Trump administration’s reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, and the devastation in Puerto Rico that was worsened by the administration’s indifferent response to Hurricane Maria. Other, less-immediate consequences will be felt most strongly in years to come, especially if the US does not change course from the administration’s policies. They include the environmental damage caused by industrial deregulation, the danger of disinvesting in public goods, and the widening economic inequality that the administration has done little to halt and much to advance. In recent weeks, we have seen these imminent and long-term dangers converge in the potential appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. Should Kavanaugh be confirmed, he will likely be the deciding vote on a range of issues core to health, including reproductive rights, the legal equality of the LGBT population, and voting rights.
Health is Politics on a Grand Scale | Fortune
When I suggest that health is linked to politics, many readers will likely think about the political back-and-forth around Obamacare that gripped the country for a decade. And Obamacare—designed as it was to provide as many Americans as possible with access to health care—matters indeed. But, I would argue, it is one very small piece of a larger picture. And that picture is that health is inextricably linked to politics, on a large scale.
The Public's Health: Broken Justice and the Public's Health | Public Health Post
The incarceration rate in the United States (698 per 100,000 people) is higher than any other large country in the world, and nearly five times higher than the median worldwide. There are about 2 million incarcerated adults, or nearly 1 in 100 Americans. Meanwhile another nearly 5 million people are on probation or parole, for a total of 7 million adults—about 1 in 35 US residents—under correctional supervision.
Building Cities That Bounce Back | Dean's Note
Last week, I co-wrote an article with Joan Saba, a partner at the architecture firm NBBJ, on how we can build more resilient communities by combining the ideas of architecture and public health. With hurricane season underway, the need for such resilience has rarely been more apparent. As I write this note, Hurricane Florence approaches the Carolinas and news reports warn of the storm’s potential destructiveness. These reports come almost exactly one year after Hurricane Maria showed us how devastating such storms can be. Whether Florence will approach Maria’s devastation is a question to be answered by time, hopefully in the negative. However, whether or not the Carolinas—or any region—have the resilience to absorb and recover from a disaster like a hurricane is a question we can indeed answer now.
The Public's Health: The Promise of Palliative Care | Public Health Post
As the population ages, patients seeking care for multiple chronic conditions has become the norm. Sixty percent of Americans die following a prolonged illness; the “compression of morbidity”—the burden of disease and disability limited to a brief time before death—has not yet become a reality in the United States. The care of persons with serious chronic illnesses like cancer and heart disease then often falls to families whose members absorb the burden of a loved one’s needs, with negative effects on their work, finances, relationships, and community engagement.
3 Ways to Create More Resilient Communities | Scientific American Blog Network
Natural disasters test the seams of our cities and health systems. During hurricanes like Sandy, Harvey and Maria, community infrastructure buckled under the pressure of torrential rain, gusting winds and prevention measures designed for a bygone era.
When we see areas of the country devastated by a natural disaster, we often blame nature. But the storm is only half the story. While we tend to think of a natural disaster as a single event, a disaster’s worst effects often emerge weeks, months or even years after the initial emergency, as the devastation is amplified by an already flawed environment. Disasters happen when cities are unprepared for the stress an event like a hurricane can cause. They happen when cities are not designed with resilience in mind.
To withstand disasters, then, we must first build more resilient cities. This requires a multi-tiered approach. First, we must consider the city as a whole and the foundational role urban planning, design and community dynamics play in creating health in metropolitan areas. Next, we must design specific buildings so that they maximize personal well-being.
With hurricane season well underway, now is the time to rethink how we approach disaster preparedness. Here are three ideas to consider.
Read full article at Scientific American.
The Fight for Transgender Rights Is a Fight for Health | Dean's Note
A key theme of the Trump era has been that of rollback, of seeing progress—often hard-won over the course of many years—suddenly threatened or reversed. From environmental protections, to reproductive rights, to voting and civil rights, recent years have shown how fragile societal advances can be. This is especially true in the area of transgender rights. In 2016, I wrote a note about public health’s responsibility to fight for transgender equality. At that time, there was indeed progress to celebrate, from the Obama administration’s decision to direct US schools to let students use restroom facilities that correspond with each student’s gender identity, to, here in Massachusetts, Boston Medical Center’s plan to launch a transgender medical center, and the state senate’s passage, by an overwhelming margin, of a transgender rights bill, which prohibits discrimination against transgender people in many areas of public accommodation, including restrooms.