U.S. medical residents’ extreme work hours are portrayed as unsafe and unethical because sleep deprivation increases medical errors and harms residents’ wellbeing, while also discouraging future physicians and worsening shortages. The piece recommends stricter hour limits alongside improved training structure and supervision, EMR/workflow optimization, workforce expansion, and stronger enforcement to prevent patient-care drawbacks.
Read MoreEven with revolutionary advances in biomedical innovation, the therapeutic gains of life-saving medications are all too often out of reach for millions of Americans. The sky-high prices and complex financing arrangements make the utilization of life-saving medicines all but unaffordable.
Read MoreAt this point, a critical question emerges: should the United States further invest in the Housing First approach as a health care policy, or should it look toward alternative options that address healthcare separate from housing?
Read MoreClimate change and the environment have become a topic of immense discussion and debate in recent years. While much of the discussion often focuses on greenhouse gases, renewable energy sources, and the like, there is a budding field that expresses the interdisciplinary nature of climate change — climate epidemiology.
Read MoreThe Public Health Student Association at Cal State LA, guided by Dr. Evelyn Alvarez, created a Little Free Library to promote climate literacy and encourage reading on campus. The project began after the pandemic disrupted earlier plans for a sustainability film festival. Students and faculty worked together to design and install the library, which features books on climate change, public health, and leisure reading. It was first placed in Simpson Tower and later relocated to the University Library for greater accessibility. Community members can take or donate books, and a survey with a QR code collects feedback to track its impact. The project highlights the importance of adaptability, collaboration, and creative public health interventions that support literacy, environmental awareness, and student engagement.
Read More“One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All” has served as a foundational mantra for the United States and has remained ingrained in American society. One would therefore assume that healthcare coverage would be equal and accessible to all under this patriotic phrase. It is simply a U.S. principle. While the United States has attempted to do so under certain programs, such as Medicaid, many Americans would argue that healthcare access does not align with the nation’s declared ideals.
Read MoreIn 2023, the number of undocumented immigrants, or UIs, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border was at an all-time high, with 250,000 border crossings in December alone. Upon arriving in the United States, however, many migrants are met with a harsh reality: they have little to no access to medical care.
Read MoreThe United States, despite its position as the largest economy in the world, is also home to severe and systemic income inequality. In recent decades, average household income has increased across socioeconomic levels, yet the majority of this growth has remained concentrated among the wealthiest. Such economic disparities pervade the daily lives of the most vulnerable, limiting their access to resources such as healthcare and education. In doing so, economic inequality becomes entrenched and cyclical, deteriorating the quality of life for generations. We see the lasting effects of income and resource inequality today, with the prevalence and persistence of medically underserved areas (MUAs) and populations.
Read MoreThe diabetic population in the United States has rapidly grown in recent decades, with the percentage of Americans with diabetes jumping from 0.98% in 1958 to 7.40% in 2015, causing an ever-increasing need for accessible insulin. However, as rates of diabetes have risen, so too has the cost of insulin, restricting the access of many patients to the medication necessary for their survival. Unsurprisingly, the number of people succumbing to diabetes has also risen in recent years due to the high prices of their treatments, including insulin.
Read MoreDue to inequities in access to paid sick leave, presenteeism, the phenomenon where workers show up to work while sick and not fully functioning, has led to significant costs to businesses, workers, and public health. While some businesses, municipalities, and states have implemented paid sick leave, many of the most vulnerable workers have been left behind. Therefore, the United States should adopt a national paid sick leave policy because it would promote economic and health equity while mitigating the costs of presenteeism, thereby benefiting employees, businesses, and the broader community.
Read MoreNearly 800,000 applications for healthcare have yet to be filled by the VA, and many veterans lament having appointments canceled and never rescheduled or providers leaving with no replacement to handle their patients. Despite budget increases, the United States can no longer afford to fund adequate mental health care for veterans within the confines of current policy. Instead, we must consider alternative policy options that allow the VA to expand access to quick, affordable mental health treatment options for veterans.
Read MoreResearch proves that trigger warnings generally fail to shield individuals from distress upon forcible exposure to the content. To this end, a comprehensive analysis illustrates that despite their large ineffectiveness in preventing anxiety or trauma responses, trigger warnings should continue to be implemented as a sign of mental health awareness in higher education.
Read MoreAccording to researchers at the Yale School of Medicine, nearly a third of drugs approved by the FDA from 2001 through 2010 had major safety issues years after the medications were available, with 71 out of the 222 approved drugs being withdrawn and given a ‘black box’ warning of their side effects. Although the FDA is the ultimate authority for drug approval, various actors including biotech companies, pharmaceutical companies, and politicians can be involved in the drug development process, adding layers of complexity to this issue.
Read MoreThe Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recently released new guidelines regarding COVID-19 vaccination, including recommendations for updated Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax booster vaccines for children as young as six months old. Arriving in waves that lasted months at a time, COVID-19 has become part of the set of pathogens endemic in our communities, joining the ranks of the common cold and the flu. This doesn’t mean that COVID-19 is any less dangerous. Misconceptions that COVID-19 is equally as dangerous as the cold have long been disproven. COVID-19 remains more contagious and prone to severe symptoms than the flu, and post-COVID health complications are not uncommon. However, a significant portion of the population continues to doubt whether to get vaccinated. The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines over the past three years has revealed the extent of distrust towards vaccines, medical institutions, and the federal government that has significantly hampered the US response to COVID-19. The government must do more to fix existing structural weaknesses in public health institutions and policies to better prepare for future disease outbreaks.
Read MoreInternational medical tourism is defined as patients traveling to another country in hopes of attaining health care. Experts predict that the industry will grow from generating $102.6 billion USD globally, in 2019, to approximately $272.7 billion, by 2027. Currently, there is a trend among countries to attract medical tourists in hopes of profiting and stimulating their economies to develop their healthcare systems. However, local healthcare systems suffer in the deregulated markets associated with said medical tourism because it warps available resources at the expense of local populations. In reality, the developments of low-income countries chasing the economic benefits of medical tourism only cater to the elite. The introduction of safeguards such as taxes on medical tourism that reintroduce some of this profit into the local healthcare systems could be a solution. Local healthcare development should be prioritized over the fractional benefit that medical tourism offers, despite its promises to be more influential.
Read MoreNeonatal encephalopathy (NE) is one of the leading causes of newborn death and disability in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Although NE accounts for 23% of global neonatal mortality, its burden is not equally distributed, with 99% of these deaths occur in low-resource settings. In accordance with Target 3.2 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals—a collection of objectives to reach global peace and prosperity—battling NE is an utmost priority for nations around the world. As a condition that undeniably preys along socioeconomic and geographic lines, it is critical to understand the relationship between LMICs and NE fatality in order to effectively address the crisis.
Read MoreIn the interconnectivity of today’s world, we benefit from the free exchange of goods, technology, and ideas across borders, yet are more so than ever before left at risk of increasingly widespread, diverse, and global disease. COVID-19 might be the most glaring example, but when we consider the context in which this pandemic occurred, there have long been signs about the proliferating dangers of diseases, whether it be from the Ebola outbreaks, the emergence of Zika, or other respiratory virus epidemics. Pathogens too are benefitting from the heightened era of connectivity that marks society today, and we consequently need to shift our paradigm of infectious disease containment and control to a more sustainable, global perspective. Ultimately, the future of global health requires both the maintenance and improvement of an international alarm network for novel and highly infectious pathogens through a more equitable revision of the International Health Regulations and a focus on establishing robust surveillance networks for countries in order to mitigate long durations of propagated disease spread, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read MorePolicies should be implemented to educate the US healthcare system, specifically physicians and policymakers, to neither misprescribe nor overprescribe the usage of antibiotics.
Read MoreAs private health insurers become increasingly prominent players in US healthcare, the shift in power degrades physician-patient relationships.
Read MoreThe conversation surrounding prescription weight-loss medications, or “anti-obesity” drugs, has skyrocketed amidst new developments. Wegovy and Ozempic, two weight-loss drugs that recently entered the market, have given patients in the United States the tools to control their weight—perhaps without necessarily changing other aspects of life usually recommended by physicians, including diet and exercise.
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