Forget pink or blue. It turns out that the best color for baby may be green. In a new study, researchers found that mothers living in neighborhoods with plenty of greenness — grass, trees and other types of lush vegetation — were more likely to carry their pregnancies to full term and deliver babies at healthier weights.
During the past year, not one state experienced a decrease in adult obesity rates and, in fact, six states are home to even higher rates than before, according to a new report released today.
Around Memorial Day, OSHA set expectations in its regulatory agenda of what it would accomplish over the summer months. Now Labor Day is upon us and OSHA is 0 for 7 on the progress it said it would make on new worker safety regulations.
Government
Massachusetts advocates optimistic about paid sick leave ballot: ‘We need public policies that lift people up and keep families healthy’
After nearly a decade of hoping state legislators would pass an earned paid sick time law, advocates in Massachusetts decided it was time to put the question to voters. Now, in November, voters will have the chance to help improve the lives of nearly 1 million workers who can’t earn one, single hour of sick leave and are often left to choose between caring for themselves or a loved one, paying the bills or losing a job.
Cancer
Twenty-three years and millions served: CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program
Next time someone asks you what exactly public health does, repeat this number: 4.3 million. That’s the number of women — mothers, sisters, wives, aunts, grandmothers, daughters and friends — who might have otherwise gone without timely breast and cervical cancer screenings if it weren’t for public health and its commitment to prevention.
Obama signs order requiring certain contractors to disclose labor violations; judge rules in favor of college athletes; Brooklyn hospital fined for workplace violence; and workers take wage theft to court.
Environmental Health
Study: Trees save 850 lives every year, prevent thousands of health complications (seriously!)
Next time you pass a tree, you might want to give it a second thought. Maybe even a hug. One day, that tree might just help save your life.
Last year, the U.S. Census reported that record numbers of people were living in poverty. But along with overall poverty numbers, the Census recently reported that concentrated poverty is up, too — and that’s worrisome because it means that more people may face even greater barriers and fewer opportunities to moving out of poverty.
Vaccine safety is one of those topics that has become so tragically mired in misinformation and myth that there can never be enough supporting evidence. So, here’s some more.
Education
Study: New method of mapping HIV transmission risk may be more efficient way to prevent infection
Ideally, everyone should be tested for HIV. In reality, however, only about half of U.S. adults have ever been tested for HIV and about half of the 50,000 new infections that happen every year in the U.S. are transmitted by people who are unaware of their HIV status. Such statistics recently led a group of researchers to ask if there’s a more efficient way to go about curbing the HIV epidemic.