While The Pump Handle is on holiday break, we are republishing some of our favorite posts from the past year. This one is from July 2016: In 2005, the World Health Assembly adopted a revised version of its International Health Regulations, a legally binding treaty among 196 nations to boost global health security and strengthen the world’s capacity to confront serious disease threats such as Ebola and SARS. A decade later, just one-third of countries have the ability to respond to a public health emergency. That’s why Rebecca Katz thinks it’s time to get creative.
As 2016 comes to a close — and 2017 looms with enormous uncertainty — let’s end the year with some encouraging public health news. This time it’s a study on one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century: fluoridation.
The Center for Public Integrity investigates working conditions inside the nation’s oil refineries; mine safety advocates worry about changes under a Trump administration; garment workers in Bangladesh continue to face abusive conditions; and workers chronicle sexual harassment and retaliation within the National Park Service.
Recent pieces address the potential impacts of ACA repeal, the latest Zika research, and an investigation into whether Agent Orange might have increased the risk of birth defects in veterans’ children.
If you work in public health, you’ve probably heard about the new era of practice — an era being dubbed Public Health 3.0. Among the components that define this new phase is an emphasis on building cross-sector collaborations to affect the social determinants of health. In other words, public and private sectors have a role — and a stake — in improving community health. And now there’s evidence that such collaborations can save people’s lives.
For the first time in more than two decades, U.S. life expectancy has dropped.
If the ACA is repealed, miners could lose out on critical compensation for workplace illness; New York farm owner indicted in death of teen worker; possible contender for U.S. labor secretary opposes minimum wage hike; and in good news, Ikea expands paid parental leave for its U.S. workers.
More than 2 million U.S. adults may be living with workplace-related asthma, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
EPA met its first major milestone under the new chemical safety law passed by Congress this past June. It announced its list for the first 10 chemicals for which it will prepare risk evaluations. Those evaluations could lead to restrictions on use or phase-outs of chemicals that presents an unreasonable risk to humans and the environment.
The percentage of Americans who reported cost-related barriers to health care dropped from 37 percent in 2013 to 33 percent in 2016 — a change that directly corresponds to insurance expansions under the Affordable Care Act, a new study reports. On the flip side, Americans are still more likely than peers in other high-income nations to face financial obstacles to health care.