Public health

Public health

Obesity robs children of the best possible start in life, hits the poorest hardest, sets them up for a lifetime of health problems and costs the NHS billions.

In a new study of nearly 1,000 consecutive patients treated for lung cancer at Northwestern Medicine, investigators discovered only 35 percent would have qualified for screening according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) screening criteria. The two-thirds of patients who would have been excluded were disproportionately women and never-smokers. Currently, USPSTF recommends annual lung cancer screenings for adults ages 50-80 who have a 20 pack-year smoking history and currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years.

Every day, New Yorkers confront the failure of our government to adapt to decades of accumulated change - and nowhere is that failure clearer than on the city's streets and sidewalks. The perpetual question is: Why does everything take so long? Busways, bus lanes, bike lanes, open streets, pedestrian plazas, day-lit intersections, red light cameras, speed cameras, outdoor dining sheds - why do all of these policies take far longer to implement than anyone ever anticipates?

On Friday, federal district Judge Mark A. Kearney in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued an order quashing DOJ subpoena demands for names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, home addresses, and clinical notes covering minors treated since January 2020. The court found the government "lacks statutory authority for a rambling exploration of the Hospital's files to learn the names and medical treatment of children."

Breathless as if the smoke still lingered, on a recent morning she bundled her effervescent 3-year-old daughter, Luna, into her car seat for the two-hour trek from her aunt's house in Riverside, where they have lived for much of the past year, back to their family's 1909 Craftsman home. It stands steps from the Eaton fire burn scar - untouched, but uninhabitable.

Michael Liu grew up in Toronto, Canada, then moved to the U.S. for college and medical school because, to him, America was the premiere destination for fulfilling his aspirations to become a physician and researcher. "You know, in chase of the American Dream, and understanding all the opportunities that was such a draw for me," says Liu, who attended Harvard University.

We've spent the past year digging into this - talking with dozens of patients, caregivers, doctors, researchers, and economists to understand what's happening, what it's costing people, and what can actually help. Scroll down to explore our reporting project, The True Cost of Young Cancer. Our video and six stories delve into the most pressing aspects of this trend, from the unique financial challenges to the patchwork of fertility laws that young patients face.

Nearly 59,000 Iranians die prematurely due to air pollution in year to March, according to officials. Tehran, Iran Iranians in the capital and many other cities across the country are breathing in toxic fumes as authorities resort to burning dirty fuel to produce electricity and cope with multiple ongoing crises. At 14 power plants, authorities for years have burned mazut, a dark residue of petroleum high in sulphur and other impurities, whenever they run out of natural gas to feed the electricity generators.

According to a new filing in the Northern District of Californi a, which has been put forward by a collective of more than 1,800 plaintiffs, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube have "relentlessly pursued a strategy of growth at all costs, recklessly ignoring the impact of their products on children's mental and physical health." 'In a 2020 research project code-named 'Project Mercury,' Meta scientists worked with survey firm Nielsen to gauge the effect of 'deactivating' Facebook, according to Meta documents obtained via discovery. To the company's disappointment, 'people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and social comparison,' internal documents said.' The suit alleges that Meta buried these findings, and canceled any further work on this element, arguing that the results were tainted by the 'existing media narrative' around the company.

Our long term goal is always going to be zero, and over these first 10 years, obviously, we haven't achieved that,

Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, said that he unknowingly had a stroke while performing in Louisiana in 2024 - highlighting a worrying trend of younger people experiencing the condition. "The first thing I thought was, 'Here I am still copying Jamie Foxx," he told fans at a music festival in Los Angeles on Saturday. For both, the stroke started with a bad headache. Glover told the crowd that he experienced a "really bad pain" in his head and vision difficulties.

Workers, doctors and lawyers unite in calls for urgent reform to fix a system described as adversarial, outdated and unfair, writes Andrew Klein. The new workplace reality exposes systemic flaws The dramatic shift toward remote work in Australia has created a critical stress test for the nation's workers' compensation systems, revealing fundamental flaws in how workplace injuries are recognised, assessed and compensated.

New data from DAIVID suggests so, with this year's festive campaigns 24% less likely to make festive shoppers' mouths water than in 2024 - a clear sign the new restrictions on advertising less healthy food and drink products are reshaping the emotional recipe of the nation's favourite seasonal storytelling. Yet despite early fears that the regulations would blunt the emotional impact of Christmas advertising, DAIVID's analysis paints a different picture.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she explained that it's best to change your pyjamas every single day. If you shower before bed and aren't very sweaty, you might be able to stretch that to three or four wears at a push. However, most people are putting themselves at risk of developing bad body odour and even harmful infections by repeatedlywearing the same pair of pyjamas.

The findings have raised concern among public health experts about the unintended consequences of EU-­mandated picture warnings designed to reduce smoking rates. The research, led by a team at the Technological University of the ­Shannon (TUS), examined reactions to one image of a woman exhaling cigarette smoke. It revealed that despite the intended purpose, to deter use, some of those surveyed reported ­positive emotional responses.

Alison Gaffney and Andy Hinde received the devastating news that their 17-month-old son, Fraser, had a rare type of leukaemia in 2018. Two years of gruelling treatment followed, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, before a stem cell transplant. Fraser, then aged three, made a miraculous recovery from the surgery, before doctors declared the cancer in remission. It was at this point, as Fraser started to recover and grow stronger, that Gaffney, 36, began to look for answers.

The advisory committee has previously rejected screening, because of concerns that the unreliability of PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tests means that too many men are undergoing needless procedures that can cause harm. But in recent years the technology used to make a diagnosis has much improved, while treatment has become more targeted.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, featured 3,659 participants, 69% of whom were female, and 99.6% were studied during the Omicron variant era of the pandemic. The researchers measured long COVID experiences from three to 15 months.

Every November, the country observes National Family Caregivers Month a tribute to the millions of Americans who help aging parents, disabled spouses, or loved ones with chronic conditions. But once the tributes end, the reality continues. On any given morning commute on the subway or bus, chances are one of the riders alongside you is juggling a full-time job and a second, hidden shift as a family caregiver.