Jon Scaccia, Author at This Week In Public Health

Communication

Can We “Fix America’s Food System”? A Closer Look at RFK Jr.’s Claims and What the Evidence Actually Says

In April 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched The Secretary Kennedy Podcast, a government-backed platform designed to bring public health conversations directly to the public. On its surface, the pitch is compelling: cut through bureaucracy, speak plainly, and confront the chronic disease crisis head-on. The debut episode, featuring Robert Irvine, zeroes in on a familiar […]

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AI

Balancing Transparency and Privacy in Healthcare Data

In a bustling urban hospital, a young doctor reviews an electronic health record (EHR) before stepping into a patient’s room. Unbeknownst to him, the data in that record could soon enter the marketplace, where it would be traded and analyzed by parties far removed from patient care. The commodification of health data presents a unique […]

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AI

AI Bias: Tackling the Butterfly Effect

In a bustling office in downtown Los Angeles, a data scientist named Lucy is hard at work developing an algorithm meant to improve loan approvals. She believes her efforts will lead to a fairer, more efficient system that can transcend human biases. However, Lucy soon faces a challenge many in the field are grappling with: […]

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News

Cutting Through the Clutter: Innovation, Medicare, and the Stakes for Public Health

This week’s public health headlines pull back the curtain on the tangled dance between innovation, policy, and the real-world impact on patients and caregivers. From a freshly proposed Medicare policy shakeup to the behind-the-scenes hurdles slowing cutting-edge diagnostics, and even practical help for seniors navigating medical equipment reuse, the news pulses with the tension between […]

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Health equity

Antimicrobial Resistance Is Accelerating: Here’s What Public Health Needs to Do Now

Here’s a number that should stop you in your tracks. By 2050, antimicrobial resistance is projected to kill more people than cancer. That’s not a fringe estimate from a sensationalist headline. That’s what leading scientists said in Davos in January 2026, in front of the world’s most powerful decision-makers. In 2026, the evidence is clear […]

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Global

Food as Medicine Is No Longer a Fringe Idea: The Evidence Is Catching Up Fast

Here is a number worth sitting with. One in five deaths globally is attributable to poor diet, more than tobacco, more than high blood pressure, more than any other single risk factor. Not in low-income countries alone. Everywhere. And yet the dominant model of healthcare in the United States still treats food as something that […]

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Climate

Climate Change Health: The Four Ways a Warming Planet Is Reshaping Public Health

Right now, 3.6 billion people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate impacts. Not in 2050. Not in projections. Now. Climate change health is one of those topics that still gets treated as a future problem, something for the next generation of public health professionals to sort out. That framing is wrong, and the evidence […]

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Environment

GLP-1 Drugs Are Reshaping Chronic Disease: Here’s What Public Health Needs to Know

Here is where we are in 2026. Obesity affects more than 1 billion people worldwide and was associated with 3.7 million deaths globally in 2024. Without decisive action, that number is projected to double by 2030. And for the first time in decades, there is a class of medications that appears capable of meaningfully shifting […]

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Environment

Climate Change Raises Stakes: Impact on US Mental Health

On a sunny day in Texas, Maria, a mental health counselor, meets more clients than she anticipated. They all speak of a shared burden — heightened anxiety about the relentless heat waves and unpredictable storms. This isn’t just local weather; it’s climate change etching its effects into the psyche of a nation. As temperatures and […]

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Analytics

Do Better Workplaces Lead to Better Outcomes? NFL Data and Public Health Evaluation Lessons

We like clean stories in public health. If a program is well-designed and well-implemented, it should lead to better outcomes. That assumption sits quietly behind how we fund, evaluate, and scale interventions. It feels logical. And then reality gets messy. As part of an exploration of “rankings” for a class I’m teaching up at SUNY, […]

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Health equity

Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Hospitalizations

Imagine a healthcare worker in a Kentucky hospital, witnessing the steady stream of COVID-19 patients filling wards. Despite equal insurance coverage under Medicaid, a disproportionate number of these patients hail from racial and ethnic minority groups, highlighting a critical public health dilemma: inequities in COVID-19 hospitalizations. Dissecting the Disparity The COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed countless […]

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Uncategorized

Unhealthy Eating in Shift-Workers

Standing in a bustling hospital corridor at 2 a.m., a nurse grabs a moment to eat. Her choice? A pre-packaged sandwich and soda from a vending machine. This isn’t about preference but a necessity due to the chaos of night shifts—a scenario familiar to the 63% of healthcare shift workers grappling with high ultra-processed food […]

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Latest Insights & Research

All Posts

Can We “Fix America’s Food System”? A Closer Look at RFK Jr.’s Claims and What the Evidence Actually Says

Balancing Transparency and Privacy in Healthcare Data

AI Bias: Tackling the Butterfly Effect

Cutting Through the Clutter: Innovation, Medicare, and the Stakes for Public Health

Antimicrobial Resistance Is Accelerating: Here’s What Public Health Needs to Do Now

Food as Medicine Is No Longer a Fringe Idea: The Evidence Is Catching Up Fast

Climate Change Health: The Four Ways a Warming Planet Is Reshaping Public Health

GLP-1 Drugs Are Reshaping Chronic Disease: Here’s What Public Health Needs to Know

Climate Change Raises Stakes: Impact on US Mental Health

Do Better Workplaces Lead to Better Outcomes? NFL Data and Public Health Evaluation Lessons

Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Hospitalizations

Unhealthy Eating in Shift-Workers

Latest Insights & Research

All Posts

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every Thursday morning.