Blogs - This Week In Public Health

Communication

Beyond “Trust the Science”: How Public Health Must Relearn How to Engage Communities

Public health is facing a paradox. On the one hand, never before has scientific evidence played such a visible role in public life. During COVID-19, epidemiological models shaped national policy. Scientists became household names. Research moved at historic speed. On the other hand, trust fractured. Scientists were harassed. Communities disengaged. Evidence was reframed as ideology. […]

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Health tips

Why Seniors Who Exercise Gain a Triple Health Boost

Just after sunrise in Wuhan, a familiar scene unfolds: older adults gathering in the park, stretching, swinging their arms, walking in loops, or following along with music from a portable speaker. What might look like a relaxed morning routine is actually far more powerful. According to new research, these moments of movement—whether jogging, dancing, or […]

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Commentary

When Surveillance Becomes a Social Determinant of Health

Juan Sebastián Pinto’s explosive essay is framed as a story about war, Silicon Valley, and authoritarianism—but for public health, it should read like an emergency briefing. What he describes is the rapid conversion of surveillance, data extraction, and narrative control into tools of population management. That has direct, measurable consequences for health, equity, and democracy. […]

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Health equity

The Policy Shift Quietly Reshaping Title IX Reporting

A student stands in a dimly lit hallway outside a campus Title IX office. She’s holding her phone with the report form open—the cursor blinking. Her friends encouraged her to file. A counselor explained her choices. But still, she hesitates. This moment is more common than most campuses acknowledge. Reporting sexual misconduct takes emotional labor, […]

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Mental health

Why ‘Third Spaces’ Matter for Youth Mental Health

On a rainy Thursday afternoon in the East of England, a group of young people gather in a converted arts space—an old warehouse transformed into a warm, bright room filled with music, paint, and conversation. Some come to talk. Some come because they don’t know where else to go. A few arrive quietly, sliding into […]

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Epi

Fentanyl Overdoses Are Falling — But Not for Everyone

A public health story about progress, gaps, and what emergency departments can do next At 2:30 a.m., an emergency department clinician administers naloxone to a young adult found unconscious in a parking lot. The patient survives. By morning, the ED is full again — overdoses, injuries, psychiatric crises, all colliding in the same space. For […]

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Research

How Armed Conflict Reshapes Public Health in Ethiopia

A health worker in northern Ethiopia stands inside what used to be a busy maternity ward. The delivery bed is overturned. Windows are shattered. The medicine cabinet is empty. For months, she hasn’t received supplies—yet families continue arriving, desperate for care. She shakes her head and says quietly, “Before the conflict, this room saved lives. […]

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Mental health

A Quiet Crisis in Grandparent Caregiving and Depression

At 6:30 a.m., before most of her neighbors are awake, Mrs. Lin is packing lunches, checking homework folders, and nudging her 8-year-old grandson to tie his shoes. She is 67, living with arthritis, and often exhausted, but she is the only consistent caregiver he has. By the time he finally boards the school bus, she […]

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Global

Organ Trafficking: The Global Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight

Organ transplantation is one of the greatest achievements in modern medicine. For patients with end-stage kidney, liver, or heart disease, a transplant can mean decades of extended life. But for too many people around the world, the promise of transplantation is tied to a shadow system built on exploitation, coercion, and human suffering. Organ trafficking […]

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Implementation

“Barriers & Facilitators” Is a Broken Genre: A Working Hypothesis

There is nothing I find less exciting than an article with barriers and facilitators in the title. Not because implementation is easy. Not because context does not matter. But because, at this point, the genre has become so predictable that the abstract alone often tells you everything you are going to get. I can almost […]

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