Air pollution: one of the world’s greatest public health threats

“Air pollution is one of the world’s greatest public health threats, reducing global life expectancy more than smoking, alcohol or childhood malnutrition. Recent studies estimate that fine particulate matter called PM2.5—pumped out by cars, factories, woodstoves and wildfires—causes nearly nine million premature deaths annually.” [Greenspan, J. (2023). Air Pollution Is Really Dangerous, Even More New Evidence Shows: Dirty air has been linked to poor health outcomes, ranging from suicidality…

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What is death?

“Just as birth certificates note the time we enter the world, death certificates mark the moment we exit it. This practice reflects traditional notions about life and death as binaries. We are here until, suddenly, like a light switched off, we are gone.  But while this idea of death is pervasive, evidence is building that it is an outdated social construct, not really grounded in…

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Extreme heat, Phoenix Arizona USA- July 2023

Extreme heat: impacts and consequences

Extreme heat is becoming the “new normal” for many areas of the world. The summer of 2023, for example, has seen some of the hottest days in modern history. Extreme heat is now a regular headline: How Extreme Heat Affects Workers and the Economy (New York Times) The heat index reached 152 degrees in the Middle East — nearly at the limit for human survival…

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Increasing death rates of children and adolescents in the United States

Featured article: *Woolf SH, Wolf ER, Rivara FP. (2023). The New Crisis of Increasing All-Cause Mortality in US Children and Adolescents. JAMA. Published online March 13, 2023. “Although life expectancy in industrialized countries has lengthened over the past century, increases in US life expectancy ceased after 2010, a trend attributed to rising mortality rates among individuals aged 25 to 64 years. Although midlife mortality rates…

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