Last week, I saw someone ask a very simple question on Facebook: “If you could give one piece of advice to those starting undergrad next week, what would it be?” The comments were interesting. Several people mentioned how grades, while positioned as the be-all and end-all during undergrad, are not a reflection of your worth or ability as a person. The advice that grades are important, so work hard and do your best, but do not let them dictate how you see yourself, is very good and definitely something people need to hear. On the other hand, this is easier said than done, as for that first po ..read more

Editorial note: This piece was co-written by Atif Kukaswadia, PhD, and Ary Maharaj, M.Ed. Atif is a writer for the Public Health Perspectives blog on the PLOS network, and Ary is a writer for Silver Seven, an SBNation blog about the Ottawa Senators hockey team. This piece is being cross-published on both platforms. Enjoy! CHALLENGES The environment within NHL clubs are relatively controlled, with most players together a majority of the time — from on-ice, rooming together on the road, and flying with charter planes. Thus, when one player contracts the illness, it’s relatively hard to contain ..read more

Editorial note: This piece was co-written by Atif Kukaswadia, PhD, and Ary Maharaj, M.Ed. Atif is a writer for the Public Health Perspectives blog on the PLOS network, and Ary is a writer for Silver Seven, an SBNation blog about the Ottawa Senators hockey team. This piece is being cross-published on both platforms. Enjoy! INTRODUCTION When we think of places for disease outbreaks, a few examples quickly come to mind: classrooms, college dorms, crowded trains. Another suggestion? The confines of the National Hockey League, where players are surrounded by literal blood, sweat, and tears. When y ..read more

Last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg received an honorary degree from Harvard University. At the commencement, he promoted the idea of a basic income guarantee, joining several other tech leaders in advocating for this idea. Tech leaders can see a world where robots and AI are doing a lot of work currently performed by humans, and so are already considering how those who lose their jobs will be retrained for the new economy that emerges. While some are focused on rearranging deckchairs, they are focused on how this workforce can be retrained and deployed in the new industries that will ..read more

“I have a story to tell about something that happened to our family last week.” With those words, Jimmy Kimmel opened his show. Using a combination of vulnerability and humour, he told us about the last two weeks in the Kimmel household, starting with the birth of his son: William “Billy” Kimmel. A few hours after the birth, a nurse noticed that the baby had a faint heart murmur, and was slightly blue. The baby was taken to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where doctors performed an operation to repair his heart (the first of several such surgeries Billy will need over his life). Thankfu ..read more

A series published in The Lancet recently investigated the effect of income inequality on the health of Americans. While incomes for those in the top have grown, extreme poverty has also grown in the US. In fact, more than 1.6 million households in the US survive on less than $2 per day; a number double that of the 1990s. The cycle is not likely to be broken either, barring major social change. Differences in aspects ranging from zoning laws, access and quality of education, and inheritance laws continue these inequalities through generations, making it more difficult to rise out of poverty. P ..read more

By Leonard Bentley from Iden, East Sussex, UK – Iden, CC BY-SA 2.0 When someone has a heart attack, every minute counts. The American Heart Institute guidelines say that for every minute, the chances of a victim surviving decrease by 7 to 10 percent. To help save lives, Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) have become more and more ubiquitous, and now can be found in many different locations, including coffee shops, banks, malls, and sports complexes. When placing these devices though, a few issues need to be considered, including hours of operation, proximity of other AEDs, and being ..read more

I came across an interesting read last week in The Lancet. In it, Drs Allen and Feigl make an interesting case for changing how we refer to non-communicable diseases The global health community does not spend much time on branding, which perhaps explains why existing classifications for the three largest groups of diseases are both outdated and counterproductive. The first Global Burden of Disease study described infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and injuries. This grouping reflected a predominantly infectious disease burden in low-income and middle-income countries, whic ..read more

Following up from the end of last year, I thought it would be fun to predict what I think the next 12 months will have in store for us. So lets get to it! 1. Repeal of the Affordable Care Act President Trump has already made it clear that this is one of his first priorities when he assumes office. The groundwork was already laid with the combination of the Senate passing a budget measure that was supported by Congress, and this week Trump issued an executive order to start rolling back the ACA. Now, the ACA is not without fault as we’ve discussed before; premiums have increased for many u ..read more

Thanks to all our old and new Public Health Perspectives readers for your support over the year. Your tweets, Facebook comments, and feedback are all really appreciated. Lets wrap up the year by reviewing our most popular stories of 2016. April 2016: Perhaps there is a drug that can prolong your life. It’s called money What makes New York different to other US cities? | Photo credit Kah-Wai Lin “A wise man once said that “mo’ money, mo’ problems” (Wallace, 1997). However, despite increases in supposed problems, one of the major benefits is increased life expectancy. New research publ ..read more