Childhood verbal abuse by adults costs society an estimated $300 billion a year globally, show recent findings ..read more

The introduction of a policy protecting parental leave benefits in Sweden in 1980 had unintended consequences on child health. The policy appears to have led to an increase in premature birth rates ..read more

Connecting the study of infectious disease spread, biodiversity loss and climate change could offer win-win-win solutions for planetary health, but a new analysis has uncovered almost no research integrating the three global crises ..read more

Global life expectancy increased by 6.2 years since 1990, according to a new study. Over the past three decades, reductions in death from leading killers fueled this progress, including diarrhea and lower respiratory infections, as well as stroke and ischemic heart disease. When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, however, it derailed progress in many locations ..read more

To better understand COVID-19's spread during the pandemic, public health officials expanded wastewater surveillance. These efforts track SARS-CoV-2 levels and health risks among most people, but they miss people who live without shelter, a population particularly vulnerable to severe infection. To fill this information gap, researchers tested flood-control waterways near unsheltered encampments, finding similar transmission patterns as in the broader community and identifying previously unseen viral mutations ..read more

New study findings suggest that shortening overnight operations by seven hours at bars and taverns in a Baltimore, Md. neighborhood resulted in a 51 percent immediate drop in homicides within the first month, followed by a 23 percent decline in all violent crimes annually in the surrounding area, compared to similar neighborhoods with no change in hours of sale. Homicide rates decreased by 40 percent in each subsequent year ..read more

The prevalence of malnutrition across the globe was shared by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, a network of health scientists from around the world who provide and evaluate data on major risk factors for all countries, in collaboration with the World Health Organization. The network participants reviewed body mass index data from more than 3,600 studies from 1990 to 2022, determining the rates of malnutrition, either from obesity or underweight, for all countries, and the degree to which the data has changed through the years ..read more

An international team of 25 scientists has proposed a roadmap for how to prevent the next pandemic by conserving natural areas and promoting biodiversity, thereby providing animals with enough food, safe havens and distance to limit contact and the transfer of pathogens to humans ..read more

Many parents recognize increasing mental health concerns among children, reflected by the 1 in 5 who say they're open to allowing a child to take a mental health day ..read more

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in the group of 3- and 4-year-olds in Sweden has decreased after the pandemic. The increase during the pandemic thus appears to have been temporary, according to a new study ..read more