Brown SPH in the news

Health insurers and hospitals increasingly treat patients less as humans in need of care than consumers who generate profit.

Nearly a year after a wild bird infected with H5N1 avian flu presumably passed its viral baggage to a dairy cow in the Texas panhandle — which has subsequently led to the infection of more than 700 herds nationwide and sickened at least 35 dairy workers — the nation’s agriculture department announced Friday that it will sample the nation’s milk supply to test for the virus.

The question of whether harm reduction efforts are failing remains complex. To delve deeper into this evolving issue, Newsweek has reached out to medical experts for further insights.

With the recent conclusion of the 2024 election, the spotlight now shifts back to Congress as it enters the final weeks of the 118th session. While time is limited and there is much to accomplish, Congress has a critical opportunity to reshape health care affordability, enhance transparency, reduce costs, and lay a strong foundation for future reforms through the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act (LCMT) and Health Care PRICE Transparency Act 2.0. Taking action on key provisions during the lame-duck session could serve as a catalyst for addressing issues such as health care consolidation, cost disparities, and opaque pricing structures before turning the page to a new legislative chapter.

The Food and Drug Administration has rejected some products because of concerns about youth users.

State agriculture officials on Thursday banned Fresno-based Raw Farm from distributing its raw dairy products to retailers amid ongoing concerns about possible bird flu infections among its cattle.

The health of the American people is on the line with Trump's appointments

President Donald Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services “is an extraordinarily bad choice for the health of the American people,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, warned Thursday.

Canadian health officials announced Tuesday that a teenager infected with H5N1 bird flu from an unknown source is in critical condition.

A Canadian teenager is hospitalized in critical condition with suspected bird flu, health officials reported Tuesday. The teen has been receiving care at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver since Friday, the same day an initial test came back positive for H5 influenza.

Researchers around the globe are tinkering with viruses far deadlier than covid-19.

It's officially Election Day, and former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are making their final campaign pushes across the country. As Americans consider which candidates to vote for, and which ballot initiatives to support, experts tell ABC News that election seasons often lead to increased levels of stress, anxiety and uncertainty.

In October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that high-risk adults get a second updated Covid vaccine to bolster their protection against the virus.

NEW YORK — A pig at an Oregon farm was found to have bird flu, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday. It's the first time the virus has been detected in U.S. swine and raises concerns about bird flu's potential to become a human threat.

What must be done to reduce the harmful health effects of major storms and make our communities ready for the short- and long-term impacts of severe weather events?

Some states are funding projects with little chance of making a difference, write current and former members of the Rhode Island Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee

Oregon decriminalized hard drugs in 2021 and recriminalized them last month. A new analysis shows the laws likely had little effect on opioid deaths.

SACRAMENTO, California — Health officials across the U.S. are working to prevent a potentially dangerous combination virus as avian flu rips through one of the nation’s largest milk-producing regions during the height of flu season.

A third farmworker has tested positive for bird flu in California, according to the state’s health department. If confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this would be the 17th human case of H5N1 flu in the US since March, when the virus was first detected in cows.

WHO currently deems the risk of spread to nearby countries as high, but global spread low.

People and organizations talk a lot about climate change online, but only 3.1 percent of content mentions connections to health, a new analysis reveals.

Inside your refrigerator and pantry, plastic is everywhere. There’s plastic wrap, storage bags and bins, clamshell takeout containers, beverage bottles, and condiment tubs, of course. Plastics (synthetic polymers) are also a component of the multi-layer material that make up chip bags and encase granola bars. Tin, steel, and aluminum cans, like the type that might hold beans or a soda, are lined with plastic. Even many paper products, such as paper cups and frozen food trays, are coated in–you guessed it–plastic.

With the approach of fall and cooler weather across the United States, officials say the risk posed by the H5N1 bird flu virus could rise — and they’re taking steps to prevent the creation of a hybrid flu virus that could more easily infect humans.

Infections historically rise during the colder months — but is that still true since COVID is surging now?

Massachusetts and Connecticut are now the first states to ban the use of PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in protective gear worn by firefighters.

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the new Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. It’s the third time the vaccines have been updated to match circulating strains since the original series. The shots should be available within days. The agency hasn't yet approved a third vaccine, from drugmaker Novavax.

laire Macon in Providence, Rhode Island, has one of the rarest job titles in the United States: overdose prevention center manager.

U.S. health officials now say COVID-19 is an endemic disease. That means it's here to stay – circulating regularly like the flu. Even though that changes how public health officials think about managing the virus, they say it doesn't mean being less cautious or vigilant during surges, like the current one this summer. COVID still poses significant risks for older individuals and those with underlying conditions — and anyone who gets COVID is at risk of developing long COVID.

If it seems like a lot of people are getting COVID right now, you’re not imagining it. We’re in the middle of a worldwide summer COVID-19 wave.

Four years after SARS-CoV2 sparked a devastating global pandemic, U.S. health officials now consider COVID-19 an endemic disease.

Over the past three decades, routine immunizations have prevented 1.1 million deaths and saved the United States $540 billion, the C.D.C. estimated.

BIRD FLU CHECK-IN — More cows and humans continue to test positive for avian influenza, but the CDC maintains that the risk to the public remains low. We checked in with several infectious disease experts to learn more about what the recent outbreak at poultry farms in Colorado means for the U.S. response to the virus.

Coronavirus activity in wastewater reached levels considered “high” or “very high” in 26 states, according to the most recent CDC data.

Even as the H5N1 virus evolves, gaps remain in the nation’s contingency plans for human testing, scientists say.

Farmworkers need paid sick leave and widespread testing to help prevent an H5N1 pandemic, experts say.

For years, the number of people dying of drug overdoses was on the rise nationwide and in Rhode Island. Then, there was a push to change that, specifically by introducing the life-saving drug Narcan. Last year, the number of people overdosing actually dropped. We look deeper into those figures.

Late last year, Scarlett Lanzas was chatting with neighbors — a group of fellow immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean — at the community pool in their housing development in Miami. That’s when Lanzas heard a neighbor say something in Spanish that was not true.

The dean of the Brown University School of Public Health shares what to know to stay safe amid a summer wave of COVID-19 cases and the new strain circulating.

How worried you should be about H5N1, the bird flu virus spreading on dairy farms in the United States, depends on who you are. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has described the current H5N1 risk to the general public as low. The risk that the virus poses is tempered by the fact that it doesn’t spread easily among people — yet.

While baseless attacks on Dr. Anthony Fauci may be comforting to some, it doesn't get to the heart of the issues.

No one knows when the next pandemic will sweep across the United States. It could be bird flu, or an as-yet unknown infection. But after living through the Covid-19 pandemic, which claimed more than 1 million American lives, left more than 300,000 children orphaned, and shut down workplaces and schools, U.S. citizens should demand that the nation does better next time.

As much as we would all love to ignore COVID, a new set of variants that scientists call “FLiRT” is here to remind us that the virus is still with us.

When I began my Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary environmental studies program, students further along in the program warned it was going to be particularly hard for us to get academic jobs. They pointed out that among the brilliant and productive faculty who enthusiastically taught our program, none had in fact received training like ours— they all had Ph.D.s in clearly defined fields.

Outside a farm in Michigan in early May, an RV pulled up and parked. Registered nurse Aracely Nerio and others helped set up a canopy, where nearby farmworkers could find shade or bottles of water, and check their blood pressure and glucose levels. Health care is often out of reach for these laborers.

The number of U.S. fatal overdoses fell last year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data posted Wednesday.

Failure to shield these workers could allow the H5N1 virus to become a greater threat.

Batool Behnam, Graduate Assistant with Swearer Center’s community partnership team and current master's student at Brown’s School of Public Health, is concentrating on Global Health and graduating this Spring 2024. Through research, teaching and community services, Behnam’s dream is to reduce inequalities among communities.

The Information Futures Lab (IFL) at Brown University’s School of Public Health is pleased to introduce its 2024 Visiting Fellows cohort. Leaders in community-based journalism, equitable tech entrepreneurship, culturally competent communication and infodemics research have joined the Lab to drive a set of innovative projects and pilots that are responding to urgent information challenges in real time.

Officials are racing to conduct more testing to better understand the spread of the virus and its potential risk to humans.

Camping on city streets, open-air drug use, and crime are generating fierce pushback against harm reduction efforts like decriminalization. It doesn’t have to be this way.