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How Rural Communities Are Losing Their Pharmacies
Read More: How Rural Communities Are Losing Their PharmaciesBy Markian Hawryluk, Kaiser Health News Batson’s Drug Store seems like a throwback to a simpler time. The independently owned pharmacy in Howard, Kansas, still runs an old-fashioned soda counter and hand-dips ice cream. But the drugstore, the only one in the entire county, teeters on the edge between nostalgia and extinction. Julie Perkins, pharmacist…
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Antibiotic Resistance Is at a Crisis Point โ Government Support for Academia and Big Pharma to Find New Drugs Could Help Defeat Superbugs
Read More: Antibiotic Resistance Is at a Crisis Point โ Government Support for Academia and Big Pharma to Find New Drugs Could Help Defeat SuperbugsBacteria can gain resistance via infection from a virus (transduction), picking it up from the environment (transformation) or direct transfer from other bacteria (conjugation). 2013MMG320B/Wikimedia Commons But the antibiotic resistance crisis is largely anthropogenic, or human-made. Factors include the overuse and abuse of antibiotics, as well as a lack of regulations and enforcement pertaining to…
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When and How Was Walking Invented?
Read More: When and How Was Walking Invented?Three upright walkers, including Lucy (center) and two specimens of Australopithecus sediba, a human ancestor from South Africa dating back nearly 2 million years. An image of a model based on Lucy and other Australopithecus afarensis skeleton fossils found in East Africa in 1974. Smithsonian, CC BY-SA Lucy had a partial but well-preserved pelvis, which…
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Decades of Hype Turned Protein Into a Superfood โ and Spawned a Multibillion-Dollar Industry
Read More: Decades of Hype Turned Protein Into a Superfood โ and Spawned a Multibillion-Dollar IndustryBy French advertising for Liebig’s Extract of Meat. Wikimedia Commons Protein consumption has remained a central component of nutritional advice and marketing campaigns ever since, even amid recycled and recurring arguments over the optimal amount of protein and whether plant or animal sources are best. Around the time Liebig launched his extract company, John Harvey…
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Short-Sleepers Are More Likely to Suffer From Irregular and Heavy Periods
Read More: Short-Sleepers Are More Likely to Suffer From Irregular and Heavy PeriodsBy Kat Kennedy, University of Arizona and Sara Nowakowski, Baylor College of Medicine The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Menstruating women who sleep less than six hours a night tend to suffer heavier and irregular periods. That is the conclusion from our new study, which was recently…
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HealthyWomen Is a Proud Convener on the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project (CVEEP)
Read More: HealthyWomen Is a Proud Convener on the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project (CVEEP)The COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project (CVEEP) was established in December 2020 by the Alliance for Aging Research, HealthyWomen and the National Caucus and Center on Black Aging, Inc. The project is composed of more than 200 leading organizations representing patient, provider, employer and public health organizations. This group has been convening dialogue among…
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Clinical trials, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Medical research and clinical trials, Policy, Prevention, Preventive health, Research, Science, Vaccinations, Vaccines
How Many Lives Have Coronavirus Vaccines Saved? We Used State Data on Deaths and Vaccination Rates to Find Out
Read More: How Many Lives Have Coronavirus Vaccines Saved? We Used State Data on Deaths and Vaccination Rates to Find OutBy CC BY-ND More than 200 million U.S. residents have gotten at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine with the expectation that the vaccines slow virus transmission and save lives. Researchers know the efficacy of the vaccines from large-scale clinical trials, the gold standard for medical research. The studies found the vaccines to be…
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15 minutes with, Access, Clinical trials, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health, Health disparities, Hivaids, Lgbtq, Racial disparities, Research, Science, Vaccinations, Vaccines
15 Minutes With Phyllis Greenberger
Read More: 15 Minutes With Phyllis GreenbergerWe are honored to have Phyllis Greenberger on our team as senior vice president of policy, advocacy and science for HealthyWomen. A women’s health pioneer, Greenberger received the 2021 Perennial Hero Award from the Alliance for Aging Research in September. The award honors an older individual who is actively contributing to creating positive societal change…
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Access, Access to health care, Affordability, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health disparities, Policy, Prevention, Preventive health, Racial disparities, Research, Vaccinations, Vaccines
Covid Is Killing Rural Americans at Twice the Rate of Urbanites
Read More: Covid Is Killing Rural Americans at Twice the Rate of UrbanitesBy Lauren Weber, Kaiser Health News Rural Americans are dying of covid at more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts โ a divide that health experts say is likely to widen as access to medical care shrinks for a population that tends to be older, sicker, heavier, poorer and less vaccinated. While the…
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50 Years Ago, the First CT Scan Let Doctors See Inside a Living Skull โ Thanks to an Eccentric Engineer at the Beatlesโ Record Company
Read More: 50 Years Ago, the First CT Scan Let Doctors See Inside a Living Skull โ Thanks to an Eccentric Engineer at the Beatlesโ Record CompanyBy X-rays beam through each ‘slice’ of brain, oriented at each degree from 1 to 180 in a semicircle.Edmund S. Higgins, Calculating the strength of each X-ray once it’s passed through the object, and working backward with an impressive algorithm, it is possible to construct an image.Edmund S. Higgins, Schematic diagram of the CT scanner…
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Changing Your Mind About Something as Important as Vaccination Isnโt a Sign of Weakness โ Being Open to New Information Is the Smart Way to Make Choices
Read More: Changing Your Mind About Something as Important as Vaccination Isnโt a Sign of Weakness โ Being Open to New Information Is the Smart Way to Make ChoicesArt Markman, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts Culturally, this is an era in which people are held in high esteem when they stick with their beliefs and negatively labeled as โflip-floppers” or โwishy-washy” when they change what they think. While the courage of convictions can be a plus in situations…
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Access, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health disparities, Health policy, Policy, Prevention, Preventive health, Research, Vaccinations, Vaccines
Are COVID-19 Boosters Ethical, With Half the World Waiting for a First Shot? A Bioethicist Weighs In
Read More: Are COVID-19 Boosters Ethical, With Half the World Waiting for a First Shot? A Bioethicist Weighs InBy Nancy S. Jecker, University of Washington Should countries that can afford COVID-19 booster vaccines offer them to residents if scientists recommend them? The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has made his position clear, calling for countries to impose a moratorium on boosters until 10% of people in every country are…
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Adolescent, Anxiety, Body image, Depression, mental health, Parenting, Parenting teens, Research, Social media, Stress
Facebook Has Known for a Year and a Half That Instagram Is Bad for Teens Despite Claiming Otherwise โ Here Are the Harms Researchers Have Been Documenting for Years
Read More: Facebook Has Known for a Year and a Half That Instagram Is Bad for Teens Despite Claiming Otherwise โ Here Are the Harms Researchers Have Been Documenting for YearsBy Christia Spears Brown, University of Kentucky Facebook officials had internal research in March 2020 showing that Instagram โ the social media platform most used by adolescents โ is harmful to teen girls’ body image and well-being but swept those findings under the rug to continue conducting business as usual, according to a Sept. 14,…
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What Happens When Your Foot Falls Asleep?
Read More: What Happens When Your Foot Falls Asleep?By Zachary Gillen, Mississippi State University Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. What happens when your foot falls asleep? โ Helen E., age 8, Somerville, Massachusetts Imagine you’ve just sat down to watch your favorite TV…
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Women Face Motherhood Penalty in STEM Careers Long Before They Actually Become Mothers
Read More: Women Face Motherhood Penalty in STEM Careers Long Before They Actually Become MothersBy Sarah Thebaud, University of California Santa Barbara and Catherine Taylor, University of California Santa Barbara The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Unfounded assumptions about how motherhood affects worker productivity can harm women’s careers in science, technology, engineering and math long before they are โ or even…
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Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of Color
Read More: Pandemic Unveils Growing Suicide Crisis for Communities of ColorBy Aneri Pattani, Kaiser Health News This story is a collaboration between KHN and โScience Friday.” Listen to the conversation between KHN national correspondent Aneri Pattani and John Dankosky, Science Friday’s director of news and radio projects. Rafiah Maxie has been a licensed clinical social worker in the Chicago area for a decade. Throughout that…
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New gene therapies may soon treat dozens of rare diseases, but million-dollar price tags will put them out of reach for many
Read More: New gene therapies may soon treat dozens of rare diseases, but million-dollar price tags will put them out of reach for manyBy Kevin Doxzen, Arizona State University Zolgensma โ which treats spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic disease that damages nerve cells, leading to muscle decay โ is currently the most expensive drug in the world. A one-time treatment of the life-saving drug for a young child costs US$2.1 million. While Zolgensma’s exorbitant price is an…
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Female Scientists Set Back by the Pandemic May Never Make up Lost Time
Read More: Female Scientists Set Back by the Pandemic May Never Make up Lost TimeBy Kristina Lerman, University of Southern California During the COVID-19 quarantines, scientists, like most professionals, took their work home. Women researchers, however, bore the disproportionate burden of caregiving responsibilities, forcing a drop in their productivity. Although this decrease may be temporary, my research suggests the hit to women’s reputations and their scientific impacts may compound…
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New Technology Can Create Treatment Against Drug-Resistant Bacteria in Under a Week and Adapt to Antibiotic Resistance
Read More: New Technology Can Create Treatment Against Drug-Resistant Bacteria in Under a Week and Adapt to Antibiotic ResistanceBy PNAs can be introduced to interrupt the process in which DNA is converted into protein or other useful biological molecules necessary for life. Kristen Eller, The Facile Accelerated Specific Therapeutic (FAST) platform can produce therapies against multidrug-resistant bacteria in under a week. Kristen Eller, CC BY-ND Why it matters Bacteria’s adaptation to survive current…
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chronic pain, Medication safety, Opioid use disorder, Opioids, Otc medication safety, Pain, Pain management, Prescription drugs, Research, Science, Substance abuse
Designing Less Addictive Opioids, Through Chemistry
Read More: Designing Less Addictive Opioids, Through ChemistryBy Aaron W. Harrison, Austin College What if there was a way for pain patients to get all the pain-relieving power of opioids with none of the addicting side effects? Opioids are one of the most powerful pain medications available, but millions of Americans have struggled with prescription opioid misuse after getting hooked on the…
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Coronavirus, COVID-19, Medical tests, Prevention, Preventive health, Research, Science, Vaccinations, Vaccines
Delta Variant Makes It Even More Important to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine, Even if Youโve Already Had the Coronavirus
Read More: Delta Variant Makes It Even More Important to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine, Even if Youโve Already Had the CoronavirusBy Jennifer T. Grier, University of South Carolina As someone who studies immune responses to respiratory infections, I’ve watched news of the emerging coronavirus variants with concern. I wondered whether vaccination or previous infection would provide protection against SARS-CoV-2 strains, especially the new, highly transmissible delta variant, which has rapidly spread to at least 70…
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Beauty, Breast cancer, Breast health, Hair, Health disparities, Racial disparities, Research, Science
25-Year-Long Study of Black Women Links Frequent Use of Lye-Based Hair Relaxers to a Higher Risk of Breast Cancer
Read More: 25-Year-Long Study of Black Women Links Frequent Use of Lye-Based Hair Relaxers to a Higher Risk of Breast CancerKimberly Bertrand, Boston University The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Frequent and long-term use of lye-based hair straightening products, or relaxers, may increase the risk of breast cancer among Black women, compared with more moderate use. Boston University’s Black Women’s Health Study followed 59,000 self-identified African American…
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Mindfulness Meditation Can Make Some Americans More Selfish and Less Generous
Read More: Mindfulness Meditation Can Make Some Americans More Selfish and Less GenerousMichael J. Poulin, University at Buffalo When Japanese chef Yoshihiro Murata travels, he brings water with him from Japan. He says this is the only way to make truly authentic dashi, the flavorful broth essential to Japanese cuisine. There’s science to back him up: water in Japan is notably softer โ which means it has…
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Benjamin Franklinโs Fight Against a Deadly Virus: Colonial America Was Divided Over Smallpox Inoculation, but He Championed Science to Skeptics
Read More: Benjamin Franklinโs Fight Against a Deadly Virus: Colonial America Was Divided Over Smallpox Inoculation, but He Championed Science to SkepticsBy From its first edition, The New-England Courant covered inoculation. Wikimedia Commons One article from August 1721 tried to guilt readers into resisting inoculation. If someone gets inoculated and then spreads the disease to someone else, who in turn dies of it, the article asked, โat whose hands shall their Blood be required?” The same…
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Access, Access to health care, Adolescent, Affordability, Anxiety, Depression, Health care, Health insurance, Hormone health, Keep the care, Lgbtq, mental health, Parenting, Parenting teens, Research, Stress, Transgender
Transgender Medicine โ What Care Looks Like, Who Seeks It out and Whatโs Still Unknown: 3 Essential Reads
Read More: Transgender Medicine โ What Care Looks Like, Who Seeks It out and Whatโs Still Unknown: 3 Essential ReadsBy Daniel Merino, The Conversation Transgender people continue to be the focus of political culture wars in the U.S. In the spring of 2021, lawmakers in many states sought to limit or ban transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care. The laws proposed โ and in some cases passed โ were written to have a direct…
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Access, Affordability, caregiving, Chronic conditions, Clinical trials, Health care, Health policy, Medical research and clinical trials, Medication safety, Parenting, Real women real stories, Research, Science, Skin, Skin health
What Itโs Like to Care for a Child With Severe Eczema
Read More: What Itโs Like to Care for a Child With Severe EczemaWhen our daughter Tilly was 5 months old, my husband and I noticed a rash on her face and neck. She was obviously itchy and pretty cranky about it, so we took her to her pediatrician. After a long process that involved changing everything from detergents to my diet (because I was breastfeeding), as well…
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The Neuroscience Behind Why Your Brain May Need Time to Adjust to โUn-Social Distancingโ
Read More: The Neuroscience Behind Why Your Brain May Need Time to Adjust to โUn-Social DistancingโBy Kareem Clark, Virginia Tech With COVID-19 vaccines working and restrictions lifting across the country, it’s finally time for those now vaccinated who’ve been hunkered down at home to ditch the sweatpants and reemerge from their Netflix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your former social life. Social…
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Access, Access to health care, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health care, Health disparities, Health insurance, Keep the care, Policy, Prevention, Preventive health, Research
Black and Hispanic Americans Suffer Most in Biggest US Decline in Life Expectancy Since WWII
Read More: Black and Hispanic Americans Suffer Most in Biggest US Decline in Life Expectancy Since WWIILiz Szabo, Kaiser Health News Although James Toussaint has never had covid, the pandemic is taking a profound toll on his health. First, the 57-year-old lost his job delivering parts for a New Orleans auto dealership in spring 2020, when the local economy shut down. Then, he fell behind on his rent. Last month, Toussaint…
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Adolescent, Anxiety, Depression, Lgbtq, mental health, Parenting, Parenting teens, Policy, Research, Stress, Transgender
Conversion Therapy Is Discredited and Increases Risk of Suicide โ yet Fewer Than Half of US States Have Bans in Place
Read More: Conversion Therapy Is Discredited and Increases Risk of Suicide โ yet Fewer Than Half of US States Have Bans in PlaceJune is Pride Month. By Donna Sheperis, Palo Alto University and Carl Sheperis, Texas A&M-San Antonio Pride Month is being marked by some lawmakers in Kentucky with a renewed push to ban โconversion therapy โ the discredited practice of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. If successful, the bill, which aims to…
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Flawed Data Led to Findings of a Connection Between Time Spent on Devices and Mental Health Problems โ New Research
Read More: Flawed Data Led to Findings of a Connection Between Time Spent on Devices and Mental Health Problems โ New ResearchBy Social media has a lot to answer for, but in terms of time spent on them, the mental health of young people might not belong on the list. David Stewart/Flickr, CC BY In my own research as a doctoral student in social work, I found that the link between digital technology use and mental…
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Whatโs Behind the Rising Profile of Transgender Kids? 3 Essential Reads
Read More: Whatโs Behind the Rising Profile of Transgender Kids? 3 Essential ReadsBy Nick Lehr, The Conversation Why are trans youth more visible these days? Is it due to more widespread acceptance, or more media coverage? Just how many trans kids are there? There seem to be few clear-cut answers. But after talking with a number of scholars who study transgender youth โ and editing articles written…
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Too Few Women Get to Invent โ Thatโs a Problem for Womenโs Health
Read More: Too Few Women Get to Invent โ Thatโs a Problem for Womenโs HealthBy Rem Koning, Harvard Business School MacArthur Genius and MIT professor Linda Griffith has built an epic career as a scientist and inventor, including growing a human ear on a mouse. She now spends her days unpacking the biological mechanisms underlying endometriosis, a condition in which uterus-like tissue grows outside of the uterus. Endometriosis can…
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Bringing Joy Back to the Classroom and Supporting Stressed Kids โ What Summer School Looks Like in 2021
Read More: Bringing Joy Back to the Classroom and Supporting Stressed Kids โ What Summer School Looks Like in 2021By Raphael Travis Jr., Texas State University; Kathleen Lynch, University of Connecticut; Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University; Naomi Polinsky, Northwestern University, and Roberta Golinkoff, University of Delaware Already 62% of parents believe their children are behind in learning, according to a survey conducted by the National PTA and Learning Heroes. The transition from in-person to remote…
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Access, Access to health care, Affordability, Health care, Health disparities, Health insurance, Keep the care, Medicare, Policy, Research
Some Hospitals Kept Suing Patients Over Medical Debt Through the Pandemic
Read More: Some Hospitals Kept Suing Patients Over Medical Debt Through the Pandemicby Jenny Deam, ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Last year as COVID-19 laid siege to the nation, many U.S. hospitals dramatically reduced their aggressive tactics to collect medical debt.…
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Itโs Long Past Time to Invest in Womenโs Health
Read More: Itโs Long Past Time to Invest in Womenโs HealthThough women make up half the adult population, research into women’s health is disproportionately low. Of the nearly $42 billion the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends on medical research each year, only approximately $5 billion of that funding is directed specifically at women’s health. Unequal allocation of research dollars is not only a matter…
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Alcohol Companies Make $17.5 Billion a Year off of Underage Drinking, While Prevention Efforts Are Starved for Cash
Read More: Alcohol Companies Make $17.5 Billion a Year off of Underage Drinking, While Prevention Efforts Are Starved for CashBy David H. Jernigan, Boston University Alcohol is still the most commonly used drug among high school students. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year approximately 3,500 people under 21 die because of alcohol use. I have studied the relationship between alcohol marketing and youth drinking behavior for the past 20…
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Access, Access to health care, Chronic conditions, Kidney, Policy, Racial disparities, Research, Urinary tracts conditions
Kidney Experts Say Itโs Time to Remove Race From Medical Algorithms. Doing so Is Complicated.
Read More: Kidney Experts Say Itโs Time to Remove Race From Medical Algorithms. Doing so Is Complicated.By Rae Ellen Bichell and Cara Anthony, Kaiser Health News Alphonso Harried recently came across a newspaper clipping about his grandfather receiving his 1,000th dialysis treatment. His grandfather later died โ at a dialysis center โ as did his uncle, both from kidney disease. โAnd that comes in my mind, on my weak days: ‘Are…
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Alcoholism, Anxiety, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Depression, mental health, Research, Self-Care, Sexual assault, Stress, Substance abuse
Women Now Drink as Much as Men โ and Are Prone to Sickness Sooner
Read More: Women Now Drink as Much as Men โ and Are Prone to Sickness SoonerBy Aneri Pattani, Kaiser Health News Victoria Cooper thought her drinking habits in college were just like everyone else’s. Shots at parties. Beers while bowling. Sure, she got more refills than some and missed classes while nursing hangovers, but she couldn’t have a problem, she thought. โBecause of what my picture of alcoholism was โ…
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We Asked. You Answered.
Read More: We Asked. You Answered.At HealthyWomen, it’s our mission to educate and empower women so they can make informed decisions about their health care. Our everyday mission aligns with the rest of the world each year in May during National Women’s Health Month. This year, we took the opportunity to ask our readers some questions to make sure we’re…
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Lady Gaga and J.Lo Sell โWellโ Building Seal, but Itโs a Payday, Not a PSA
Read More: Lady Gaga and J.Lo Sell โWellโ Building Seal, but Itโs a Payday, Not a PSABy Michael McAuliff, Kaiser Health News Viewers could be excused for thinking Robert De Niro was just being a good fella in an ad promoting safe buildings amid the covid pandemic, along with the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga and Michael B. Jordan. This story also ran on The Daily Beast. It can be…
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Narcissistic People Arenโt Just Full of Themselves โ New Research Finds Theyโre More Likely to Be Aggressive and Violent
Read More: Narcissistic People Arenโt Just Full of Themselves โ New Research Finds Theyโre More Likely to Be Aggressive and ViolentBy Brad Bushman, The Ohio State University and Sophie Kjaervik, The Ohio State University The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea We recently reviewed 437 studies of narcissism and aggression involving a total of over 123,000 participants and found narcissism is related to a 21% increase in aggression…
