EPA has announced the funding of eight grants which will be awarded to U.S.-based organizations as a way of promoting public health through the reduction the exposure to indoor pollutants such as radon, as well as other environmental factors in homes, schools, offices and public buildings that may trigger lung diseases like asthma.
The 10 most challenging public-health threats of 2014
December 31, 2014
It’s been an unprecedented year for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as America’s public health agency continues its emergency response to the most complex Ebola epidemic in history. Ebola, however, is far from the only critical mission CDC undertook in 2014.
Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the United States, killing about 480,000 Americans each year. For every person who dies this year, there are over 30 Americans who continue to live with a smoking-related disease.
It's easy to eat your way to an alarmingly high cholesterol level. The reverse is true too — changing what you eat can lower your cholesterol and improve the armada of fats floating through your bloodstream.
Forty states have enacted laws prohibiting the sale of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), including e-cigarettes, to minors, but 10 states and the District of Columbia still permit such sales, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ended years of contentious debate Wednesday by announcing that the health and environmental risks of fracking were greater than the benefits and that the controversial method of harvesting natural gas would be banned in the state.
Better research may help address health issue that affects millions
December 15, 2014
Recommended standards for clinical low-back pain research hold promise for more consistently designed research and, in the long term, better treatment solutions to support those living with chronic low-back pain. The recommendations from the National Institutes of Health Task Force on Research Standards for Chronic Low-Back Pain were published in several leading back pain journals.
Although the $1.1 trillion federal spending bill passed by Congress last week avoided a government shutdown, it fell short on protecting the health of Americans - particularly children, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).
A new American Cancer Society (ACS) study finds that despite significant drops in smoking rates, cigarettes continue to cause about three in ten cancer deaths in the United States. The study, appearing in the Annals of Epidemiology, concludes that efforts to reduce smoking prevalence as rapidly as possible should be a top priority for the U.S. public health efforts to prevent cancer deaths.
Companies challenge each other with cash-driven workforce weight-loss competitions
December 5, 2014
The glut of U.S. workers contending with obesity and other chronic health troubles is costing companies more than $153 billion annually in lost productivity from absenteeism, alone—a situation exacerbated by even more staggering productivity loss from the four-times more detrimental “Presenteeism.”