public health

"Car Brain" Has Long Normalized Carnage on the Roads

For more than a century people have made excuses for the death and dismemberment caused by automobiles as if it were a phenomenon of nature. 

Americans Will Regret Dismissing 100 Years of Public Health Progress

by Craig Spencer

Politicians have felt free to attack public health authorities to score points in the wake of the pandemic because the profession's achievements have allowed the public to forget just how much damage contagious illness can cause.

Health Researchers Show Segregation 100 Years Ago Harmed Black Health, and Effects Continue Today

Census data analysis by demographic historian J. David Hacker and health researcher J’Mag Karbeah correlate indexes of racial segregation with child mortality rates as a proxy for overall population health and conclude that the gap between black and white infant mortality grew the more segregated a city was. 

Want to Understand the Internet? Consider the "Great Stink" of 1858 London

Bad information online is a concern. But the history of public health shows that understanding how it spreads and circulates is critical to fighting it. 

Vivek Murthy's Advice Against Social Media Use for Kids Latest in Surgeon General Warnings

While past surgeons general succeeded in warning the public away from cigarettes and drunk driving, other public health issues have been more difficult subjects for persuasion. 

Historical Data on Mosquito Range Shows Climate Change is Spreading Malaria Risk

Data stretching back to 1898 show mosquitoes spreading further from the equator in Africa year by year, with recent acceleration consistent with climate change estimates.

National Library of Medicine Announces 2023 History Talks

NLM History Talks promote awareness and use of NLM and related historical collections for research, education, and public service in biomedicine, the social sciences, and the humanities.

Why Has American Progress Stalled? Blame Our Belief in "Eureka!"

Moments of creative innovation matter, but invention depends on a society that is prepared to take advantage and distribute the benefits. 

A Whitmer-DeSantis Showdown Would Put Two Visions of Public Health on the Ballot

by Andrew Wehrman

History suggests that Whitmer's approach to public responsibility for pandemic control works better than DeSantis's individualistic framework for controlling disease. Which one might win votes is another question. 

How Smallpox Inoculation Brought a New Nation Together

The need to control smallpox outbreaks helped a public-minded spirit of disease prevention to override rampant individualism in the years surrounding the American Revolution, argues historian Andrew Wehrman.

Monkeypox Has Been Around for Decades; This Outbreak is a Product of Neglect

by Alessandro Hammond and Cameron Sabet

The world's response to viral outbreaks in poor nations demonstrates the hoarding of resources in the Global North, but it's ultimately self-defeating for rich nations, too. 

The Risks of Declaring the Pandemic Over

by Molly Nebiolo

As long as America has had pandemics, it has had leaders who sought political benefit by declaring them over, so Joe Biden is in good company. But moving on needs to include planning ahead. 

COVID Shows the US as a Country Kept from Grieving

Historians Rhae Lynn Barnes, Keri Leigh Merritt, and Yohuru Williams have edited a new collection of essays putting the pandemic in historical perspective, with contributors showing how the pandemic robbed us of both life and time. 

I was Fired for Asking My Students to Wear Masks

by Michael Phillips

Sometimes academic freedom is about the ability of professors to advocate on behalf of the campus community's health against administrators who prefer silence as a matter of political expediency. 

Asking Gay Men to be Cautious Over Monkeypox Isn't Homophobia

by Jim Downs

"Protecting gay men from discrimination and stigmatization today does not require public-health officials to tiptoe around how monkeypox is currently being transmitted."

Monkeypox is a Failure to Learn from HIV-AIDS Activists

by Dan Royles

Attention to messaging – efforts to advise communities of gay men at risk of infection without stigma – has hidden a deeper message of AIDS activism in the 1980s: demands for an equitable and affordable health care system. 

Can America Apply Lessons from HIV/AIDS Crisis to Deal with Monkeypox?

by Dan Royles

Public health debates on monkeypox need to look at the history of health messaging about HIV-AIDS to focus on communities of gay men currently at risk while avoiding triggering homophobic responses and stigma. 

Ending the Illusion that Smoking is a Choice

by Sarah Milov

Tobacco companies still promote the convenient fiction that users addicted to the nicotine in their products are making a free choice to consume them. 

Professor Discusses the use of Asylum Scenes in "Stranger Things"

Troy Rondinone's expertise on cultural portrayals of mental health facilities connects with two key plotlines in the latest season of the Netflix horror series. 

Can We Stop Cars from Killing People?

American cyclists and pedestrians are the victims of a century-long political campaign to reorganize public space around the needs of drivers, according to historian Peter Norton. Activists including the families of traffic victims are fighting to change that.