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Eighteen years ago, most first responders were not thinking about their future health when they spent hours searching “The Pile” for the remains of terror victims. Today, their illnesses are a slow-moving epidemiological nightmare that has been as difficult for scientists to study as it has been easy for politicians to overlook.
Some physicians say connecting the consequences of climate change — heat waves, more pollen and longer allergy seasons — to health helps them better care for patients.
Although there’s no official clinical diagnosis, the psychiatric and psychological communities have names for the phenomenon of worrying about the Earth’s fate: “climate distress,” “climate grief,” “climate anxiety” or “eco-anxiety.” The concept also is gradually making its way into the public consciousness in television shows and movies.
Over the past decade, more than 350 workers nationwide have died from heat-related illness, and tens of thousands have had heat-related problems serious enough that they missed at least one day of work. Proposed federal legislation, modeled on California regulations, would create the first national standards for protecting workers from heat-related stress.
More than 10% of residents in 12 California counties don’t have safe drinking water, according to a California Healthline analysis of state water data. State lawmakers have pledged $130 million a year to help bring clean drinking water to Californians who need it.
For Central American migrants who follow U.S. government rules for pursuing asylum, conditions on the Mexican side of the border are sweltering, filled with anxiety and illness. Few people have a clear timetable for when it will get any better.
California officials announced a ban on chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide that has been linked to lower IQs, lower birth weights and other developmental issues in children, even as the federal government fights to protect it.
He didn’t overstate the relationship between hazardous waste sites and birth defects and autism.
The pesticide chlorpyrifos has been linked to developmental problems in children. Some state and federal lawmakers want the chemical banned, but federal regulators are fighting to keep it on the market.
Scientists say drought can spur transmission of the disease and that wetter winters since 2015 have helped reduce the number of infections in California. In the long term, however, climate change could mean more drought — and more infections.
The main ingredient in numerous popular herbicides has been implicated by two juries in the cancers of frequent users, but major public health agencies disagree over whether it is a carcinogen. Can you use it safely in your garden? Here are some answers to questions you may have about the weed killer glyphosate.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Smoke from the deadly and destructive Camp Fire has caused air quality readings to spike into “hazardous” and “unhealthy” levels for millions of people far outside of the burn zones. Is smoky air the new normal for California?
San Joaquin Valley residents breathe some of the dirtiest air in the country, but it can be a challenge for them to find accurate and timely information on the air quality in their neighborhoods. This summer, nonprofit organizations began distributing 20 small air monitors to hard-hit families, and next year, the state is expected to install monitoring systems in some communities.
People living near highways and agricultural and industrial zones get hit with a “double whammy” when smoke blows into their neighborhoods, where the air is often polluted already.
In this episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo, Margot Sanger-Katz of The New York Times and Joanne Kenen of Politico discuss Senate action on health funding and opioid legislation, the state of the individual insurance market and consternation over expiration dates on EpiPens, the self-injected allergy remedy. Also, could an otter with asthma signal a potential public health crisis?
Some of the safety-net programs set up after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico are being disbanded.
Public health agencies are set up to regulate easily controlled sources of air pollution. Wildfire smoke presents a different set of expensive challenges.
The health effects of extended smoke exposure are largely unknown because it's difficult to conduct studies. But last summer's wildfire season has handed scientists a unique opportunity for research.
Environmental health professor Don Milton is studying how the flu — and other dangerous infections — are spread. The close quarters of dorm rooms and cafeterias at the University of Maryland provide him with a steady supply of research subjects.
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