We use 2021 data to compare the demographic patterns of adult White and Black gun ownership with their respective race-specific rates of firearm, non-firearm and total suicide, and the percentage of suicides using firearms.

Despite the initial hope inspired by the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world is now dangerously close to breaching its target of limiting global multiyear mean heating to 1·5°C. Annual mean surface temperature reached a record high of 1·45°C above the pre-industrial baseline in 2023, and new temperature highs were recorded throughout 2024. The resulting climatic extremes are increasingly claiming lives and livelihoods worldwide. The Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change was established the same year the Paris Agreement entered into force, to monitor the health impacts and opportunities of the world’s response to this landmark agreement. Supported through strategic core funding from Wellcome, the collaboration brings together over 300 multidisciplinary researchers and health professionals from around the world to take stock annually of the evolving links between health and climate change at global, regional, and national levels. The 2024 report of the Countdown, building on the expertise of 122 leading researchers from UN agencies and academic institutions worldwide, reveals the most concerning findings yet in the collaboration’s 8 years of monitoring.

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a broad class of synthetic compounds widely used in commercial applications. The persistent nature of PFAS in the environment has earned them the epithet “forever chemicals.” Concerns arise from widespread exposure to PFAS from occupational, household, and environmental sources. This widespread use of PFAS is particularly concerning, as emerging epidemiological evidence highlights their adverse effects on lung health. Such adverse impacts include impaired fetal lung development, reduced immune function in children, and potential links to lung cancer. Both and studies illuminate potential mechanisms underlying such adverse health outcomes subsequent to PFAS inhalation exposure, which may include immunomodulation, oxidative stress, and disruptions to epithelial barriers. However, evidence-based information focusing on the mechanisms of PFAS-mediated lung injury is lacking. Additionally, the discrepancies between data collected from animal and epidemiological studies highlight the need for improved approaches to better understand the toxicity results of PFAS exposure. To address these gaps, we recommend leveraging route-to-route extrapolation for risk assessment, prioritizing research on understudied PFAS, and adopting physiologically relevant, high-throughput approaches. These strategies are aimed at enhancing our understanding of PFAS inhalation effects, aiding in more informed risk management decisions. In this review, we summarize the current literature on PFAS exposure, emphasizing its adverse effects on lung health, particularly through inhalation. We then discuss the current knowledge on mechanisms underlying tissue- and cellular-level adverse outcomes caused by PFAS.

Global health has traditionally focused on the primary health development with disease-specific focus such as HIV, malaria and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). As such, surgery has traditionally been neglected in global health as investment in them is often expensive, relative to these other priorities. Therefore, efforts to improve surgical care have remained on the periphery of initiatives in health system strengthening. However, today, many would argue that global health should focus on universal health coverage with primary health and surgery and perioperative care integrated as a part of this. In this article, we discuss the past developments and future-looking solutions on how surgery can contribute to the delivery of effective and equitable healthcare across the world. These include bidirectional integration of surgical and chronic disease pathways and better understanding financing initiatives. Specifically, we focus on access to safe elective and emergency surgery for NCDs and an integrated approach towards the rising multimorbidity from chronic disease in the population. Underpinning these, data-driven solutions from high-quality research from clinical trials and cohort studies through established surgical research networks are needed. Although challenges will remain around financing, we propose that development of surgical services will strengthen and improve performance of whole health systems and contribute to improvement in population health across the world.

Compared with traditional Medicare (TM), Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers have greater financial incentives to reduce the delivery of low-value services (LVS); however, there is limited evidence at a national level on the prevalence of LVS utilization among MA vs TM beneficiaries and whether LVS utilization rates vary among the largest MA insurers.

The objective of this study is to estimate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) by continuous BMI by age, sex, and demographic group in the United States.