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Public health leaders in 2026 grapple with accelerating trends like digital integration and health equity amid rising outbreak threats from cholera, dengue, and Marburg. Explore strategies for preparedness and community health outcomes.
This is the second story in a two-part series. If you would like to learn more about why the proposed surveillance and minimization plan is facing public backlash, please see the first article here. PFAS and 1,4 dioxane are man-made toxic chemicals found in some rivers and lakes in North Carolina. State regulators have proposed plans aimed at reducing emissions of these chemicals. However, this plan has faced opposition from the public, partly because it does not include numerical limits on hospital discharges.WUNC environmental reporter Celeste Guajardo spoke with weekend host Bradley George. This conversation has been edited for clarity…
A series of three surveys conducted in the US revealed that Americans believe that 43% of Reddit users post extremely harmful comments and 47% of Facebook users share false news online. But in reality, only 3-8.5% of users create such content. The paper is PNAS Nexus. Social media contains many posts that share misleading or completely untrue content. Some users post harmful comments on other people’s posts. These are insulting, hateful, or offensive comments. Sharing false news and posting harmful comments are two types of behavior that matter because they harm real people, damage reputations, and cause fear and anger.…
A new study from Innovaccer found that nearly 80% of payers now prefer deploying vendor-built artificial intelligence tools over developing internal capabilities. The study draws insights from leaders of 63 health payer organizations, ranging from local health plans to national payers, the healthcare technology and AI company said in a press release. Respondents were surveyed from mid-December to mid-January 2025 and included senior executives and executives. Innovaccer CEO and co-founder Abhinav Shashank told Fierce Healthcare that the move to outsourced solutions reflects a focus on how to “truly operationalize AI.” “What we’re seeing is the emergence of a question of…
Teresa is the lead writer for Morning Round, and her articles focus on gender-affirming care, reproductive health, and mental health. You can reach Theresa at signal theresagaff.97.Get the health information and medications you need every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here. good morning. STAT’s Helen Branswell was recently interviewed by Columbia Journalism Review about the challenges of reporting on the hantavirus outbreak. If you need some sympathy for journalists, or if you’re a reporter yourself and want advice from the best, check it out. If you would like to subscribe to STAT+ later, you can do…
As the temperature of the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere continues to rise, the opposite phenomenon is occurring in other parts of the Earth’s atmosphere. Far above the Earth’s surface, the upper atmosphere has cooled significantly over decades. Scientists have long known that this unusual contrast is one of the clearest signals of anthropogenic climate change, but the exact physics behind it remained unclear. Now, researchers at Columbia University have announced that they have finally uncovered the mechanism responsible. Their new study explains how carbon dioxide (CO2) interacts with different wavelengths of light, warming the planet below while cooling the…
Healthcare organizations are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence technologies, but there is no clear blueprint for how to measure the business value of these investments. According to a Menlo Ventures analysis last fall, the healthcare industry is adopting AI at more than twice the rate of the economy as a whole. According to a report by Silicon Valley Bank, investments in AI healthcare companies accounted for 46% of total spending, totaling $18 billion, making AI the dominant healthcare investment environment in 2025. However, many of these AI investments are not producing tangible results. A July 2025 report (PDF) from MIT’s NANDA…
People often find familiar shapes in random places. You may have looked at a cloud and imagined a sailboat, a seahorse, or even your great-aunt Rosemary staring back at you. Scientists call this tendency to find meaningful patterns in randomness “apophenia.” But in some cases, those patterns are very real. Associate Professor Saket Navlakha of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory studies hidden structures that appear throughout nature. One of the most well-known examples of organized patterning is the Voronoi diagram, a geometric system that divides space into discrete regions around a central point. A simple example is a school district. Each…
Recent research published in circulation research We provide evidence that specific molecules produced by gut bacteria can protect the heart from stiffness and dysfunction by communicating directly with the brain. This study suggests that restoring this bacterial byproduct may offer a new way to approach high blood pressure and related heart disease. Hypertension and related cardiovascular diseases involve complex interactions between the gastrointestinal, nervous, and cardiovascular systems. High blood pressure tends to make the heart muscle stiff and lose its ability to relax properly between beats, a condition known as diastolic dysfunction. Although this stiffness represents a major physiological cause…
Oysters, long associated with the North Carolina coast, are a delicacy that is difficult to farm due to factors both in and out of the water.Warmer weather brings new shellfish risks to North CarolinaOyster farmers in North Carolina face increased risks of disease, contamination and Vibrio bacteria as rising water temperatures and drought strain farms.Shellfish farmers face numerous challenges, including disease, pollution, and the effects of climate change.North Carolina’s oyster industry is recovering, but still faces threats from development and water quality degradation.Public health concerns about bacteria such as Salmonella and Vibrio can impact consumer confidence and sales.On Canada’s coast…