Viewpoints: US Needs To Look South To Manage Insect-Borne Disease; For Homeless, Housing Is Health Care
Editorial writers examine these public health issues.
The appearance of chikungunya in New York should be cause for concern but not panic. (Jarbas Barbosa, 11/17)
Homelessness is killing people. The leading causes of death among unhoused Californians aren’t violence or overdoses but preventable illnesses. A UCSF study from 2023 of 3,200 unhoused residents across California found that heart disease, infection and substance-use–related illnesses were the top causes of death. (Claire Schutz, 11/16)
When I was 5, I traced the fabric of my mother’s gumbezi as sunlight fell across the floor of my grandparents’ home in Mbare, the oldest high-density neighborhood in Harare, Zimbabwe. My mother sat beside me, her voice growing quieter each day, her body folding into stillness. I didn’t yet know what AIDS was. I only knew that something unspoken hung between us. My parents both died before they turned 40, their lives shortened by a virus shadowed by reticence and shame. (Tatenda Makoni, 11/18)
Doctors and patients will have to resist the temptation to assume the technology is magical. (Michael H. Bernstein and Grayson L. Baird, 11/17)
This isn’t just a tech problem. It’s a public health crisis. (Kevin Malone, 11/17)
