She found Forbes face down in the street in August 2023, two weeks before he had planned to move away from the empty storefronts, boarded-up houses, and poverty that make this one of the most troubled places in the nation.

Naketra Guy thought about how her son overcame losing his father at age 4 and was the glue of the family. She called him “humble” and “respectful,” a leader in the community and on the football field, where he shined.

Yet he could not outrun the grim statistics of his hometown. Bogalusa posts some of the worst health outcomes and poverty in Louisiana, a state that routinely ranks among the worst nationally in both. And Bogalusa has endured another indicator of poor public health: high levels of gun violence.

Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, gun violence has shattered any sense of peace or progress here. Louisiana suffers the nation’s second-highest firearm death rate — and Bogalusa, a predominantly Black community with 10,000 residents, has seen dozens of shootings and a violent crime rate approaching twice the national average.

A nearby team refused to play football at Bogalusa High School in fall 2022, citing safety concerns.

Bogalusa’s mayor, Tyrin Truong, was elected in 2022 at age 23 on his promises to fix entrenched challenges: few youth programs and good jobs, and perpetual crime and blight.

“I ran for mayor because I got sick of seeing our city painted as mini-New Orleans,” he said, “due to the high levels of youth gun violence.”

In January, the Louisiana State Police arrested Truong, accusing him of soliciting a prostitute and participating in a drug trafficking ring that allegedly used illicit proceeds to buy firearms. He has said he is innocent. “I still haven’t been formally arraigned,” he told KFF Health News in late July, “and I haven’t been charged with anything.”

Every year tens of thousands of Americans — one every few minutes — are killed by gun violence on the scale of a public health epidemic.

Many thousands more are left to recover from severe injuries, crushing medical debt, and the mental health toll of losing loved ones.

Most headlines focus on America’s urban centers, but the numbers also reflect the growth of gun violence in places like Bogalusa, a pinprick of a town 75 miles north of New Orleans. In 2020, the gun violence death rate for rural communities was 40% higher than in large metropolitan areas, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Firearms are the No. 1 killer of children in the U.S., and no group suffers more than young Black people. More Black boys and men ages 15 to 24 in 2023 were killed in gun homicides than from the next 15 leading causes of deaths combined. Though overall U.S. homicides dropped sharply after the pandemic ended, adolescent gun deaths climbed even higher in the years after, according to research by Jonathan Jay, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at Boston University.

“It has all the markers of an epidemic. It is a major driver of death and disability,” Jay said. “Gun violence does not get the attention it deserves. It is underrecognized because it disproportionately impacts Black and brown people.”

Rather than bolstering efforts to save lives, federal, state, and local government officials have undermined them. KFF Health News undertook an examination of gun violence since the pandemic, a period when firearm death rates surged. Reporters reviewed government reports and academic research and interviewed dozens of health policy experts, activists, and victims or their relatives. They reviewed corporate earnings reports from gun manufacturers and data on the industry’s donations to politicians.

In polling published in 2023 by KFF, more than half of Americans said they or a family member had been impacted by gun violence such as by seeing a shooting or being threatened, injured, or killed with a gun.

American politicians and regulators have put in place laws and practices that have helped enrich firearm and ammunition manufacturers — which tout $91 billion in economic impact — even as gun violence has terrorized neighborhoods already damaged by white flight, systemic disinvestment, and other forms of racial discrimination.

President Donald Trump championed gun rights on the campaign trail and has received millions from the National Rifle Association, to whose members he promised, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms.” His administration has rolled back efforts under President Joe Biden to address the rise in gun violence.

Emboldened in his second term, Trump is pushing to allow more guns in schools, weaken federal oversight of the gun industry, override state and local gun laws, permit sales without background checks, and cut funding for violence intervention.

Trump ordered the attorney general to review all Biden administration actions that “purport to promote safety but may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

The Biden administration said “a historic spike in homicides” during the pandemic took its greatest toll on racially segregated and high-poverty neighborhoods.

Black youths in four major cities were 100 times as likely as white ones to experience a firearm assault, research showed. Gun suicides reached an all-time high, and for the first time the firearm suicide rate among older Black teens surpassed that of older white teens.

In Bogalusa, the pandemic gun violence spread fear. Among the victims killed were a 15-year-old attending a birthday party and a 24-year-old nationally known musician. Thirteen people were injured at a memorial for a man who himself had been shot. Residents said neighbors stopped sitting in their yards because of stray bullets.

Researchers say communities like Bogalusa endure a collective trauma that shatters their sense of safety. Two years after Forbes’ death, his mother says that when she leaves home her surviving children worry that she, too, might get shot.

Repercussions from the surge will last years, researchers said: Exposure to shootings increases risk for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, depression, substance abuse, and poor school performance for survivors and those who live near them.

“We saw gun violence exposure go up for every group of children except white children, in the cities we studied,” Jay said. “Limits on government funding into gun violence research may stop us from ever knowing exactly why.”

Politics of Pain

The year before Forbes died in Bogalusa, Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, considered the most sweeping firearm legislation in decades.

In a matter of months, Trump has systematically dismantled key provisions.

Efforts to regulate guns have long proven ineffective against the power of political and business interests that fill the streets with weapons. In 2020, the number of guns manufactured annually in the U.S. hit 11.3 million, more than double a decade earlier, according to the federal government. In 2022, the United States had nearly 78,000 licensed gun dealers, more than its combined number of McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and Subway locations, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group.

The Biden administration announced in 2021 it would attempt to reduce gun violence by adopting a “zero tolerance” policy toward firearm dealers who committed violations such as failing to run a required background check or selling to someone prohibited from buying a gun.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, which licenses gun dealers, has the authority to enforce laws meant to prevent illegal gun sales. In issuing an executive order, the Trump administration declared that, under Biden, the agency targeted “mom-and-pop shop small businesses who made innocent paperwork errors.”

From October 2010 to February 2022, the agency conducted more than 111,000 inspections, recommending revocation of a dealer’s license only 589 times, about 0.5% of cases, an inspector general’s report said. Even when it cited serious violations, the ATF rarely shut dealers down.

ATF leaders told the inspector general’s office that recommendations for license revocations increased after Biden’s zero-tolerance policy was implemented. In April, the Trump administration repealed it.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy last year declared firearm violence a public health crisis. Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, his administration removed the advisory. Of the 15 leading U.S. causes of death, firearm injuries received less research funding from the National Institutes of Health for each person who died than all but poisoning and falls, according to an analysis in 2024 by Brady, an anti-gun violence organization. Trump is trying to cut that funding, too.

Trump’s Department of Justice abruptly cut 373 grants in April for projects worth about $820 million, with a large share from gun violence intervention.

“We are going to lose a generation of community violence prevention folks,” said Volkan Topalli, a gun violence researcher at Georgia State University. “People are going to die, I’m sorry to say, but that is the bleak truth of this.”

Asked about its policies, the White House did not address questions about public health considerations around gun violence.

“Illegal violence of any sort is a crime issue, and President Trump has been clear since Day One that he is committed to Making America Safe Again by empowering law enforcement to uphold law and order,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Trump administration officials “want safer streets and less violence,” Topalli said. “They are hurting their cause.”

Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the violence prevention program at the University of California-Davis, was among the first in the nation to consider guns and violence as a public health issue. He said race plays a significant role in perceptions about gun violence.

“People look at the demographic risk for firearm homicide and depending on the demographics of the people in the audience, I can see the transformation in their faces,” Wintemute said. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘Not my people, not my problem.’”

Eroding Gun Restrictions

Trump’s incursions against public health efforts to contain gun violence are backed by lobbying power.

Firearm industry advocacy groups made millions of dollars in political donations in recent years, mostly to conservative causes and Republican candidates. That includes $1.4 million to Trump, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign finance data.

The assassination of civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead to the passage of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which imposed stricter licensing rules and outlawed the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons.

While it remains the law of the land, over time, federal and state government actions have significantly weakened its protections.

Most states now allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit or background check, even though research suggests the practice can increase the risk of firearm homicides.

In Louisiana, Democratic former Gov. John Bel Edwards, in office from 2016 to 2024, vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to carry concealed firearms without a permit.

Elected in 2023, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law to allow any person over age 18 to conceal-carry without a permit.

The Trump administration has created a task force to implement his executive order to end most gun regulations and which would allow more people with criminal convictions, including for domestic abuse, to own guns.

Figures vary, but some researchers estimate as many as 500 million guns circulate in the U.S. Sales reached record highs during the pandemic and publicly traded firearm and ammunition companies saw profits jump.

Donald Trump Jr. this summer joined the board of GrabAGun, an online gun retailer that went public in July under the stock ticker PEW. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company, which markets guns to people ages 18 to 44, cited “gun violence prevention and legislative advocacy organizations that oppose sales of firearms and ammunition” as threats to its sales growth.

Dave Workman, a gun rights advocate with the Second Amendment Foundation, said firearms are not to blame for the surge in pandemic shootings.

“Bad guys are going to do what bad guys are going to do regardless of the law,” Workman said. “Taking away gun rights is not going to reduce crime.”

David Yamane, a Wake Forest University sociology professor and national authority on guns, said the U.S. firearm debate is complex and the industry is often “painted with too broad a brush.”

Most guns will never be used to kill anyone, he said. Americans tend to buy more guns during times of unrest, Yamane added: “It’s part of the American tradition. Guns are seen as a legitimate tool for defending yourself.”

‘A Low Level of Hope’

Once called “the Magic City,” Bogalusa has become a grim symbol of deindustrialization.

Bogalusa emerged as Black people formed their own communities in the time of Jim Crow racial segregation at the turn of the 20th century.

Racism concentrated Black people in neighborhoods that became epicenters of poor health, reflected in high rates of cancer, asthma, chronic stress, preterm births, pregnancy-related complications — and, over recent decades, firearm violence.

Thousands flocked to Bogalusa after the Great Southern Lumber Company built one of the world’s biggest sawmills, establishing Bogalusa as a company town. Racial tensions soon followed.

Members of the local Deacons for Defense and Justice gained national attention in the 1960s for protecting civil rights organizers from the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group that burned houses and churches, terrorizing and killing Black people.

As the mill changed hands over the decades, Bogalusa’s fortunes slid. In the mid-20th century, the population surpassed 20,000, but it is now about half that.

International Paper, a Fortune 500 company based in Tennessee, runs the mill as a containerboard factory, employing about 650 people. In 2021, the state announced incentives for the company that included a $500,000 tax break, saying the move would help bring “prosperity.”

Businesses remain boarded up along the main drag. Houses still bear damage from Hurricane Katrina, and many streets are eerily quiet.

Nearly 1 in 3 people in Bogalusa live in poverty — 2½ times the national average.

Bogalusa’s violent gun crime rate reached 646.1 per 100,000 people in 2022, higher than Louisiana’s and 1.7 times the national one, according to the nonprofit Equal Justice USA, citing FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data.

In many rural towns across the South, “there is a level of desperation that is more apparent” than in other parts of the U.S., said Luke Shaefer, a University of Michigan professor of social justice and public policy.

“They don’t have the same infrastructure to have robust social services. People are like, ‘What are my life chances?’” Shaefer said. “People feel like there is nothing that can be done. There is a low level of hope.”

Missed Opportunities

Mayor Truong lamented the violence in Bogalusa after Forbes was killed, writing on Facebook, “When are we as a community going to come together and decide enough is enough?”

The federal government had offered one path forward.

The Biden administration provided billions of dollars to local governments through the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic. Biden urged them to deploy money to community violence intervention programs, shown to reduce homicides by as much as 60%.

A handful of cities seized the opportunity, but most did not. Bogalusa has received $4.25 million in ARPA funds since 2021. None appears to have gone toward violence prevention.

The Louisiana legislative auditor, Michael Waguespack, found that Bogalusa used nearly $500,000 for employee bonuses, which his report said may have violated state law. In some cases, the report says, payments were not tied to work performed.

Bogalusa officials did not respond to a public records request from KFF Health News seeking detailed information about its ARPA money.

Former Mayor Wendy O’Quin-Perrette, who served from 2015 through early 2023, told Waguespack in a June 2024 letter that the city used ARPA money to improve streets and pay the bonuses. “We would not have done it without being sure it was allowed,” she said.

O’Quin-Perrette did not respond to requests for comment.

In a 2023 letter to Waguespack, O’Quin-Perrette’s successor, Truong, wrote that Bogalusa officials didn’t know how the federal money was spent. When he took office, Truong alleged, officials discovered “tens of thousands of dollars of checks and cash” stashed “in various drawers and on desks” in city offices.

Truong defended his stewardship of ARPA funds, saying that about $1 million remained when he assumed office but that the money was needed for more urgent sewer infrastructure repairs. “I wish we could have invested more, invested any money in gun violence prevention efforts,” he said.

In an interview, Truong said the city has been “intentional” about bringing down gun violence, including through a summer jobs program. He pointed to statistics that show homicides decreased from nine in 2022 to two in 2024. “If you keep them busy, they won’t have time to do anything else,” he said.

Asked about his January arrest, Truong said he has political enemies.

“I’m the only Democrat in a very red part of the state, and, you know, I’ve made a lot of changes at City Hall, and that ticks people off,” Truong told KFF Health News. He said that he ended long-standing city contracts with local businesspeople. “When you’re shaking up power structures, you become a target.”

Josie Alexander, a Louisiana-based senior strategist for Equal Justice USA, said city officials missed an opportunity when they didn’t use ARPA funds for gun violence prevention. “The sad thing is people here can now see that money was coming in,” she said. “But it just wasn’t used the way it needed to be.”

‘Too Much Trouble Here’

Truong said the city is still reeling from the pandemic spike in violent crime. He said he was at Bogalusa High School’s homecoming football game in 2022 when one teen shot another. Shots rang out, Truong said, and he grabbed his 3-month-old son and “laid in the bleachers.”

“It’s not a foreign topic to hardly anybody in town, whether you’ve heard the gunshots in the distance, whether you have attended a funeral of somebody who passed due to gun violence,” he said. Many still grapple with trauma.

In December 2022, Khlilia Daniels said, she hosted a birthday party for her teenage niece, praying no one would bring a gun.

The hosts checked guests for weapons, she said.

Yet gunfire erupted, Daniels said. Three teens were shot, including 15-year-old Ronié Taylor, who died, according to police.

“When someone you know is killed, you never forget,” said Daniels, 32, who held Taylor until emergency responders arrived.

Tajdryn Forbes was planning his future when he was killed, likely because of a dispute that started on social media over lyrics in a rap song, Guy said.

In a Facebook post in January, Bogalusa police said they had arrested someone in connection with Forbes’ killing. Authorities had previously announced the arrest of a teen in connection with the homicide.

Forbes had been a high school football standout, like his late father, Charles Forbes Jr., who played semipro. When Forbes scored a touchdown, he would look to the sky to honor his dad.

The school praised Forbes for his senior baseball season in a social media post: “This young man makes a difference on our campus and on the field with his strong character.”

When hopes for a college football scholarship did not pan out, Forbes worked as a deckhand for a marine transportation company. He saved money, looking forward to moving to Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans.

“He would always say, ‘There’s too much trouble here’” in Bogalusa, Guy recalled.

The post Guns, Race, and Profit: The Pain of America’s Other Epidemic appeared first on Medika Life.

Security, Migration, and Budget Pressures

A confluence of political and fiscal forces is accelerating this shift. Europe’s strategic priorities have evolved, driven by concerns ranging from war and migration to domestic economic strains. Many governments feel pressure to divert funds toward defence and security amid Russia’s war in Ukraine and other threats. In Britain, for example, leaders explicitly tied an aid rollback to military needs: Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to boost defence spending to 2.5% of GDP and fund it by cutting the aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of national income. “National security must always come first,” Starmer said, framing the cut as a painful necessity in a “dangerous new era”.

Curbing immigration is another powerful motivator. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, elected on a hard-right platform, has bluntly rejected the notion of altruistic aid in favour of deals that keep migrants from leaving Africa. “What needs to be done in Africa is not charity,” she declares. “What needs to be done in Africa is to build cooperation and serious strategic relationships as equals, not predators”. For Rome, that means investing in African infrastructure and economies (dubbed the “Mattei Plan”) to create jobs in migrants’ home countries — and securing Italian energy and business interests — rather than simply writing checks. Other governments in Europe’s north echo this tougher line: the Netherlands’ new ruling coalition plans to trim aid by 2029 while “prioritising the interests of the Netherlands,” shifting funds toward domestic migration control and trade promotion.

At the same time, budget constraints and surging nationalist politics have made foreign aid a prime target for cuts. The populist refrain of “charity begins at home” has grown louder amid economic uncertainty, pandemic debts, and inflation. Even in France — historically a champion of development aid — the government quietly backtracked on a legally enshrined promise to reach the U.N.’s 0.7% aid spending target by 2025. Facing pressure to reduce deficits, President Emmanuel Macron’s administration postponed the 0.7% goal to 2030 and slashed next year’s aid budget by over one-third. A €742 million reduction in 2024 was followed by plans for a further 37% cut (more than €2 billion) in 2025. Such steep cuts, unprecedented in modern French policy, were justified as tough choices in a tight fiscal environment — though critics called it a betrayal of France’s global commitments. Likewise, aid has been swept up in a broader fiscal odyssey in Germany. After a constitutional court ruling forced Berlin to reallocate spending, the development ministry’s 2024 budget was pared down by about 8% (roughly €940 million) compared to the previous year. Germany’s humanitarian relief budget also dropped about 10%. These reductions make it unlikely Germany will maintain its recent 0.7% GNI aid level.

European Aid Budgets in Retreat

The result of these pressures is a marked pullback in many European aid budgets — a trend that spans both EU member states and neighbours like the UK and Switzerland. Recent moves include:

• United Kingdom — Once a leader in aid, the UK has reversed course. It first lowered its long-held 0.7% of GNI aid commitment to 0.5% in 2021 and now plans to sink to just 0.3% by 2027 to free up billions for defence. Aid groups warn this will drag UK assistance to its lowest share of national income in generations, a “short-sighted and appalling move” that will “undoubtedly risk lives,” according to UNICEF.
• France — After years of incremental increases, France is making an abrupt U-turn. The 2025 budget envisions a 35% cut in official development assistance, delaying ambitions to scale up programmes. Lawmakers in Paris concede domestic needs and security priorities are eclipsing foreign aid — a stark change for the world’s fourth-largest donor, which in 2023 still spent €13.9 billion (0.48% of GNI) on development.
• Germany — The eurozone’s largest economy is trimming aid amid belt-tightening. Germany’s 2024 federal budget reduced core development spending to €11.2 billion, about 7–8% lower than in 2023. Humanitarian and crisis aid saw even sharper declines. Further cuts are on the table for 2025 as Berlin prioritises energy price relief and defence.
• Belgium — A new coalition government in Brussels has agreed to cut development cooperation funding by 25% over five years. Belgium’s aid agency has sounded the alarm, with Enabel CEO Jean Van Wetter warning that “disinvestment in international cooperation is a poor decision in our interconnected world” and will undermine Belgium’s global influence.
• Switzerland — Historically, Switzerland has been a steady donor, but the Swiss government is also scaling back. It approved a CHF 110 million reduction in its aid budget and plans to shut down or hand off development programmes in at least three countries (Albania, Bangladesh, and Zambia) by 2028. Swiss officials argue that resources must be focused on fewer priorities as part of a wider cost-cutting drive.
• Italy — Italy’s aid budget has not seen dramatic cuts, but its focus has pivoted under Meloni’s leadership. Rome is redirecting funds toward projects that dovetail with Italy’s geopolitical agenda — chiefly stemming migration. Italian ministers talk of “investment, not charity” and have struck deals, for instance, to finance development projects in Tunisia in exchange for cooperation on keeping migrants from crossing the Mediterranean.

Notably, this contraction is Europe-wide. A recent review tallied seven European donor governments announcing major aid reductions or reallocations in the past year. The collective EU aid effort is sliding: EU institutions and member states gave 0.51% of GNI as aid in 2023, down from 0.56% the year before. In a mid-2024 budget review, the EU reallocated €2 billion of its external aid fund into migration and refugee support — effectively a 7.5% pro-rata cut to other development programmes. As one analyst bluntly summed up, “The door is just closing on aid everywhere we look.”

From Grants to “Blended” Finance

Beyond budget cuts, Europe is fundamentally changing how it delivers whatever aid remains. Rather than simply funding government budgets or health clinics in poor countries, European donors are channelling money into financial instruments — loans, equity stakes, guarantees — that attract co-investors and, ideally, pay for themselves. The buzzword is “blended finance,” which means using a small amount of public or aid money to unlock a larger pool of private capital for development projects. In theory, everyone wins: poor countries get more investment than aid alone could provide, while investors (including European development banks) get risk cushioned by public funds.

All across Europe, aid agencies have been refashioned as mini-development banks. The UK’s famous aid department has been folded into the Foreign Office, and its once grant-focused bilateral programmes are diminished. Instead, Britain is leaning on British International Investment — a government-owned DFI (development finance institution) — to finance projects from renewable energy in India to tech start-ups in Africa, expecting modest returns. France’s Agence Française de Développement (AFD) has likewise expanded its lending, often via its private-sector arm Proparco, under what President Macron calls a “policy of results” approach. “The ambition of this strategic plan is [for AFD] to become a platform for development policy,” Rémy Rioux has said, describing AFD’s evolution beyond traditional aid. AFD now provides billions in low-interest loans for infrastructure and climate programmes, blending French funds with multilateral and private money.

Germany’s KfW Development Bank and its investment subsidiary DEG follow a similar model, financing everything from solar parks to microfinance institutions in developing markets. Even smaller donors have set up investment vehicles — Switzerland’s SIFEM fund, for instance, takes equity stakes in emerging market SMEs. Increasingly, European aid is less about writing checks than structuring deals. As Rioux explains, “Development financing is undergoing a major transformation… Investment has another advantage: it’s built for the long term. It creates lasting partnerships, allows us to track tangible impacts, and demonstrates returns… far more effective and convincing than traditional public aid”. In his view, and that of many peers, mobilising “sustainable resources” through investment is the only way to meet 21st-century challenges as government grants stagnate.

Critically, Europe’s new approach isn’t just about altruism — it’s about mutual gain. Donor governments are so unabashed that they expect strategic payoffs. “International cooperation is not just an act of global solidarity,” says Enabel chief Jean Van Wetter, whose Belgian agency increasingly ties aid to domestic interests. “It is a strategic investment that will bring numerous benefits to Belgium, its businesses and its citizens… By encouraging stability, growth and sustainability in partner countries, Belgium strengthens its own security, economy and international reputation”. This “good for them, good for us” philosophy now permeates European development strategy. Nowhere is it clearer than the European Union’s flagship Global Gateway initiative — a €300 billion plan unveiled in 2021 to fund infrastructure in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Billed as Europe’s answer to China’s Belt and Road, Global Gateway explicitly seeks “mutually beneficial partnerships” that serve development needs and boost the EU’s strategic autonomy. Projects range from African internet connectivity (benefiting EU telecom firms) to renewable energy grids that could one day supply Europe. “We are moving away from traditional development to mutually beneficial partnerships,” the EU’s development commissioner’s office said, underscoring that the old donor-recipient dynamic is being replaced with joint ventures.

Ripple Effects on Poor Countries

Europe’s pivot has profound implications for countries on the receiving end. In the short term, budget cuts are already being felt in vulnerable communities. Programmes that tackle poverty and disease — but yield no financial return — face an uncertain future. Global health initiatives, in particular, are reeling. Several of Europe’s biggest aid donors have been mainstays of funding for vaccines, HIV treatment, and health systems in Africa. Now, those budgets are shrinking just as need remains high. “Some of Europe’s biggest global health funders are slashing their aid budgets, which health groups fear could spell catastrophe for countries reliant on foreign cash to combat malaria, HIV, tuberculosis,” reports Euronews. Because Europeans are turning inward, health programmes that saved millions of lives may lose support. In 2023, about 10% of European ODA went to global health. Still, going forward, that share must compete with climate projects and private-sector loans for a “shrinking pot of money”. “Many lives are at stake,” warns Dr Michael Charles, head of a major anti-malaria partnership, describing the situation as “quite dire” in countries where donor-backed health services are now at risk.

Lower-income countries could also struggle to attract the kind of private investment Europe is now favouring. The pivot to loans and equity tends to favour middle-income states or commercially viable ventures — where investors see a reasonable chance of returns. Poorer nations, or social sectors like basic education, may be left behind because they offer little profit. Aid advocates note that European funds are flowing increasingly to regions of strategic interest (for example, North Africa for migration control or Ukraine, which alone absorbed nearly €19 billion of EU institutions’ aid in 2023 (Donor Profile: EUI)). Meanwhile, the share going to the least-developed countries has been “trending downward since 2017”. If this continues, the world’s poorest countries may face a double blow: less grant money and limited access to investment capital. Those who do take on more loans could risk new debt burdens down the line. “We have to ensure no one is left behind as we shift to finance and investment,” cautions one development official, noting that purely market-driven aid could bypass fragile states that need help most.

On the other hand, some developing nation leaders welcome the rhetoric of partnership over patronage. African governments have long bristled at the demeaning connotations of “aid” and have called for “trade, not aid” for decades. They see opportunity in Europe’s investment pivot — if it delivers real infrastructure and business growth. In their view, being treated as an investment destination, not a charity case, is a step toward equality. However, they also emphasise that partnerships must be genuine. At a recent EU-Africa forum, several African presidents pointedly rejected mere “EU charity”, saying Europe should address structural imbalances in trade and invest in African value chains rather than offer handouts as a way to buy political favours. In practice, the jury is still out on whether Europe’s new model will benefit developing nations or mainly serve Europe’s interests.

A New Hybrid Model — End of Aid as We Know It?

Is this the end of traditional aid? In many respects, yes. Europe’s development assistance is becoming inseparable from its economic and geopolitical strategy. Whereas 20th-century aid often aimed to foster development for its own sake — rooted in post-colonial moral duty or Cold War diplomacy — 21st-century aid from Europe is increasingly transactional. Grants with no strings attached give way to loans, equity investments, and deals tied to policy conditions (migration management, economic reforms, climate goals). The old model of wealthy nations simply donating money is fading. “The old model of public development aid is disappearing and must be replaced by sustainable and inclusive investment,” says AFD’s Rémy Rioux, who argues that virtually all stakeholders now “agree that we need to rethink the model”. European officials often bristle at the word “aid” altogether. They prefer terms like “cooperation,” “partnership,” and “investment.”

Yet this is not so much an end as an evolution into a hybrid model. Europe isn’t abandoning poorer countries; it is just engaging on different terms. In place of one-way charity, it envisions joint ventures — what one Belgian policy paper calls “reciprocity-based development”. Even as budgets tighten, Europe is leveraging other tools to stay involved abroad: development banks, venture funds, risk guarantees, and diplomatic agreements linking aid to trade. In effect, official development assistance is blended with foreign and commercial policies. It’s no coincidence that the UK merged its aid agency into its diplomatic service or that the EU’s development projects now fall under a strategy explicitly tied to European industrial and security interests. As the European Council concluded its next budget, the goal is to “ensure the [aid] budget advances the EU’s strategic priorities, which are increasingly shaped by domestic interests such as competitiveness, access to raw materials, migration, and security.” This signals a permanent change in mindset.

Whether this new approach can deliver positive results for developing nations remains an open question. Optimists argue that by making development cooperation more about business and mutual gain, Europe will sustain political support and unlock larger pools of money than stagnant aid budgets could. They point to initiatives like Global Gateway and say that if Europe invests smartly in emerging economies, it can help build sustainable industries (from African solar farms to Southeast Asian supply chains) that benefit everyone. Sceptics, however, worry that something fundamental is lost when self-interest justifies aid. There are fears that vital but unprofitable work — fighting extreme poverty, tackling malnutrition, bolstering primary healthcare — will fall by the wayside. They note that global pandemics or climate change require outright grants and global solidarity, not investments that expect a financial return.

European officials insist they are not retreating from global development, just modernising their approach. “France is not stepping back from its international role,” Rioux insists, citing Europe’s $150 billion collective development contribution — roughly three times the U.S. level. But he and others acknowledge the need to “build a more resilient and efficient model” that can withstand domestic political winds. That model increasingly blurs the line between aid and business. It treats poorer countries less as beneficiaries and more as partners — or, in some cases, markets. The Wall Street Journal once dubbed this trend “aid as investment”, and today it’s an apt description of Europe’s new paradigm. Traditional aid may not be entirely dead, but it has undeniably been subsumed into a broader strategy of strategic partnerships.

As Europe resets its development playbook, the world is watching to see if this grand experiment produces genuine development — or if “mutual benefit” mostly benefits the donor. For millions in Africa, Asia, and beyond who have depended on European aid, the hope is that this new era will bring a different rhetoric and tangible progress. If Europe’s investments can drive growth and stability in poorer nations while satisfying European taxpayers, it could herald a new global development model for the 21st century. If not, retreating from traditional aid could leave a void that other powers — or crises — will fill. The only certainty is that Europe’s role in international development is changing profoundly, in real-time, trading in the old charity mindset for something more hard-nosed and, it believes, sustainable for the long haul.

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For example, where do we get all of our aspirin tablets that we take for a variety of ailments or pain? Despite the brand on the packaging, aspirin is not a US product, so where are these tablets manufactured? The Bitterfeld Supply Center in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany, is one of the biggest aspirin production plants internationally and is still used by Bayer. Other medications may include components made in Spain as well as those from other nations, including China.

For example, with an annual production of 120 billion pills, China provides the vast majority of the aspirin sold in North America. Omeprazole and simvastatin are two other commonly used medications that are frequently imported from India.

Regarding health, there are many options outside of conventional treatment. These include complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Cancer patients may find relief from nausea, pain, and exhaustion, as well as from the worry and anxiety that comes with their treatments, when they take part in alternative means.

On the other hand, when modern medicine fails to alleviate a patient’s symptoms — for example, in the case of advanced cancer or emerging infectious diseases — people turn more to traditional treatments. Also, most people think that traditional medications are harmless because they are all-natural. It is standard practice to combine herbs with other herbs, prescription or OTC pharmaceuticals, or other drugs. Therefore, this may not be the case and may cause additional medical problems.

Traditional medicine is often preferred because it is less expensive, aligns better with the patient’s ideology, addresses concerns about chemical (synthetic) side effects, provides more personalized care, and makes health information more accessible to the public. Herbal medicines are primarily prescribed to treat non-life-threatening, long-term health issues rather than acute, life-threatening ones.

If tariffs enter the picture in terms of pharmaceuticals and the pricing is also increased, there may be a resurgence of the use of more traditional forms of medications. Some major pharmaceutical firms have indicated that they will build new production facilities in the United States to avoid tariff-increased prices.

The Continuing Role of Herbal Medicines

A wide range of acute and chronic diseases, as well as a number of maladies and difficulties, including but not limited to cardiovascular disease, prostate issues, depression, inflammation, and immune system boosters, are treated with the use of herbs. In China, traditional herbal treatments were a key component of the plan to control and cure SARS in 2003, and in Africa, a flower has been used for decades to treat wasting signs caused by HIV.

In Europe, herbal medicines are also widely available; Germany and France sell more herbal over-the-counter medicines than any other European country. In most industrialized nations, herbal teas, essential oils, and extracts are offered alongside conventional medications. As researchers continue to explore the world of traditional medicines, they have found some crucial herbal ingredients that are amenable to new pharmaceuticals.

And, traditional medicines have been a part of the Native American tribes’ cultures, where the use of herbs was the basis for many health issues. For pain relief, Native Americans chewed willow bark. Aspirin, the most widely used medicine in the world, was discovered in 1897 using salicin, the main element in the bark. (Salicin is a building block of salicylic acid, the main component of most over-the-counter shampoos and treatments for acne and dandruff.)

Native Americans understood the rationale behind vaccines, which is to prevent disease by exposing the body to a weakened form of the infectious agent. According to Dr. Sophie E. Neuner, a research associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, indigenous communities sometimes self-inoculate by taking tiny doses of drugs, which help to mitigate the negative effects of higher doses.

Therefore, there has always been a place for traditional medicines, worldwide and, if tariffs present a financial burden to some groups of people, the tendency will probably be to try traditional medicines once again. That is not to say that there will not be a continuing use of these medicines, but it is more prevalent these days to use prescription pharmaceuticals rather than herbal remedies.

I know that in my family, my grandfather, who was a pharmacy intern at one time, did provide us with traditional cures for fevers and upset stomach. Will tariffs turn the tide from pharmaceuticals to traditional medicines? The question is waiting to be answered.

The post Tariffs Can Upset the World of Healthcare and Medications appeared first on Medika Life.

According to a Commonwealth Fund report, the US ranks last among high-income countries in healthcare access, efficiency, and equity. Our health system has vast potential and can achieve Moonshot-like outcomes, but it still struggles to address people’s day-to-day needs.

The world’s largest health ecosystem comprises five fundamental stakeholders — patients, payers, product innovators, policymakers, and providers. And while they should work in harmony, they remain primarily disconnected, operating in silos with financial performance as the measure of success. With the fear of economic failure nipping its leaders’ heels, the system prioritizes fiscal responsibility over patients’ healthy longevity. It leads to a “sick-are” over healthcare strategic mindset.

A System Disconnected

While medicine is a “team-support,” the health industry positions its sectors like boxers — each pitted against the other. The concept of a fragmented health system is not new. Nearly 20 years ago, Dr. Alain C. Enthoven, a renowned health economist, argued that the US health sector suffered from a fundamental lack of coordination and misaligned incentives, leading to inefficiencies that primarily burden patients.

In her book Fragmented, Ilana Yurkiewicz, MD, illustrates the real-world consequences of this disconnect. Patients often find themselves bouncing between specialists dedicated to one piece of their patient’s anatomy, grappling with conflicting medical advice, and navigating a bureaucratic maze that often results in disparate, delayed, or denied care.

Economic pressures fueling consolidations and layoffs have led major players to go slow on much-needed ambitious health information initiatives. The much-heralded digital transformation, which promises AI-driven operational efficiency, seamless data exchange, and improved patient outcomes, remains unrealized.

Meanwhile, patients are finding themselves trapped in a complex, hard-to-navigate medical maze where medical records are often inaccessible, treatment plans are inconsistent, payer decisions feel opaque, and pricing remains elusive. The effect is profoundly dehumanizing.

The Patient is Out of the Picture

Financial pressures outweigh the fundamental goal of healing, and the loss of patient focus and a significant decline in empathy remain the system’s most glaring obstacles. This absurd reality is captured in a satirical moment from Yes Minister, where a lawmaker appointed by the UK Prime Minister visits an award-winning hospital — shockingly operating without patients. While comedic, the scene reflects an all-too-real aspect of modern health systems. Administrative structures, insurance approvals, and reimbursement models dictate operations, often sidelining the very individuals who seek care and healing.

As economic priorities continue to reshape industry, hospitals that once promised solutions struggle to sustain themselves, leaving patients increasingly marginalized. While improving patient outcomes should be the central focus of government policymakers, they too often become secondary considerations.

As the US Congress considers budget decisions, cutting Medicaid state subsidies does not mean economically struggling patients will be denied urgent care. Instead, when they seek treatment in the ER, hospitals will absorb the cost. This shifts the financial burden, further straining healthcare systems already operating on razor-thin margins.

Doctor Burnout: Primary Symptom of a Broken System

Physicians enter medicine purpose-centered with a desire to heal, yet the system relentlessly applies administrative and financial pressures that shift their attention elsewhere. Many doctors experience burnout, driven by excessive paperwork, prior authorization hurdles, and unrealistic patient quotas. According to a Mayo Clinic Proceedings study, nearly 63% of physicians report signs of burnout, including emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.

Designed to streamline care, electronic medical records (EMRs) are still a significant source of frustration. Physicians spend hours dealing with complex interfaces rather than engaging with patients. The demand to see more patients in less time — dictated by billing and reimbursement structures — further erodes the doctor-patient relationship, leading to dissatisfaction on both sides.

A 2023 survey by the Primary Care Collaborative and the Larry A. Green Center found that 62% of primary care physicians report not having enough time to adequately meet patients’ needs, which impacts treatment and preventive care discussions.

This dissatisfaction manifests as a breakdown in communication. While effective dialogue between providers and patients across specialties and within the broader health ecosystem is essential for treatment and prevention, patients and physicians struggle to find time to connect.

Burnout is not simply a professional hurdle; it’s a crisis that directly affects patient outcomes. Overworked, exhausted doctors are likelier to make errors, experience lower job satisfaction, and even leave the profession altogether. If the system fails to address professional despair and its causes, the shortage of health professionals will only worsen, limiting access and compromising care.

The Business of Health Over the Health of People

While business considerations shouldn’t take precedence over people, the financial structures underpinning the health sector drive decision-making that deemphasizes people’s health. The silos within the health ecosystem exacerbate this issue, preventing a shared understanding of economic and operational realities, limiting coordinated action and shifting the focus away from the patient.

Insurers prioritize cost control without recognizing the pressures this places on providers. Pharmaceutical companies innovate without fully considering how reimbursement models shape prescribing behaviors. Policymakers create regulations with a limited understanding of their clinical innovation impact. This lack of cross-sector awareness perpetuates fragmentation and inefficiency, and patients ultimately pay the price.

Digital health companies, once hailed as the future of care efficiency and effectiveness, are struggling with financial sustainability, forcing many to pivot or shut down entirely. Biopharmaceutical companies triage drug development pipelines, looking for future medicines with a high probability of regulatory success rather than encouraging research that may fail but illuminate a pathway to even more significant discoveries. Again, it is the patient who pays the price.

The Cost of Failing to Invest in Care and Caring

There is enough blame to go around, and we must stop looking for a convenient villain. If we attack one piece of the ecosystem rather than look at the totality of our problem, we will fail to make meaningful changes.

We can’t throw our health system out and start from scratch; we must find a way to work within and through it effectively. The primary lever that will drive reform of the health system and improve its functioning is bringing everything back into empathetic focus, with the patient at the center of care. Whether we are payers, product innovators, policymakers or providers, we must ask if our actions are built on a foundation of empathy — from heartfelt “care.” First and foremost, we must cooperate in the service of the patient.

The health sector is an industry, but it must be more than that. At its core, it should recognize that we are always people — only sometimes patients. Yet, financial pressures have overtaken its fundamental purpose: healing. This system-wide disconnect erodes trust, drives up costs, and leaves too many without the care they need. Until the key players in the health ecosystem realign around a unified, patient-centered mission, fragmentation will persist, outcomes will fall short, and lives will remain at risk. The stakes are too high to accept anything less.

Unless we build on a foundation based on “how would I feel” empathy, our system will not be built to last. It will be structured to fail.

The post Business of Health: When Patients Become Secondary to the System appeared first on Medika Life.

Representatives from over 170 nations gathered in late November with hopes of formulating a robust plan to tackle the spiralling plastic waste crisis. However, the talks ended amidst entrenched divisions, delaying a resolution many consider critical to the planet’s future.

Diverging Visions

At the heart of the negotiations lay a chasm between two factions: the “high-ambition” coalition of over 100 countries advocating for legally binding limits on plastic production and oil-producing nations, along with some developing states, who resisted such measures. “The objective of this treaty is to end plastic pollution, not plastic itself,” declared Kuwait’s negotiator, encapsulating the resistance to production caps from nations heavily reliant on the oil and petrochemical industries.

Plastic production, which has soared from two million tonnes in 1950 to over 400 million tonnes annually today, is projected to double by 2040. This trajectory threatens to exacerbate environmental degradation and could constitute 15% of global carbon emissions by mid-century.

Frustration and Resolve

The failure to produce a treaty text has drawn sharp criticism. Campaigners decried the lack of progress, with Sean Savett, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, lamenting how “a small group of countries and producers stood in the way of progress to protect their profits.” Such sentiments echoed a broader frustration with corporations that continue to prioritise recycled plastics over more sustainable, reusable alternatives. Coca-Cola, for instance, recently abandoned its commitment to 25% reusable packaging by 2030, drawing accusations of “greenwashing” from activists.

Despite the disappointment, some observers are cautiously optimistic. Sr. Patty Johnson, attending on behalf of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, remarked, “I had a general sense that everyone agreed this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The challenge lies in how ambition is defined.”

The Path Forward

The incomplete negotiations underscore the complexity of addressing a problem deeply intertwined with global economics, environmental health, and corporate interests. Plastic’s lifecycle, from production to waste management, remains contentious. While some nations champion comprehensive measures encompassing production, use, and disposal, others favour a narrower focus on waste management and recycling.

Adding to the challenge, microplastics and their effects on health and ecosystems intensify the urgency for action. Research linking microplastics to severe health risks, including heart attacks and strokes, has only amplified calls for decisive intervention.

Still, progress, albeit incremental, has been made. Key elements of a treaty framework, such as a financial mechanism to support implementation (which could involve a global fund for plastic pollution reduction) and criteria for regulating specific polymers (which could include setting limits on the use of certain types of plastic), are taking shape. Negotiators are expected to reconvene in 2025 to build on these foundations.

Reimagining Solutions

A shift in the narrative around plastics is essential to achieve meaningful change. Von Hernandez of Break Free from Plastic encapsulated the issue, criticising corporations for perpetuating single-use culture: “Recycled single-use items still pollute the environment. The focus must be on reuse and reduction at the source.”

Incentivising innovation in alternative materials, expanding reusable systems, and integrating scientific research into policymaking could pave the way for more sustainable practices. However, bridging the gap between nations’ varied economic dependencies and environmental goals will require exceptional diplomacy and commitment.

A Global Imperative

Plastic pollution transcends borders, washing up on remote island shores and infiltrating the deepest ocean trenches. While the Busan talks fell short of expectations, they underscored the shared recognition that a global solution is imperative. “We have not yet reached the summit of our efforts,” affirmed Luis Vayas, Ecuador’s vice minister of foreign affairs and negotiations chair. His words reflect the determination of many to persist despite the obstacles.

The road to a global plastics treaty may be fraught with challenges, but it remains a journey worth taking. The stakes — ecological integrity, public health, and the sustainability of our planet — demand nothing less than a collective and unwavering resolve.

The post Plastic Treaty Talks: A Stumble on the Path to Progress appeared first on Medika Life.

I have no idea what the outcome of this very close election will be. I do, however, have a fix on several of the ways health care played a role in the election and in campaign strategy. It won’t change much by election day.

With no big health reform debate to command the attention of the nation and no big health proposal from either candidate, this is not a “health care election,” except, of course, for the impact abortion will have on voting and turnout, whatever the outcome on November 5.

But health care has played a role in the campaign and the election in the following significant ways.

First and foremost, voter concerns about their medical bills are an integral part of their worries about the economy and their costs, mixed in with general inflation and other pocketbook issues such as food, gas prices, and the rent or the mortgage. Most national polls continue to miss this, treating health care as a separate issue. When you treat health care as a stand-alone issue, it ranks as a fairly low priority. However, out-of-pocket health care costs and worries about unexpected medical bills are a big part of the public’s economic worries. Exit polls have made the same mistake. Determining the role health plays on voters’ decisions requires an extra question, which takes time that short polls often do not have. The question that needs to be asked is a variation on this follow-up: “You said the economy was your number one concern. What about the economy most worries you?” The question can be open ended, or respondents can be given a list to choose from. There are arguments for either approach.

The advantage Vice President Harris and the Democrats have on health has also had an impact on former President Trump and his campaign strategy. He has generally backed off plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), saying various things, including recently that he has “concepts of a plan,” but mostly protesting that he now wants to “make the ACA better” with no specifics. He’s also pledged that he will not cut Medicare (no such pledge on Medicaid). And he backtracked on his earlier, more bullish positions on drug costs, going silent on his plan to tie drug costs in the U.S. to what other countries pay, apparently wanting to stay away from even popular health proposals. Overall, he has ceded health care to Harris, likely wary that she will get traction with criticisms that he would take health coverage away from millions and weaken protections for pre-existing conditions.

Harris has taken the opposite approach on the issue that Trump has about an equivalent advantage on—immigration—by taking the offensive to try to close the gap. And she has tried to do the same on the economy with some success, according to several recent polls. (Of course, positions taken in campaigns do not necessarily presage positions a candidate will take if elected.)

The sweeping proposals made by several conservative think tanks to fundamentally change Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA have been swept under the rug by the Trump campaign, even as Democrats have had some success making Project 2025 a symbol of right-wing extremism. That doesn’t mean the candidate and his administration will not embrace some elements of these plans if elected or appoint some of their architects to high positions. It is, however, a notable element of the campaign, and an acknowledgment that these ideas are a target for Democrats and that Trump and his campaign know that many of them would be controversial and unpopular.

Senator JD Vance’s brief and somewhat vague foray into segmenting healthy and sick people into separate risk pools as an alternative to ACA protections for people with pre-existing conditions was treated by Trump almost the same way he treated the think tank plans: he ignored it. It was as if health had become radioactive for Trump, who campaigned on other issues, including immigration, which he saw as more favorable to him.

Health might have been more of an important issue in the campaign if differences between the candidates and the parties on converting Medicare to a voucher-like, premium support plan, or Medicaid to a block grant to the states, were clarified for voters by the candidates themselves, the debate moderators, or the media generally. Debate moderators focused more on the ACA, likely because of the drama associated with Trump’s earlier attempts to repeal it. Had Trump been forced to choose between embracing or rejecting either of these big and controversial policy proposals, it would have elevated health in the campaign and might have been a flashpoint.

The Democratic left’s concern that Trump might be elected has led them to hold fire on pushing for the more expansive health reform proposals they favor, instead supporting President Biden’s more moderate, incremental policies, and subsequently, the proposals made by Vice President Harris. Should Harris prevail, expect the left to feel less constrained and to hear again about Medicare for All, the public option, Medicare Buy-In, and other policies favored by the left. Passage of legislation on these ideas, or others, is an entirely different matter, especially if Congress is divided.

Harris’s new proposal to add a home care benefit to Medicare may find favor with some elderly and near elderly voters, especially senior women or their family members. That’s one thing to watch as the voters go to the polls. The idea should be popular unless voters come to doubt that Harris can deliver. So far Harris has proposed popular benefits such as extending the $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug costs and the $35 monthly cap on Insulin to the private sector, and she has endorsed continuing the enhanced ACA subsidies. She has avoided proposals that would inflame the powerful health care industry, such as extending drug price negotiation to employer coverage.

These are some of the ways in which health care and health care costs have played a role in the presidential campaign. It’s certainly true that health care has not been decisive in this election, but it has played a role, and always will.

View all of Drew’s Beyond the Data Columns

The post The Role Health PLAYED in the Election appeared first on Medika Life.

Climate change is the worst crisis humanity is currently facing. The evidence is clear with the stark differences in climate-related incidents across the globe. While Dubai received torrential rainfall, causing flash floods, people across various parts of Asia are grappling with heatwaves, leading to severe water shortages, with poorer communities being the worst affected. The Earth is boiling, quite literally, and resources have been stretched to the limit as the population grows, foreshadowing devastating consequences for future generations. Public health, in particular, is reeling from this crisis as the prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases grows at a startling rate. Between 2000 and 2019, almost 489,000 people died each year due to heat-related illnesses, with 45% in Asia and 36% in Europe.[1] Rising temperatures are responsible for not just public health emergencies, they can affect health services. Public health is the first line of defense during a crisis of this magnitude, and as systems across the globe struggle to cope, the outlook seems bleak.

Disease prevention, treatment, accessibility, equity, and protection of the environment are all essential facets of health that aim to enhance the well-being of the public. The main goal of sustainability is to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of future generations. The crux of both these concepts is the adoption of holistic practices that provide long-term welfare over short-term respite. Hence, it is crucial to understand how health and sustainability go hand-in-hand to help humanity weather the current crisis.

Making health sustainable

The health sector is responsible for between 4.4% and 5.2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.[2] This creates a paradoxical situation wherein the systems created to help can harm the well-being of the public. Health services comprise energy-intensive activities, from maintaining hospitals to creating life-saving medicines. Reducing the carbon footprint would be the first step towards making health sustainable. The solutions to this problem boil down to three categories — switching to non-fossil energy, storing energy, and conserving energy. Rather than solely depending on non-renewable sources of energy, the sector must start adopting renewable sources such as wind or solar energy. This helps build resilience to adverse climate-related events and can provide a positive socioeconomic impact.

A critical aspect of health that is often overlooked is the significance of preventive care. Countries that are a part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development spend less than 3% on preventive care.[3] Prevention is important in reducing the overuse of resources in health, which can result in reducing the carbon footprint. Several short and long-term sustainability goals can be achieved through primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. A robust global vaccination programme must be implemented to decrease resource consumption. Furthermore, encouraging the public to adopt a healthy lifestyle empowers them to take an active role in enhancing their well-being.

Public health is often highly fragmented as patients may have to go to several points along the treatment pathway. Improving access to early diagnosis and providing one-stop solutions can make this process easier and more sustainable. Policymakers and other stakeholders can drive systemic change by encouraging people to adopt preventive measures to reduce the disease burden and health consumption.

There are several indirect ways in which health can become more sustainable. For instance, encouraging the adoption of telemedicine in cases where the patient does not need to be physically present. Governments must create policies that encourage the sustainable procurement of ingredients for medicines, using greener methods of transportation, embracing a circular economy, and employing safe waste disposal methods.

Public health and sustainability have a symbiotic relationship that requires our utmost attention. COVID-19 may not be the last health crisis we witness in our lifetimes. This is especially true due to climate change, which can exacerbate more than half of the known human pathogenic diseases.[4] As health communicators our task is twofold — drawing attention to the brewing health crisis while shedding light on climate change and its implications. The future hinges on sustainability and integrating it into the health system while not compromising on quality. The transition needs to start now.

[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-heat-and-health

[2] https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/confronting-health-cares-carbon-footprint#:~:text=Data%20suggest%20that%20the%20global,contribute%202%20to%205%20percent.

[3] https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/boosting-investment-in-health-systems-will-be-essential-to-deal-with-future-shocks.htm

[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01426-1

The post The intersection of Public Health and Sustainability: Why it Matters Now More Than Ever appeared first on Medika Life.

While the entire United States is still reeling in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery process has not been even nationwide. Many rural students and communities — especially certain pockets — are facing multiple crises in terms of educational loss, economic outcomes, unemployment and mental health.

Why Rural Matters 2023, the latest in a series of 10 research reports on rural education, shows that roughly 9.5 million students attend public schools in rural areas — more than 1 in 5 nationally. Nearly 1 in 7 of those rural students experience poverty, 1 in 15 lacks health insurance and 1 in 10 has changed residence in the previous 12 months. Related: STEM with a Purpose Sparked Better Learning, and a Patent, for My Rural Students

Roughly half of all rural students live in just 10 states. Texas has the largest number, followed by North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Virginia and Michigan. Texas has more rural students than the 18 states with the fewest combined.

In 13 states, at least half of public schools are rural: South Dakota, Montana, Vermont, North Dakota, Maine, Alaska, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wyoming, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Mississippi and Iowa. In 14 other states, at least one-third of all schools are rural. 

• More access to psychologists and guidance counselors is needed. In non-rural districts, there are an average of 295 students per guidance counselor or psychologist. In rural districts, the ratio increases to 310:1, with seven states (Minnesota, California, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, Indiana and Michigan) having ratios worse than 400:1. 
• More access to gifted and talented programs is needed for Black and Hispanic students in rural districts. Though 17% of students in rural schools identify as Hispanic, they represent only 9% of participants in these schools’ gifted programs. Similarly, 11% of the rural school population identifies as Black, but only 5% of the gifted student population in rural schools is Black. In contrast, 65% of rural students are white, as are 77% of participants in gifted programs. 
• Rural areas appear to offset some of the impact of poverty on educational outcomes. Overall, students experiencing poverty scored 27 points lower than their peers on the grade 8 NAEP math assessment and 22 points lower in reading; in rural schools, these differences were 22 and 18, respectively. Socioeconomic equity in reading appeared to be highest within rural schools in Arizona, Idaho, Texas and Oklahoma, and most concerning in Illinois, Mississippi and Virginia. For math, the most equitable states were Hawaii, Arizona, West Virginia and Oklahoma; the least equitable states were Colorado and Louisiana.
• Many rural areas continue to lack basic internet access. The pandemic made clear that adequate internet connectivity is essential to equitable education opportunities. However, 13% of rural households lack minimum broadband connection for streaming educational videos or engaging with virtual classrooms. In six states, more than 1 in 6 rural households doesn’t have at least a basic broadband connection: New Mexico (21.4%), Mississippi (20.6%), Alabama (18.9%), West Virginia (17.5%), Arkansas (17.4%) and Louisiana (17.2%). 
• Students in rural districts are more likely to graduate high school than their non-rural counterparts. In the majority of states with enough rural students to make data available, (34 of 46), rural students graduate at rates higher than their non-rural peers. Despite facing a range of spatial inequities, the unique strengths of rural areas —such as smaller schools and close community ties — combined to create graduation advantages of at least 5 percentage points in Nebraska, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.  
• Many states provide a disproportionately larger share of school funding for rural districts because of the higher relative costs of running rural schools. Fourteen states, however, devote disproportionately less: Nebraska has the greatest disparity, followed by Vermont, Rhode Island, Iowa, Delaware, South Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts and Minnesota. 
• Rural school districts in Delaware, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Nevada are the most racially diverse in the United States. In these states, two students chosen at random from a school in a rural district are more likely than not to be of a different race or ethnicity. 
• Communities surrounding schools in rural districts on average have a household income of nearly three times the poverty line. Rates were lowest in New Mexico (1.85) and highest in Connecticut (5.32).

As post-pandemic recovery continues, states and local districts must reevaluate what it means to provide a public education that meets student and family needs and prepares young people for life beyond pre-K-12 schooling (including college and career readiness and engaged citizenship). These challenges are widespread but are most intense in the Southeast, Southwest and Appalachia. What is needed is the will to address them.

The post New Report Shows Millions of Rural Students Facing Multiple Crises after COVID appeared first on Medika Life.

Covid vaccines are 98% percent effective at preventing infection and transmission.

Remember that statement? It was drummed into us as we were locked away. Later, as the efficacy percentages dropped, month to month, our livelihoods and access to basics like foodstuffs and accommodation became dependent on accepting a treatment that many were beginning to suspect wasn’t “as described” on the package insert. If one could be found anywhere.

Now, in 2023, in what can loosely be described as a post-pandemic phase, the lies continue. Despite glaring warnings from people in the know that mRNA can indeed transcribe itself into our DNA, thanks to DNA contamination (intentional or otherwise) of the vaccines that exceeds recognized safety levels by a number of factors, we still persist in the lie. That Covid vaccines are safe.

The world, or at least those who care to research the issue properly, know otherwise, and yet, the entire medical and scientific complex continues to promote mRNA vaccines, encouraging parents to vaccinate children as young as six months.

Can we trust science?

That’s the million dollar question and science seems hell bent on convincing us to the contrary. Little wonder then, that climate change skepticism is on the rise. Why would we trust the same community that propagated a half-truth for the duration of the pandemic and still, pathetically clings to it, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary?

I tend to look at evidence and data when evaluating a claim, and I must admit that in the past I placed a lot of faith in the medical community and science itself. What benefit, to the community, I asked myself, to propagate a lie? It turns out, my base assumption was both flawed and naïve, and for one simple reason. Science no longer exists solely for the purposes of advancing knowledge.

Clinical studies, long seen as the hallmark of evidence-based medicine, can be corrupted and data coerced to produce the desired results. No medical journal or publication escapes this insidious coercion of science. While I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories, it’s when science and politics converge, it’s challenging to determine who is believable. Science must return promptly to its historic mission to explore and publish untainted data.

Disinformation is blamed for increased climate skepticism, but in truth, the root of the blame lies squarely at the door of science. They have misled us, been caught in the lie, and despite this, still persist. It is therefore little wonder that the continuous deluge of news relating to climate change and our impending doom is greeted with growing skepticism.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Science must recognize that its absolute trust has been shattered. How do we believe in the urgencies of public health when we question the source of the information? Science and its advocates must revisit how to regain public confidence.

So is Climate Change real?

Undoubtedly. Our planet is warming. We know the earth is subject to cycles of hot and cold, and we’re headed into a hot one What role we play, if any, in accelerating this process is still largely debatable, and given the length of records we have access to, we can hardly make accurate predictions. 300 years pales in comparison to the planet’s billion year old history. Its been around awhile and undoubtedly will be here after our demise.

Science would you have you believe you are completely responsible for this natural cycle. Our role in speeding up the process is unknown and anyone who can claim to know otherwise is simply selling you snake oil.

What is true however is that we are polluting our natural resources. Plastics are contaminating every corner of the earth and we are endangering our access to clean drinking water. Unlike the occasional heat wave, potable drinking water is key to human survival, so in the end, the argument may be moot.

We won’t be around to see the poles covered in tropical vegetation.

The post Covid’s Impact on Climate Change and Health appeared first on Medika Life.

In an effort to get ahead of a potential tripledemic this winter of COVID-19, flu, and RSV that could overwhelm hospitals, health officials have re-booted an important program: making COVID test kits free again. Those kits will be available by mail to households starting September 25.

Next comes the hard part: convincing enough people to get the kits and then persuading them to follow quarantine guidelines if they or their family members get sick.

This is not the time to roll out stale messaging delivered by a carousel of health officials trying to convince the public to get the test kits. Americans are weary of being told to keep their guard up against a disease that many view as more of an inconvenience than a threat. If the sales pitch to get the kits is off, health officials may find that the test kits no longer serve as an effective public health tool. Instead, they could become another partisan symbol of perceived government overreach, further impeding people’s freedom to live as they want.

In short, we have a messaging challenge ahead of us, and if we haven’t taken to heart the lessons learned during the worst early days of the pandemic, we’re doomed to repeat mistakes that cost lives.

How can we be more thoughtful about containing COVID and other dangerous diseases? To generate greater public compliance for fighting an endemic disease, communicators must provide a credible and compelling case of the risk of inaction and convince people that ignorance – of not knowing your infection status – is greater than the cost of knowing. These can be very high bars to clear since people have different thresholds for risk and for being informed.

It’s likely we won’t clear those hurdles with the roll-out of the free test kits. Because the perceived risk of COVID-19 infection and severity is low, many people have adopted a “no test, no stress” attitude, especially in light of the potential personal disruption that COVID infection causes. It’s a dangerous direction and one of the reasons why we will continue to see cases spike.

For communicators to overcome the twin challenges of infection risk perception and status aversion, they must use convert communicators – people who are credible to specific audiences and have changed their views to support disease intervention. There is mounting data showing that people who identified as Republicans were far likelier to get infected by COVID and die from the disease than those from left-leaning political parties. Messaging that taps into this research could point to breaking through to these audiences.

Successful public health interventions rely on a strong majority of the population participating in disease mitigation efforts, which means spotlighting conservative voters who see the value of COVID testing and can serve as credible messengers to similarly ideologically inclined individuals. This is where digital storytelling, data visualization and engagement of champions outside of the health sector can be potent measures to build the case for supporting new public health tools.   

It is also important to truly understand the pain points that different audience segments cite as reasons for not wanting to know their infection status and to provide targeted counterpoints. Most people can’t afford to miss work, even with a mild case, and families can be heavily impacted when a parent must choose between going to work or keeping their kids home. In these and other scenarios, the test result becomes the thing people may begin to dread more than the disease itself.

To ensure that people do not feel like they must choose between a host of the least bad options when COVID comes to their home, the government must consider new incentives for reporting positive test results and adhering to public health guidelines. These can range from reinstituting protected sick leave that was available as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) during the pandemic to encouraging more employers to use the tax credits available through the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) to reimburse for employee sick leave. Without putting these and other options on the table, people will feel penalized even when they do the right thing.

The post It’s Time to Up Our Messaging Game Ahead of Another Winter with COVID appeared first on Medika Life.