(AP) -- The Census Bureau reports that the number of people lacking health insurance dropped by more than 1 million in 2007, the first annual decline since the Bush administration took office.
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It's time to make sure all children have health care
The current economic downturn has many faces, including those of children. Economic indicators show that the worst of the recession may be yet to come and many economists are predicting that the unemployment rate will rise to as much as 9 percent next year. If that occurs, approximately 3 million additional children will fall into poverty, with many losing their health-care coverage.
Three billion Asians face food crisis threat: research
(PhysOrg.com) -- The escalating cost of rice and other foodstuffs across Asia could cause the reversal of policy reforms, social unrest and deepening poverty for over 3 billion Asians – according to new research.
Extra cash from government program linked to higher risk of adult obesity
While a poverty-alleviation program launched by the Mexican government that has been modeled in the United States and around the world has led to improved health and cognition outcomes in children, a new study by University of California, Berkeley, researchers says that the cash component of the program has a downside for adults.
NTDs burden in Latin America and the Caribbean may exceed that of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria
According to a new analysis published September 24th in the open-access journal
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, "The Neglected Tropical Diseases of Latin America and the Caribbean: A Review of Disease Burden and Distribution and a Roadmap for Control And Elimination,", neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as a group may have surpassed HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as the most prevalent infectious diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean. The analysis found that NTDs are the most common infections of approximately 200 million of the poorest people in the region. They include tens of millions of cases of intestinal worm infections, and almost 10 million cases of Chagas disease, as well as schistosomiasis, trachoma, dengue fever, leishmaniasis, lymphatic filariasis (LF), and onchocerciasis.
Malaria Millennium Development Goal 'unlikely to be met'
The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria globally is unlikely to be met, according to Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow Professor Bob Snow. The statement comes in a report published today in the open access journal
PLoS Medicine.
Uninsured kids in middle class have same unmet needs as poor
Nationwide, uninsured children in families earning between $38,000 and $77,000 a year are just as likely to go without any health care as uninsured children in poorer families. More than 40 percent of children in those income brackets who are uninsured all year see no physicians and have no prescriptions all year, according to new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Sub-Saharan Africa: the population emergency
Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing phenomenal population growth since the beginning of the XXth Century, following several centuries of population stagnation attributable to the slave trade and colonization. The region’s population in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to 770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations projections, published in March 2007, envisaged a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being reached between the present and 2050.
Birth defects jump in China
China experienced a 40 percent jump in babies born with "visible deformities" from 2001 to 2006, with the number now reaching up to 300,000 annually.