Approximately 95% of households in Mozambique burn solid fuels for cooking, contributing to elevated indoor and outdoor fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) concentrations and subsequent health and climate impacts. Little is known about the potential health and climate benefits of various approaches for expanding the use of cleaner stoves and fuels in Mozambique. We use state-of-thescience methods to provide a first-order estimation of potential air pollution-related health and climate benefits of four illustrative scenarios in which traditional cooking fires and stoves are displaced by cleaner and more efficient technologies. For rural areas, we find that a 10% increase in the number of households using forced draft wood-burning stoves could achieve >2.5 times more health benefits from reduced PM 2.5 exposure (200 avoided premature deaths and 14 000 avoided disability adjusted life years, DALYs, over a three-year project lifetime) compared to natural draft stoves in the same households, assuming 70% of households use the new technology for both cases. Expanding use of LPG stoves to 10% of households in five major cities is estimated to avoid 160 premature deaths and 11 000 DALYs from reduced PM 2.5 exposure for a three-year intervention, assuming 60% of households use the new stove. Advanced charcoal stoves would achieve ∽80% of the PM 2.5 -related health benefits of LPG stoves. Approximately 2%-5% additional health benefits would result from reduced ambient PM 2.5 , depending on the scenario. Although climate impacts are uncertain, we estimate that all scenarios would reduce expected climate change-related temperature increases from continued solid fuel use by 4%-6% over the next century. All results are based on an assumed adjustment factor of 0.8 to convert from laboratory-based emission reduction measurements to exposure reductions, which could be optimistic in reality given potential for continued use of the traditional stove. We conclude that cleaner cooking stoves in Mozambique can achieve health and climate benefits, though both are uncertain and local information about baseline and intervention PM 2.5 exposure levels are needed. a Derived from percentage PM 2.5 emissions reduced (per HH) multiplied by the 0.8 adjustment factor to convert to exposure reduction. b Assumed maintenance cost only for RND and RFD (fuel collected and not purchased), and for UMC scenarios (fuel use savings).Environ. Res. Lett. 12 (2017) 025006
Bipartisan governmental representatives and the public support investment in health care, housing, education, and nutrition programs, plus resources for people leaving prison and jail (Halpin, 2018; Johnson & Beletsky, 2020; USCCR, 2019). The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 banned people with felony drug convictions from receiving food stamps or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Food insecurity, recidivism, and poor mental and physical health outcomes are associated with such bans. Several states have overturned SNAP benefit bans, yet individuals with criminal convictions are still denied benefits due to eligibility criteria modifications. COVID-19 has impaired lower-income, food-insecure communities, which disproportionately absorb people released from prison and jail. Reentry support is sorely lacking. Meanwhile, COVID-19 introduces immediate novel health risks, economic insecurity, and jail and prison population reductions and early release. Thirty to 50 percent of people in prisons and jails, which are COVID-19 hotspots, have been released early (Flagg & Neff, 2020; New York Times, 2020; Vera, 2020). The Families First Coronavirus Response Act increases flexibility in providing emergency SNAP supplements and easing program administration during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommends eliminating SNAP benefit restrictions based on criminal convictions, which fail to prevent recidivism, promote public safety, or relate to underlying crimes. Policy improvements, administrative flexibility, and cross-sector collaboration can facilitate SNAP benefit access, plus safer, healthier transitioning from jail or prison to the community.
The United States has approximately 5 percent of the world's population but incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population and produces nearly 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change and hyperincarceration are causes and consequences of structural racism and economic deprivation, which disproportionately affect structurally disenfranchised citizens, including lower-income communities, communities of color, and people with disabilities. Empirical evidence exists regarding the adverse health effects of climate change and mass incarceration, which occur in cascading and overlapping categories and include preventable death, illness, and injury. Researchers underscore the medical vulnerability of incarcerated populations, who are increasingly susceptible to climate-driven exposure pathways and mental and physical health outcomes involving extreme temperatures, natural disasters, infectious diseases, and displacement. Intersectional structural drivers, such as anthropogenic climate change and hyperincarceration, undermine social and political determinants of health equity. Policymakers and health professionals can advance understanding and mitigate present and anticipated public health threats by increasing transparency, accountability, and human rights protections with an emphasis on decarceration and decarbonization.
Misinformation amplified by political elites can lead to an increase in racism and discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities and other populations who experience vulnerabilities. Politically-motivated misinformation, as observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, can have far-ranging public health consequences, including negative physical and emotional health outcomes. Misinformation, political or otherwise, and racist rhetoric must be categorically rejected. Scientists and the general public have a moral duty to advocate against and repudiate the racialization of disease and racist speech in all forms (Yore, 2020).
World Health Organization (WHO) estimates indicate the United States of America has the highest novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) burden in the world, with over 5 million confirmed cases and nearly 165,000 associated deaths as of August 14th, 2020 (WHO 2020). As the COVID-19 mortality and morbidity has disproportionately impacted populations who experience vulnerabilities due to structural issues such as racism (Laurencin and McClinton 2020; Lin II and Money 2020; Martin 2020; Kim et al. 2020), it has become increasingly necessary to take this opportunity and intentionally codify diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in the policymaking process. To encourage and facilitate this, we synthesize existing literature to identify best practices that can not only be used to inform COVID-19-related public policy activities but will also continue to inform inclusive policymaking processes in the future. We identify specific tools for policymakers at all levels of government to better operationalize the DEI framework and enact inclusive, equitable public policies as a result.
COVID-19 has highlighted and exacerbated many global health inequities. Emerging evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can spread through fecal aerosols, making sanitation a critical part of the COVID-19 mitigation strategy and providing an opportunity to reflect on current challenges and opportunities related to global sanitation at large. Global sanitation interventions continue to fall short of their target expectations, leading to millions of deaths and illnesses worldwide. Eurocentric approaches to sanitation fail to account for sociocultural determinants of sanitation behaviors and health, leading to low sanitation intervention uptake. Global public health needs to take a decolonial approach to our research and practice, and meaningfully involve local communities to progress towards global health equity.
One of the unintended consequences of infodemics is the subtle misinformation, especially through nonverbalized images, which often goes unexamined. In an age of (mis)infodemics, the role of news media is critical in the spread or containment of misleading information ranging from public health to religious intolerance. News media wields the power to influence public opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and even determine public agenda. News media have a history of biased reporting and influencing public opinion. Much like propaganda, it upholds status-quo perceptions on issues such as race, police brutality, terrorism, and religious bigotry. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, news media have subtly spread misleading information through story image selection, which perpetuates and exacerbates Islamophobia. We document a pattern of misleading news story images and draw from interdisciplinary research to reflect on the public health and health equity implications of the spread of such misleading information on the Muslim community in the United States. News media’s role in a free society as a neutral, transparent entity is critical that provides objective information instead of misleading stories such as sensationalized clickbait. We must hold news media to a higher standard to achieve an open, fair, and free society. News media can ‘flatten the curve’ of religious bigotry, racial biases, and misinformation by adhering to a system of accountability.
The Color of Law illustrates the history of segregation in the United States through case studies and narratives of victims of structural violence disenfranchised by racist policies and programs destroying any chance of upward mobility for Black and Brown folks throughout the country. Through 300+ pages, this book details how the U.S. government created and supported residential segregation through the Federal Housing Administration and housing policies and programs in general. Through this entity, several pieces of legislation arose from the 1930s outright making home loans unaffordable to historically marginalized populations, denying them access to building generational wealth. The contemporary nature of this book cannot be overstated. Over the decades, the connection between housing and health has been well-established. As a social determinant of health, housing plays a critical role in individual as well as population health (Krieger & Higgins, 2002;Taylor, 2018). This book artfully captures the historic context and highlights the structural racism pathways that further elaborate contemporary conditions on health and housing nexus.This form of segregation is called de jure segregation and is highlighted throughout the book. The contemporary relevance of this book is incredibly valuable to the issues Black and Brown residents face related to gentrification and displacement in the U.S.. Residential integration has mostly stalled since the steady decline from 1880 to the mid-20th century leaving school systems and communities segregated, less culturally diverse, and ill-equipped to bring folks out of poverty into non-precarious socioeconomic status. Rothstein calls upon us to make institutional and structural changes to positively affect those impacted by these policies.Through 12 chapters, Rothstein highlights the impacts of various racist ideologies, policies, and programs that were supported by local, state, and the federal government over a span of nearly 150 years beginning Post-Civil War. The book's lack of time-linearity sometimes makes it a less easy read as some of these chapters can be a bit disjointed as the author shows connectivity and the complex nature of
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