By Seth Borenstein
A conference on climate change and health is back on, but apparently minus the U.S. government.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is once again shattering donation records at the University of Washington, this time with a $279 million grant to continue and expand pioneering programs that measure health around the globe.
By Diane Mapes
As with many studies, there was good news and bad news.
The good news: Public health researchers from the University of Washington looked at cancer’s mortality rate county by county and found that overall, deaths from the disease dropped 20 percent during the last 35 years, falling from 240 deaths per 100,000 people in 1980 to 192 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014.
By Ashlie Chandler
About 162 million children worldwide under age 5 are considered too short for their age, a growth failure called stunting. Despite efforts to improve child growth, stunting has been difficult to prevent and treat, negatively impacting child health and development.
Researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health studied what causes child stunting and developed a framework to help deliver effective interventions in low-resource settings.
By John Greenburg
Among nations, the United States is the runaway leader in the money it spends on global health programs, and the looming question for advocates is what will happen under President Donald Trump and a Republican Congress. Nick Seymour, a Harvard junior volunteering at a health clinic in Mexico, argued for sustained spending.
By Jessica Berman
A genetically engineered malaria vaccine has been shown to prevent the disease in mice, researchers say. The findings offer hope of halting the illness in humans, as well as stopping transmission of the mosquito-borne disease.
Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) at the University of Washington, in conjunction with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, have developed a vaccine that uses the entire malaria-causing parasite — called P. falciparum — to stimulate a protective immune response.
By Mary Engel
Researchers may be one step closer to a truly effective malaria vaccine, a new study suggests. A genetically modified malaria parasite worked as designed in its first human clinical trial, causing neither malaria nor serious safety problems in the 10 people who volunteered to be infected. It also stimulated an immune response that holds out promise of a more protective vaccine than the single candidate now in pilot studies
By Johanna Eurich and Steve Heimel
The rate of suicide and homicide in the Kusilvak Census Area, located along the lower Yukon River in Alaska, more than doubled since 1980, a rate increase higher than anywhere else in the nation.
By Bruce Japsen
The cost of diabetes, heart disease and back pain are taking a greater toll on the U.S. economy, with these conditions and injuries dominating personal healthcare spending, authors of a new study say.
By Susan Brink
The number of new cancer cases grew worldwide to 17.5 million in 2015 from 13.1 million in 2005. The fastest growth is in some of the world's poorest countries, according to a report on the global burden of cancer in the December 3 journal JAMA Oncology.