In 2024, overall overdose deaths fell 27% in the U.S., dropping from 105,007 deaths in 2023 to 79,384 deaths in 2024, according to a Sept. 3 report from The Commonwealth Fund. Provisional data show approximately 70,000 deaths in 2025. The…
Public Health
Managing Back-to-School Respiratory Infections In late summer, tens of millions of children throughout the United States return to school, sharing tales of their summer adventures and, inevitably, new germs. Many will develop a cough, sore throat, or runny nose in…
The impact of timely respiratory diagnosis in decentralized care settings As hospitals and health systems across the nation gear up for another potentially unpredictable respiratory season, the importance of timely and accurate diagnosis of respiratory illness once again takes center…
The American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed its recommendation that young and high-risk children receive COVID-19 vaccines and expanded the list of high-risk children it advises to receive respiratory syncytial virus immunization for a second season. The recommendations, published Sept. 2,…
More parents are declining hepatitis B vaccination and vitamin K prophylaxis for infants, and female infants are less likely than males to receive either, according to a research letter published Aug. 31 in JAMA. Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia…
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Infectious disease experts are cautiously optimistic the coming flu season will be milder than last year’s, citing moderate activity in the Southern Hemisphere and vaccine shots well matched to circulating strains, The New York Times reported Aug. 31. Scientists look…
The new director of the CDC ordered agency officials to exclude two measles deaths reported by Pennsylvania from the national tally, breaking from the agency’s longstanding practice of accepting states’ death determinations. Erica Schwartz, MD, who took over the CDC…
The CDC said the clade IIb mpox virus is likely to become endemic in the U.S. in an Aug. 20 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “Persistent transmission of [mpox] in the United States, with wide geographic spread during the last…
Americans’ confidence in their healthcare providers remained high, but confidence in the CDC, FDA and National Institutes of Health dropped by about 12 percentage points, a University of Pennsylvania survey found. The Annenberg Science and Public Health survey, conducted by…
One hundred days after the World Health Organization declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the outbreak has become the second-largest ever recorded and is growing faster than any previous one. Here is what to know about…