The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
The researchers linked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Air Toxics tract-level data with the Nurses’ Health Study, a prospective cohort of female nurses. Over the course of 18 years of follow-up from 1990 through 2008, they identified 425 incident cases of PD. The researchers examined the association of risk …
Measles vaccination is estimated to have averted 13·8 million deaths between 2000 and 2012. Persisting heterogeneity in coverage is a major contributor to continued measles mortality, and a barrier to measles elimination and introduction of rubella-containing vaccine. Our objective is to identify determinants of inequities in coverage, and how vaccine …
It is difficult to discern the proportion of blood lead (PbB) attributable to ambient air lead (PbA) given the multitude of lead (Pb) sources and pathways of exposure. The PbB-PbA relationship has previously been evaluated across populations. This relationship was a central consideration in the 2008 review of the Pb …
Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be increasing in frequency. Industrial chemicals that injure the developing brain are among the known causes for this rise in prevalence. In 2006, we did a systematic review …
WHO estimates that over 5% of the world’s population – 360 million people - has disabling hearing loss. The highest prevalence is found in the Asia Pacific, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. About half of all cases of hearing loss worldwide are easily prevented or treated. However, just 32 of …
Taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) has been proposed in high-income countries to reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes. We sought to estimate the potential health effects of such a fiscal strategy in the middle-income country of India, where there is heterogeneity in SSB consumption, patterns of substitution between SSBs and other …
Is it time for countries to consider taxing SSBs or raising existing taxes? This is the topic of the paper by Sanjay Basu and colleagues in this week's PLOS Medicine, in which they model the potential impact of a SSB tax for India. Assuming that sales of SSBs continue their …
The goal of influenza-like illness (ILI) surveillance is to determine the timing, location and magnitude of outbreaks by monitoring the frequency and progression of clinical case incidence. Advances in computational and information technology have allowed for automated collection of higher volumes of electronic data and more timely analyses than previously …
Dengue, a mosquito-borne virus of humans, infects over 50 million people annually. Infection with any of the four dengue serotypes induces protective immunity to that serotype, but does not confer long-term protection against infection by other serotypes. The immunological interactions between serotypes are of central importance in understanding epidemiological dynamics …
In 2008, just three types of cancer accounted for 10% of global cancer-related deaths. That year, about 460,000 women died from breast cancer (the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women and the fifth most common cause of cancer-related death). Another 140,000 women died from ovarian cancer, and 74,000 died from …
Recently, the Joint Policy Committee (JPC) of the Societies of Epidemiology (SE), a consortium of national and international epidemiologic societies and organizations, released a statement calling for the global ban of asbestos use (JPC-SE 2012). This is not the first such call for an international ban (Collegium Ramazzini 2010), but …
In the context of the recent Supreme Court directive on medical research on Bhopal, it is critically important to examine the history of research efforts, their quality, their coherent purpose and accountability. nless we learn from the past the Court's directives will just spur more half-hearted, short-sighted and unaccountable research.
Local epidemiology of Dengue is defined by the genetic diversity of the circulating Dengue virus (DENV) strains. This important information is not available for the virus strains from most parts of the Indian subcontinent. The present study focused on the genetic diversity of the serotype 3 DENV strains (DENV-3) from …
The rich, roasted aroma of coffee or the golden-brown colour of crispy French fries are enough to set most mouths watering. But the high-temperature cooking that gives these foods their alluring taste, scent and texture also adds a sting: acrylamide, a probable human carcinogen.
Joseph Amon and colleagues discuss the challenges of conducting human rights research in settings where local research ethics committees may favor the interests of the state over the interests of research participants. Original Source
Supreme Court gave six months to the Central and the Madhya Pradesh governments to dispose of toxic waste lying in and around the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal for the past 28 years. Read this order. Supreme Court order on Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster dated 09/08/2012. See Also Feature: …
Weight loss is no more a simple calculation of calories consumed and burnt. Studies show exposure to certain toxins in the environment can make it difficult for one to shed extra pounds. What are these toxins? How do they affect body? A growing number of people are unable to shed …
This report presents the results of a systematic review of evidence of the health effects of black carbon (BC). Short-term epidemiological studies provide sufficient evidence of an association of daily variations in BC concentrations with short-term changes in health (all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, and cardiopulmonary hospital admissions). Cohort studies provide …
Dengue has become endemic in India with outbreaks occurring almost every year. The seroprevalence and serotypic data of the last 7 years in samples obtained from suspected dengue patients from a tertiary care hospital were analyzed. Out of 7846 serum samples received in the virology laboratory from suspected dengue cases …
Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre has begun work to set up a community-based cancer registry and carry out health surveys to document the precise occurrence of cancer, birth defects and other illnesses around India’s atomic power plants. The move to study the incidence of the disease comes in the wake of …
