How a Royal Illness Spurred a Public Health Revolution

For Decades, the British Ignored One of the Greatest Health Calamities of Their Age. Then the Prince of Wales Contracted Typhoid Fever

In the early hours of Friday, October 9, President Donald Trump announced that he, like nearly 8 million other Americans in the past eight months, had tested positive for COVID-19. Days before, Trump had gathered in person with leading Republicans to announce the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Against the advice of public health experts, few at the event wore masks, and there was little or no social distancing. Trump’s subsequent hospitalization at Walter Reed Medical Center offered an opportunity to change the public narrative on …

by Jacob Steere-Williams | November 16, 2020

A Letter From Sweden, Which Deems Flax Seeds More Dangerous Than the Pandemic

An Immigrant From America Fell for the ‘Sensible, Progressive Attitude’ and Caution of Her Adopted Country. Then COVID Hit

by Lauren LaFauci | October 12, 2020

About a year ago, I hung upside down from my seatbelt in a small sedan. Thankfully, I was completely safe during the entire experience: It was part of the compulsory …

How Epidemics Shaped Modern Life

Past Public Health Crises Inspired Innovations in Infrastructure, Education, Fundraising and Civic Debate—and Cleaned up Rotting Animal Carcasses From the Streets

by Katherine A. Foss | April 1, 2020

At the end of the 19th century, one in seven people around the world had died of tuberculosis, and the disease ranked as the third leading cause of death in …

My Struggle to Report on Ebola Without Provoking Panic—or Complacency

In West Africa, Journalists Have to Sift Fact from Rumor About Links Between the Deadly Virus and Sex

By Ida Jooste | December 15, 2017

Most of us think we know what a sexually transmitted disease is: syphilis, gonorrhea, HIV, or herpes—all diseases that are spread mainly through sexual contact. But in November 2017, CDC …

Depression Isn’t Just a Global Epidemic. It’s a Silent One.

We Know Very Little About Depression—Except That Talking About It Will Help

By Reed Johnson | December 12, 2017

Depression is still the illness that dares not speak its name. Taboos persist. Social stigmas endure. Many confounding mysteries remain about exactly what causes depression and how best to treat …

The 1918 Flu Pandemic That Revolutionized Public Health

Mass Death Changed How We Think About Illness, and Government's Role in Treating It

By Laura Spinney | September 26, 2017

Nearly 100 years ago, in 1918, the world experienced the greatest tidal wave of death since the Black Death, possibly in the whole of human history. We call that tidal …

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