If all cars and trucks sold in America were “zero emission” by 2040 and the country’s electric grid was also powered by clean energy, nearly 2.8 million child asthma attacks would be prevented annually, a new report finds. The American Lung Association (ALA) report also estimates that with cleaner air, 508 infant lives would also be saved each year. A nationwide shift to clean energy would also result in: almost 2.7 million fewer cases of upper respiratory illnesses in kids annually Almost 1.9 million fewer cases of lower respiratory pediatric illnesses 147,000 fewer cases of bronchitis in kids “Air pollution harms children’s health and well-being today, and the transportation sector is a leading source of air pollution,” said ALA president Harold Wimmer. “Vehicle emissions are also nation’s biggest source of carbon pollution that drives climate change and associated public health harms.” It’s not just about the direct effect of auto exhaust on young lungs, Wimmer stressed. Fossil fuels are also a key driver of climate change, which is having its own effects on child health, he explained. “As families across the country have experienced in recent months, climate change increases air pollution, extreme weather, flooding events, allergens, as well as heat and drought, leading to greater risk of wildfires,” Wimmer said in an ALA news release. “Kids are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate…  read on >  read on >

Unexpected medical bills and high health care costs are dominating an election where kitchen table economic problems weigh heavily on voter’s minds, a new KFF poll has found. Voters struggling to pay their monthly bills are most eager to hear presidential candidates talk about economic and health care issues, according to the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll. Nearly three in four adults are worried about being able to afford unexpected medical bills (74%) and the cost of health care services (73%), the poll found. More than half also said the same about paying for prescription drugs (55%), as well as other everyday expenses like gas, utilities, food and housing. About half of voters (48%) said health care costs are a major reason for their negative views of the economy, and heath care worries top the list, regardless of partisanship. Overall, two-thirds of voters (67%) view the economy negatively, but Republican voters are more than twice as likely as Democratic voters to hold such negative views, the poll found. The poll also found that one in five adults (19%) have trouble affording their monthly bills, and another four in 10 (37%) can just afford their monthly bills. Those groups had very different views than those who said they can pay their bills with money left over. They are more likely to view the national economy negatively,…  read on >  read on >

A popular asthma inhaler was discontinued on Jan. 1, and the business move has left families scrambling to find a replacement for their kids. Flovent was one of the most commonly prescribed drugs for childhood asthma, but maker GSK took it off shelves to replace it with a generic version, fluticasone. The problem is that many insurance companies haven’t added fluticasone to their list of covered medications, CNN reported. Parents and doctors are now being required to fill out paperwork to get fluticasone, even though it’s the same drug kids have been using for years. In some cases, insurers are requiring patients to show they’ve tried other asthma drugs already on their approved list — and that those drugs haven’t worked — before approving fluticasone, CNN reported. “The discontinuation of Flovent has been an unmitigated disaster,” Dr. Christopher Oermann, a pediatric pulmonologist and director of the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Pulmonary at Children’s Mercy Kansas City, told CNN. Flovent contains a corticosteroid that reduces airway inflammation. Patients use the inhaler twice a day. The family of Bryce Cohen, a 4-year-old asthma patient in New York City, relied on Flovent to keep him out of the hospital during asthma flares. But his family hasn’t been able to get fluticasone over the past month. “This is a really big issue, and it’s scary to think that…  read on >  read on >

Nearly $6 billion in funding will soon be spread through every U.S. state and territory as part of a massive, ongoing effort to clean up the nation’s water supply, the Biden Administration announced Tuesday. EPA Adminstrator Michael Regan and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Pittsburgh on Tuesday to announce the latest infusion of funding, the White House said in a news release. Projects underway in that city — including efforts to remove lead water pipes — are among several across the country that are being funded through bipartisan legislation passed in 2021 that devoted $50 billion to improving the nation’s water supply. “With $50 billion in total, the largest investment in water infrastructure in our nation’s history, EPA will enable communities across the nation to ensure safer drinking water for their residents and rebuild vital clean water infrastructure to protect public health for decades to come,” Regan said in an agency news release. Instead of choosing which projects to fund, the federal government will deliver the money to states, territories and tribes through the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund programs, the EPA said. Many of the country’s water infrastructure problems stem from a general lack of investment, according to the EPA. Local governments typically can’t afford to update water systems on their own. Even when changes are made, that can still prompt crises…  read on >  read on >

Being an angry hard-charger won’t win you any points in the workplace, new research has found. Prior evidence had suggested that workers who express anger are judged to be competent and hold a higher status, the researchers noted. But the new studies refute those earlier findings, according to researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Princeton University. “We found that anger isn’t a catalyst for higher status in the workplace,” said researcher Roni Porat, a senior lecturer of political science and international relations at the Hebrew University. “Moreover, we found that anger is regarded more poorly than other emotional expressions like sadness,” Porat said in a university news release. “The only instance in which anger is considered as positive is when it is expressed in response to another person’s clear wrongdoing. These findings hold for both men and women expressing anger in the workplace.” Data from the study show that people assume that individuals expressing anger have higher status, researchers said. However, they do not reward anger with more status because they find that anger to be inappropriate, cold, an overreaction and counter-productive, results show. Researchers also found that people hold many negative attitudes toward expressions of anger in the workplace. Such expressions were cited as more harmful, foolish and worthless than other emotional reactions. Across four studies, researchers experimentally manipulated people’s expression of emotion…  read on >  read on >

People treated at psychiatric hospitals are at highest risk of committing suicide immediately after their discharge if they suffer from depression, a new study reports. Patients hospitalized for depression are hundreds of times more likely to commit suicide within the first three days of discharge, compared to the suicide rate of the general population, results show. “Although we found a decreasing trend over time, the high-risk post-discharge period still requires intensified attention,” wrote the authors, who were led by Dr. Kari Aaltonen of the University of Helsinki in Finland. “Continuity of care and access to enhanced psychiatric outpatient care within days of discharge should be imperative.” More than half of all people who die by suicide are depressed, and about 40% had been recently hospitalized for psychiatric reasons, researchers said in an American Psychiatric Association news release. For the study, researchers analyzed health data on more than 91,000 Finnish people hospitalized for depression between 1996 and 2017. Each person was tracked for up to two years following their discharge. A total of 1,219 men and 757 women died by suicide during the study period, results show. Researchers found that within the first three days of discharge, the suicide rate was 6,063 per 100,000 person-years. Person-years take into account both the number of people in a study and the amount of time each person spends in…  read on >  read on >

Anorexia isn’t solely a disease that strikes women and girls, Canadian experts say, so they want to raise awareness that the illness can also be serious for boys and men. “Early identification and prompt treatment are essential,” wrote a team led by Dr. Basil Kadoura. He’s a specialist in adolescent health at British Columbia Children’s Hospital and University of British Columbia, in Vancouver. They published their article Feb. 20 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. About 0.3% of males will receive a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, with some types of boys and men at higher risk. These include gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people, Kadoura’s group said, as well as guys “involved in body- and strength-focused sports like cycling, running and wrestling.” Because of the ignorance and stigma surrounding eating disorders in men, too many who have anorexia are diagnosed very late, the experts added. There are questions that might point to anorexia in males: “Screening for muscle-enhancing goals and behaviors is important to assess for anorexia nervosa,” the team said in a journal news release. Other warning signs include diet changes, vomiting, over-exercising and supplement and anabolic steroid use. If anorexia progresses without diagnosis and treatment, the effects can be serious. They include unstable vital signs, slower than normal heart rate, electrolyte abnormalities and other conditions, the Canadian group said. For adolescents of either…  read on >  read on >

Immigration has become a contentious topic in America, but new research shows the heated debate on the issue may be stressing out Hispanics across the country, whether they are citizens or not. After analyzing data from 2011-2018, the researchers discovered that, over time, there has an increase in psychological distress among all Hispanics as U.S. immigration policies came under fire. For example, when President Barack Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) into law, that relieved distress for many naturalized citizens. But the Trump presidency had the opposite effect, triggering anxiety and depressive symptoms among Hispanic noncitizens, the researchers said. But apart from federal policies on immigration, even the continuing public debate on the issue has taken a toll. “How people are talking about immigration and how salient immigration and deportation are to day-to-day life is potentially equally as important to distress as these more dramatic changes and events, like the Trump election or DACA,” said study co-author Amy Johnson, an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. And those fears were felt whether a Hispanic person faced possible deportation or not: Using Google Trends, the researchers show that U.S.-born Hispanics experienced higher distress in periods where there were spikes in Google searches on topics related to deportation and immigration. The findings were published Feb. 19 in the Proceeding…  read on >  read on >