The Public Health Report: Episode 6 with Laura Sheckter
Welcome to the Public Health Report. In this week's episode our host Laura Sheckter reports on three papers and some breaking news.
Today, we'll be talking about climate related disasters greenspace and oxidative stress levels, visualizing one's own health and the Purdue opioid settlement.
Topic 1- Extreme Weather and County-Level Mortality rates
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2789661
Topic 2- Green Spaces and Oxidative Stress
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122001840?via%3d Ihub
Topic 3- Seeing Health Risks and Changing Behaviors
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003920
Topic 4- Purdue Settlement
Transcript
Our next story comes from a study performed by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. They were interested in the relationship between exposure to different green spaces, and oxidative stress levels in children. Examples of these green spaces are urban vegetated areas such as parks, pass with several types of plants, and gardens just to name a few. These green spaces changed depending on your environment. Also, to make things a little more clear. Oxidative stress is an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants in the body, which can lead to cell and tissue damage. Oxidative stress occurs naturally and plays a role in the aging process. The study concluded that greater exposure to multi site green spaces, or a variety of vegetation is associated with lower levels of oxidative stress. There is more research needs to be done especially following individuals when benefits, lower oxidative stress has over a long period of time. But in the short term, everyone should go outside and go for a walk in a green area and get that good vitamin D.
Next topic. Researchers are curious to see what the current and past research has said surrounding using medical imaging technologies that can visualize health may discourage risk related behaviors more than non visual information. This is what is called a systematic review. It is collecting other evidence and other case research studies to answer a clearly formulated question and researchers extract and analyze data from previous studies that are included in the review. In this case, the researchers at Cambridge looked at whatever personalized risk information could motivate risk reducing health behaviors. They found that when people have an imaging procedure and are shown their own personalized information about their own risk of disease, they may be more likely to reduce risky behaviors. The last topic is a long awaited news story. Purdue Pharma has finally settled to pay between five and a half to $6 billion to a trust that will be used to pay the claims of victims of addiction. And others who have argued that Purdue played a significant role in the current opioid epidemic. Purdue and judges have been back and forth for many reasons to make this settlement happen. Even one judge from New York City called The settlement and extraordinary improvement on previous offers. There are still pieces to the settlement that are not finalized, but hopefully it will be approved soon. Well that's all I have for today. catch you all next week for a whole new roundup of stories please comment like and subscribe if you'd like today's show I'm Laura Schecter and this was the Public Health Report.