Publications

The U.S. faces a public health crisis of opioid-related harm, the effects of which could be dramatically reduced through increased access to opioid agonist therapy with the medications methadone and buprenorphine. This commentary outlines immediate, concrete steps that federal, state, and local governments can take to change law from barrier to facilitator of evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder.

Creating a programmatic norm of integrating into national civil registration and vital statistics systems the vital events information collected from existing community health programs has the potential to provide governments with information essential for public health decision-making.

Achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals will require data-driven public health action. Given the need to develop these systems, this study summarized their current status in low-income and middle-income countries.

Reliable and representative cause of death (COD) statistics are essential to inform public health policy, respond to emerging health needs, and document progress towards Sustainable Development Goals. However, less than one-third of deaths worldwide are assigned a cause.

The scale-up of tobacco control, especially after the adoption of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, is a major public health success story. Nonetheless, smoking remains a leading risk for early death and disability worldwide, and therefore continues to require sustained political commitment.

Pollution accounts for 22% of all deaths from cardiovascular disease, 26% of ischaemic heart disease deaths, 25% of stroke deaths, 53% of deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 40% of deaths from lung cancer.

Environmental quality has a profound effect on health and the burden of disease. In the United States, the environment-related burden of disease is increasingly dominated by chronic diseases. At the local level, public health practitioners realize that many policy decisions affecting environmental quality and health transcend the authorities of traditional health department programs.