Watercolor painting of the earth by Martin Eklund

Planetary Health: Foundations and Key Concepts

The groundwork for the field of planetary health was laid by a range of disciplines and movements, including medicine, ecology, health, and feminism.
Illustration of a woman walking in front of an overwhelming whirlpool in the sky

Overcoming the Gendered Pain Gap

More women than men experience chronic pain, and that pain is often dismissed in clinical settings. Can a new approach to language and close listening help?
The interior of a Chinese pharmacy in Los Angeles, 1907

The Allure of Chinese Medicine 

Capitalizing on stereotypes earned Chinese-American practitioners patients, but it also helped keep them confined to the margins of American society.
A poster advertising polio research

Before Long COVID Came Post-Polio Syndrome

While the rise of long COVID and its many symptoms may be surprising and difficult to diagnose, post-viral diseases are nothing new.
Protestors raise their fists as they take to the streets during a mass demonstration against New York State abortion laws, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, 28th March 1970

Medical Mutual Aid Before Roe v. Wade

In 1968, a group of Boston University students published a handbook about abortion and birth control for their peers. Over half a million copies were distributed.
A yellow and purple button with "Fight AIDS, Not People with AIDS" in yellow and purple font.

Pro-Epidemic Stigmatization

Prejudice and moralism interferes with public health, aiding and abetting the spread of the HIV and monkeypox viruses.

Death by Ice Cream

In the late nineteenth century, ice cream, a popular but poorly understood dessert, brought illness and death to America’s fairs and festivals.
An electron microscopic image depicting a monkeypox virion

The Mpox 411

Although it’s less fatal and less transmissible than the related smallpox, there’s still serious cause for concern with the most recent outbreak.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madness_Network_News.png

How Mentally Ill People Fight for Their Rights

In the 1970s, a time of mass deinstitutionalization, former patients came together to found the Psychiatric Inmates Liberation Movement.
Vials of Smallpox vaccinations alongside the medical tools to administer the vaccine

How the US Handled Its First Mpox Outbreak

Can the CDC and other health organizations apply the lessons learned in 2003?