According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, in the United States the Internet is now a more popular source of news than print newspapers and radio. That makes it the third most popular news platform overall, behind only national and local television news.

For more than a decade marketers of prepared foods have used “front of package” labeling to promote the supposed health benefits of their products to consumers. Today supermarket shelves are lined with items labeled “low in calories” or “better for you” aimed at children and their parents. As concerns have grown about childhood obesity, however, the veracity of these claims has come into question.

Medical authorities have long suggested that exercise is an essential part of leading a healthy life. Regular physical activity has been shown to not only improve fitness for those of all ages, but also reduce the incidence of many diseases.

For decades, women with early diagnoses of breast cancer have been encouraged to have the lymph nodes beneath their arm pits surgically removed. Draining the lymph nodes often precedes the surgery, which is then followed by radiation treatment. While painful and fraught with potential complications, removal of the lymph nodes has been standard practice in the medical community.

State and federal taxation of alcoholic beverages has long been a charged issue among voters. Claims of overly paternalistic policy on one side are met with arguments that alcohol taxes are a deterrent to antisocial behavior.

As of 2009, 33.4 million people worldwide were living with HIV, with some 2.7 million new infections each year, according to the World Health Organization. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that more than one million people in the United States alone are HIV positive, and that one in five of those individuals is unaware of his or her infection. Given the scope of the problem, slowing the spread of HIV remains a public policy issue of enormous importance.

Type 2 diabetes remains one of the fastest-growing conditions in the United States. A number of studies have found connections between moderate alcohol consumption and reduced risk of Type 2 diabetes, compared with abstention or excessive consumption. However, most of these studies only measured alcohol consumption at one point in time and then assumed relatively stable consumption rates.

How the United States government measures levels of poverty has changed little since the bureaucracy began making official estimates in the 1960s. Many observers have noted that the official statistical model has not kept up with the times: for example, it does not take fully into account rising medical costs, and it uses a multiplier of food costs as an index by which to set the official poverty income line for households. (Food costs have shrunk historically as part of the family budget.)

Bicycle commuting is a relatively common in many parts of Europe, China and India, but less so elsewhere. While it is gaining support in the United States — a federal tax break for bicycle commuters became law in 2008 — it remains significantly less popular here than abroad.

The high variability in hospital costs for the elderly Medicare beneficiaries has been cited as evidence of hospitals’ inefficient resource use. Nonetheless, an accurate analysis on hospital efficiency must take account of both health outcomes and resource usage.