Public Health

The hippocampus area of the brain controls memory and learning. Its healthy development is important for later success in life, but can be negatively affected by stress. Because stress is often greater in homes with financial difficulties, some researchers believe this could explain lower academic performance among children from families at lower socioeconomic levels.

As recently as the 1990s, larger body types had positive associations in many cultures. As the mass media has spread images of ultra-slim bodies, however — and as obesity has been spotlighted as a public health issue in many countries — heavier bodies have become stigmatized across the world, even as rates of obesity are rising.

While depression is often linked with physiological factors, the larger human environment appears to contribute to and worsen existing depression. The degree to which this is true, however, and how much impact public health and safety efforts might help mitigate depression in the populace, is less certain.

Approximately 27% of military personnel sought medical assistance for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder through a Veterans Affairs (VA) health facility between  2002 and 2010, according to a 2011 report by the  Congressional Research Service (PDF). Common PTSD treatments include both medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy through hospital stays and outpatient service.

The cultivation and maintenance of healthy social relationships, a key developmental marker for a teenager, has been linked to positive maturation and well-being throughout adulthood. However, the lasting impact that negative interpersonal histories during this time can have on a young person’s well-being later in life has not been the subject of significant study.

Studies have consistently shown that younger adults perform better than older, more experienced adults on decision-making tasks, lending credence to the belief that senior citizens suffer from age-related cognitive declines. These studies, however, have typically measured one type of decision-making focused on individual choices, and have not addressed how interconnected decisions — in which one decision predicates future options — are made.

Marijuana usage in America rose 6.9% between 2009 and 2010, when some 17.4 million Americans reported using the drug. Sixteen states now permit the medical use of marijuana for diseases such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis, but the drug’s growing popularity is primarily due to more recreational users ages 18 to 34, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The evolution of the contemporary human species is often portrayed as a slow process over many tens of thousands of years that culminated in our now-fixed modern state and form. But research from the University of Edinburgh (U.K.), Université du Québec à Montréal and Université de Sherbrooke in Canada suggests that the genetic mechanisms by which humans evolved continue to operate.

Though abortion is most often framed as a matter of political and moral opinion, there is also ample factual data on its prevalence across the United States and the underlying factors that may drive increases and decreases.