public health

In an NPR interview, William Burns says he has appointed a senior officer who led the hunt for Osama bin Laden to head the investigation into ailments that has afflicted U.S. officials worldwide.

The highly contagious delta variant is causing a surge in new cases. Here's what you need to know about how to keep yourself and your family safe.

More than 93,000 people died of a drug overdose in the U.S. last year, according to new CDC data. Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids accounted primarily for the rise, which the pandemic exacerbated.

Life expectancy fell by nearly two years between 2018 and 2020, largely due to COVID-19. Declines were most pronounced among minority groups, including Black and Hispanic people.

President Nixon called for an "all-out offensive" against drugs and addiction. The U.S. is now rethinking policies that led to mass incarceration and shattered families while drug deaths kept rising.

Pathogens can blossom from an outbreak into a pandemic because they "exploit our interconnectedness and expose our inequities and divisions," the World Health Organization's leader says.

A non-profit syringe needle exchange program in Palm Beach County says the pandemic has played a role in the spike in drug overdose deaths.

Epidemiologist Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones says race is merely "the social interpretation of how we look." This social reality is important because different racial groups have different health outcomes.

"The pandemic illuminated inequities that have existed for generations and revealed for all of America a known, but often unaddressed, epidemic impacting public health: racism," Walensky said.

CPR from a bystander can double or triple a person’s likelihood of survival following a sudden cardiac arrest. But not everyone knows the steps. A measure under consideration this session would make training a requirement for graduation.

Despite the progress in vaccinating Americans, there's concern about the threat posed by COVID-19 variants. The White House is urging not to "let down our guard."

The Biden team wants to swiftly vaccinate people of color and others most vulnerable to COVID-19. But health centers are learning that speed and achieving racial equity don't always go hand in hand.