Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [public-health]

Use this tag for questions about the health of people on a community or population level. Do not use this tag for questions about the health of individuals or biological mechanisms.

Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. Overall, public health is concerned with protecting populations. These populations can be small, for example, a local neighborhood, or large, for example a country or region of the world.

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Was Dr. Birx personally responsible for the decision to change the COVID-19 data reporting from the CDC to the HHS?

An opinion piece about Dr. Birx published on CNN says: Unfortunately, in my view, she truly has made a real hash out of the entire effort, with a series of poor decisions -- changing hospital data reporting protocols for coronavirus patients to cut…
Fizz
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Would higher taxes on sausages and bacon save hundreds of thousands of lives every year?

A recent analysis of the health-related harms associated with red and processed meat has hit the news with headlines like this (from the Guardian): Taxing red meat would save many lives, research shows The cost of bacon and sausages would double if…
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Drinking 3 glasses of milk per day doubles a woman's chances of death?

From Can Drinking Too Much Milk Make Your Bones More Brittle? The study, conducted with over 60,000 women (age 39-74) and 45,000 men (age 45-79) found that too much milk – three or more glasses a day – was not only associated with mortality but…
user17561
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Does the Swiss law say that international health law supercedes national law?

In this video, starting at about 28:40, Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger says Even the constitution of Switzerland there is a little line they have added without asking us, which says that international law supercedes national law in the health…
Erel Segal-Halevi
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Is COVID-vaccine-caused myocarditis milder than myocarditis in general?

Dr. Robert Malone is an American immunologist and virologist who has made controversial claims about the COVID-19 vaccines. He was interviewed on the Joe Rogan podcast, in an interview that was (controversially) later removed by YouTube. In the…
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Have the UK official alcohol limits been reduced to a quarter of the levels recommended in 1979?

Before answering the question of whether we can trust health advice we must first ask: ‘Which health advice?’ It varies so much over time and between countries. In 1979, the government advised men to drink no more than 56 units of alcohol a week.…
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Do the recent changes in US drug policy correlate with an increase in people moving from prescribed opioids to heroin?

I was reading about the price of heroin on The Recovery Village and they say: Heroin pricing varies a lot depending on the region where it’s sold, and as drug cartels have seen people become addicted to expensive opiate pills, they’ve spoken to…
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Do Ultra-violet LEDs on air hand dryers help to kill bacteria?

I've noticed newer air hand dryers sometimes have blueish LEDs on the bottom that shine light on your hands when you're drying them. One theory I've heard is that the UV light emitted by these LEDs helps to kill bacteria on your hands as you're…
Greg Hewgill
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Does residential radon cause lung cancer?

Radon causes lung cancer; a typical statement is this: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified radon as the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Many homes contain radon concentrations that are high enough…
Joshua Frank
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Have many Falun Gong practitioners forgone medical treatment and died of treatable causes as a result?

The Chinese government is notably opposed to Falun Gong. In 1999, they were quoted in the Sun Sentinel: the government charged that Falun Gong was responsible for the deaths of 1,400 people -- many of whom died because they had stopped taking…
Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com
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Do covered [drinking water] reservoirs cause health risks compared to open-air reservoirs?

Bull Run Waiver.org is a political group opposed to covering drinking water reservoirs in Portland, Oregon. They making a number of claims that closed reservoirs introduce greater health risks than the existing open-air reservoirs. Particularly,…
Evan Siroky
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Has PrEP caused a decrease in condom use amongst men who have sex with men?

In this article of the Financial Times, the existence of a sexual health crisis is reported. Here is a statement from the article: But others say condom use has fallen sharply among high-risk groups, such as men who have sex with men. This is…
An old man in the sea.
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Is there "almost no science" behind social/physical distancing to fight the spread of an epidemic?

On the UnHerd youtube channel, they interviewed "Swedish expert Prof. Johan Giesecke" who said (around 3 minutes in) that while there's science behind hand washing to prevent the spread of disease, but the rest of them [measures] like border…
Fizz
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Do some people take several weeks to adjust to the spring DST clock change?

In this proposal on the European Parliament website about Daylight Savings Time (DST), it is claimed that (emphasis mine): Some studies indicate that summer-time arrangements could generate positive effects linked to more outdoor…
gerrit
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Is climate change already killing people and costing billions in the USA?

According to Gizmodo: Climate change will make our lives worse in the years to come, but a new report out last week highlights the stark costs people are already paying across the Atlantic. In 2012 alone, it found that in the US, 10 major…
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