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 a male birth control trial cancelled due to symptoms that were no worse than female birth control?

This Cracked article makes the following claim: Take, for instance, a recent male birth control trial. When participants started to drop out because of side effects, the World Health Organization became concerned. When one subject's depression got…
dsollen
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Are there health risks to not washing hands after urinating?

It seems to me that the health risks of hand washing after urinating are greatly exaggerated in the world. I understand that hand washing after defecation is an entirely different story as fecal matter contains very harmful microbes. If it is…
Scottie
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Is the number of syphilis cases in the US the highest in 70 years?

In this article of the Financial Times about a "sexual health crisis" in the US, the following claim is made: The number of syphilis cases in the US jumped more than a quarter last year to 171,000, the highest level in more than 70 years, according…
An old man in the sea.
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Is there more salmonella in organic eggs

This paper elaborates the rates of salmonella in organic and other chicken: Salmonella prevalence in free-range and certified organic chickens A friend recently claimed that the same was true from eggs and then I was later pointed to this…
Benjamin
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Is it possible to die from overwork?

There have been several claims that people will die from overwork like Miwa Sado1 this is related to overwork but death came from suicide. Gamers are like Brian Vigneault2 which died after 24h of gaming which seems health related. Is it possible to…
DrDread
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Are wild animals more dangerous to us zoonosis-wise, than domesticated animals?

A Vox article says: Many people conflate all these under the heading “wet market.” But there are gradations here, and they represent different levels of risk for zoonotic diseases (those transmitted from animals to humans). There is some zoonotic…
the gods from engineering
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Is there good evidence of sitting being unhealthy?

Is there any evidence of sitting causing bad health, or are the statements in the news based on epidemiological studies on correlations only, i.e. people who sit a lot have worse health? If the answer is "no, all studies are epidemiological", how…
Mårten
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