Racism-related stress may help explain why Black women in the United States are over 50% more likely to deliver a premature baby than white women. Just over 14% of Black women have premature births compared with 9% of white women.1 These stark racial disparities have been documented for more than a century, reports Catherine Cubbin…

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As coronavirus cases rise in less densely populated states in the Midwest and West, the disease, combined with high levels of obesity in rural America, could pose major challenges for health care systems, suggests Mark Lee at the University of Minnesota. People of any age with obesity face a greatly increased risk of severe illness…

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“We live in a country where we have huge numbers of children exposed to parental incarceration. When we talk about the need to reform the criminal justice and mass incarceration systems, we also need to talk about the unintended victims of the current system,” says Christine Leibbrand of the University of Washington. “Incarceration exposes families…

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As Mother’s Day 2020 fast approaches, the coronavirus pandemic—coupled with ongoing demographic trends—is making family life even more complicated for Americans. Millions of families are at increased risk of falling into poverty due to pandemic-related job losses, and social distancing protocols are separating some children from their parents who live in a different household. American…

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Smoking and obesity are the two leading causes of preventable death, disability, and chronic disease in the United States. New research shows that eliminating them could go a long way in reducing racial health gaps. But location also plays a key role in health disparities, with neighborhood setting and state-level policies shaping residents’ health, this…

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Trauma and adversity in childhood raise the risk of numerous health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and mental illness in adulthood.1 Several recent studies found that women who experienced childhood adversity are more likely to have their first child early or outside of marriage and face a higher risk of cancer than men….

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