September 15, 2022 By Stephen Bezruchka Last month we closed the coffin lid on economic inequality. It is not good for our health, nor for the environment. What should we do with the proceeds that will come from reigning in inequality? Spend it on early life. As we go from the erection to the resurrection how we are ushered into
Read moreWith all this talk about the bad things inequality does, such as harming and killing us, I am occasionally asked what inequality is good for since we have so much of it. Is there some good in having a few people being so incredibly wealthy and the rest of us making do with the droppings that trickle down? It used
Read moreJuly 21, 2022 in PHW Vol. 8, No. 29 By Stephen Bezruchka UPSTREAM AT THE SOURCE… An allegory that has been told for many decades distinguishes upstream from downstream factors. Imagine, if you will, three people standing alongside a river on a brisk afternoon. They suddenly hear a cry for help from someone caught in the river’s fast-moving current. Our
Read moreBEZ’S BLOG #4Political Determinants of Health Credit: Hawai’i Department of HealthLast month we looked at evidence that economic inequality and social spending are the critical factors in producing health in a society. These issues make health a political construct. This is not a new idea. It was voiced by the Greeks eons ago. It appears regularly since the famous statement by
Read moreThe Ubiquitous Health Impacts of Socioeconomic Gradients June 16, 2022 much air can you blow out in one second. You can measure it non-invasively by blowing into a spirometer, a tube that measures how much air passes though in the first second. People with bigger lungs can blow out more air in one second so the number has to be
Read moreOur bodies are just trillions of cells stuck together, and these cells are integrated into communities forming our organs. Your brain, heart, blood, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and skeleton are all specialized cellular systems. What do they need to be healthy? If a group of heart muscle cells are deprived of oxygen or glucose because of a clotted artery, they die
Read moreThe entomologist E.O. Wilson, who died recently, wrote back in 1998 “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” The situation today is even more extreme as our attention
Read moreThe winter games in Beijing are likely to be over by the time you read this. The games originated in Greece millennia ago and coincided with a festival honoring Zeus. They were revived in Athens in 1896 with contestants from 12 nations. World wars prevented holding them in 1916, 1940 and 1944. The Tokyo 2020 event was postponed a year
Read moreBy Dr. Stephen Bezruchka January 20, 2022 David Zakus asked me if I would do a blog for the PHW. I’ve known David from his days in Edmonton at the University of Alberta and follow the Weekly every Thursday. Some background about me and what I hope to cover, this being my first blog. I was born in Toronto and
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PLANETARY HEALTH WEEKLY 