Public Health Crisis

A pioneering physician reveals how childhood stress can lead to lifelong health problems, and shows us what we can do to break the cycle. Two-thirds of us have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, or ACE, such as abuse, neglect, parental substance dependence, or mental illness...

The opioid crisis is not an anomaly. Instead, it's a self-inflicted wound, driven by a catastrophically dysfunctional health care system, leading to what has become the largest public health crisis in 100 years. Fortunately, proven antidotes exist--all created and spearheaded by forward-looking citizen leaders and employers. It's time to scale these solutions nationwide, stop the crisis in its tracks and move us light years closer to solving the larger disaster that is our health care system. As you read this, countless people are leaving clinics and hospitals with over 30-day supplies of ...

In this "meticulously researched" account (New York Times Book Review), a Pulitzer Prize-winning author examines the dangers of a failing public health system unequipped to handle large-scale global risks like a coronavirus pandemic. 

An urgent argument that child sexual abuse is preventable, not inevitable—and that we are the first generation with the tools to stop it One in five children will experience sexual abuse before their eighteenth birthday. It happens in every country, every state, every city, every neighborhood...

When COVID-19 began spreading rapidly, the world was taken by surprise. As the ensuing pandemic raged, we faced one constant—a lack of consistent, scientifically sound, and trusted information about dangers, risks, and mitigation strategies that the average person could understand and put into practice to keep themselves and their families safe. Now, the former Surgeon General of the United States—freed from the many constraints he worked under in public office—reveals critical lessons learned from both mistakes and successes overlooked during the pandemic.

Winner of The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism - 2019 When the people of Flint, Michigan, turned on their faucets in April 2014, the water pouring out was poisoned with lead and other toxins. Through a series of disastrous decisions, the state government had switched the city’s water supply...

For Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King, surviving in San Francisco meant a life in the shadows. His passing on March 6, 1900, would have been unremarkable if a city health officer hadn't noticed a swollen black lymph node on his groin - a sign of bubonic plague. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown while doctors examined Wong's tissue for telltale bacteria. If the devastating disease was not contained, San Francisco would become the American epicenter of an outbreak that had already claimed 10 million lives worldwide.  

The inside story of how an unassuming civil servant created trillions of dollars from thin air, combatted a public health crisis, and saved the American economy from a second Great Depression. "A sensational book ... It's a marvelous account of what took place." —Warren Buffett By February...

Our PFAS Legacy uncovers the hidden story of “forever chemicals” that have invaded our soil, water, and bodies. Once celebrated for their use in everyday products like nonstick pans and waterproof gear, PFAS now represent one of the greatest environmental and public health threats of our time. Found in the blood of nearly every person tested and in ecosystems from the Arctic to the deep sea, these nearly indestructible chemicals are linked to cancer, immune dysfunction, hormone disruption, and more. This eye-opening book blends science, urgency, and hope, exposing the regulatory ...

This powerful report on what went wrong—and right—with America’s Covid response, from a team of 34 experts, shows how Americans faced the worst peacetime catastrophe of modern times Our national leaders have drifted into treating the pandemic as though it were an unavoidable natural...

America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. In this revelatory book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to tell how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. Through intimate stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a fairer and more humane approach might look.

A five-star hotel. A deadly pathogen. A conspiracy of silence. At the opulent Grand Majestic Hotel, the 82nd Airborne is celebrating a reunion. But when the guest of honor collapses in the middle of a speech, it’s just the first casualty in a terrifying outbreak. Dr. Holly Hammond, a brilliant but junior infectious disease fellow, recognizes that this is no ordinary flu. The symptoms are too strange, the progression too fast, the deaths too sudden. As the body count climbs and the hospital fills with victims, including a young, healthy bartender , Holly realizes the source must be the ...

Here’s a system that works to build mental fitness, resiliency and toughness, even when facing the worst events imaginable. Burnout becomes impossible when prepared to deal with the high-risk situations often met by public safety personnel and those in related high-stress occupations. This unique yet common sense approach for effectively coping with challenges so PTSD or other trauma reactions don’t take over is worth every minute spent practicing the stress-reducing A-to-Z exercises.

Diseases We Built These didn’t just appear. We created the conditions for them. Modern disease is not random. It is structural. For most of human history, illness was largely infectious, episodic, and external. Today, the dominant threats are chronic, inflammatory, metabolic, autoimmune, and lifestyle-linked. Obesity. Type 2 diabetes. Cardiovascular disease. Sleep disorders. Depression. Antibiotic resistance. Digestive dysfunction. Environmental toxicity. These are not isolated problems. They are outputs. Diseases We Built traces how modern systems — designed for convenience, speed, and...

Nearly every American knows someone who has been affected by the opioid crisis. Addiction is a trans-partisan issue that impacts individuals from every walk of life. Millions of Americans, tired of watching their loved ones die while politicians ignore this issue. Where is the solution? Where is...

On 11 March 2020 a single word—pandemic—did what headlines usually only threaten: it turned proximity into danger, emptied city streets, and forced private lives into public policy. In the space between a press release and a lockdown, hospitals became crucibles, kitchen tables became classrooms, and ordinary grammar—mask, distance, quarantine—reordered how we move, mourn and care. JD Arden stitches scene-driven reconstructions—ICU corridors, shuttered theaters, balcony choirs—onto sharp cultural analysis of authority, inequality and memory. Witty, unsparing and humane, The Day ...

“Randy Shilts and Laurie Garrett told the story of the HIV/AIDS epidemic through the late 1980s and the early 1990s, respectively. Now journalist-historian-activist Emily Bass tells the story of US engagement in HIV/AIDS control in sub-Saharan Africa. There is far to go on the path, but Bass...

The Opioid Epidemic: What Everyone Needs to Know is an accessible, nonpartisan overview of the causes, politics, and treatments tied to the most devastating health crisis of our time. Its comprehensive approach and Q&A format offer listeners a practical path to understanding the epidemic from all sides: the basic science of opioids; the nature of addiction; the underlying reasons for the opioid epidemic; effective approaches to helping individuals, families, communities, and national policy; and common myths related to opioid addiction.

'This book is pretty life-changing – encouraging, optimistic, rich with information. It got me off the sofa.' Jeremy Vine 'This is such a lovely, ambitious, fascinating book. Essential lockdown reading. It allows us to reimagine our world and our bodies: we can move more.' Dr Xand van Tulleken...

What happens when teaching becomes too much—and no one is listening? Don't Call Me a Hero is a raw, unfiltered look at what it really means to teach in today’s schools—from the daily chaos and emotional toll to the relentless micromanagement that pushes educators to the edge. If you've ever: • Sat in your car after school and cried • Questioned whether you can keep doing this job • Felt unseen, unheard, or just plain exhausted …this book is for you. Written with grit, heart, and brutal honesty, Nati Carrillo pulls back the curtain on a profession romanticized by the public but...