By Martin Liu Edited By Courtney Schneider Introduction With a projected global population of 10 billion by 2050,1 countries face the difficult task of providing enough food to meet growing nutritional needs. Protein–a macronutrient vital to human health and development–is a key component of nutrition, with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the… Read more »
The mental health system in the United States has historically lacked appropriate care for patients experiencing severe mental illness. During the 1960s, mental healthcare shifted from institutional settings to community-based services [1]. Although this shift gave patients with severe mental illness more autonomy over their care, it led to market forces driving a reduction in psychiatric beds without a parallel increase in support for community services [2]. As such, patients seeking preventative care for severe mental illness face long waitlists for community-based services; instead, these patients divert to ill-equipped emergency departments (EDs) for treatment of acute episodes but likewise wait long periods in hallways or other emergency room areas for an inpatient bed, also known as “boarding.”
As the threat of human-induced climate change increases, bringing with it rising tides, wildfires, and drought, the potential for impactful environmental legislation in the United States is decreasing. Climate change as a policy issue has become partisan, with 80 percent of Democrats to only 29 percent of Republicans believing it should be urgently addressed. The Biden Administration’s signature legislation, the Build Back Better Act, which includes $550 billion dedicated to fighting climate change, is stalled in the Senate, demonstrating the difficulty of passing sweeping legislation as a means to tackle the problem.