Public health & disease

From disease eradication efforts to advances in vaccination and maternal health, this archive tracks real progress in public health. Stories here focus on what’s working — policies, interventions, and research that are improving and extending lives around the world.

Water flowing from faucet, for article on PFAS drinking water limits

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announces first-ever national regulations for “forever chemicals” in drinking water

By / / Good News For Humankind

PFAS drinking water protections are now federal law, with the EPA setting the first-ever national limits on six “forever chemicals” found in tap water across the country. The rules are expected to reduce exposure for around 100 million Americans and will require roughly 6 to 10 percent of public water systems to upgrade testing and treatment. To help with the lift, $1 billion in federal funding is immediately available to states, with priority for the communities — often low-income and disproportionately communities of color — that have carried the heaviest contamination. After decades of industry resistance and slow-moving science, a binding national standard signals that public health can still win out, and offers a template for confronting the thousands of PFAS compounds still unregulated.

A medical professional drawing blood from a patient's arm for an article about blood tests for dementia, for article on dementia blood test

U.K. launches blood tests for dementia in landmark five-year trial

By / / Good News For Humankind

Dementia blood tests are now being offered at more than 50 memory clinics across the U.K., in a landmark five-year trial aiming to transform how the disease is detected. Led by researchers at Oxford and University College London, the study will screen approximately 5,000 volunteers for protein biomarkers linked to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Currently, around one in three people with dementia in England has never received a formal diagnosis, and painful, slow pathways mean some patients wait up to four years for results. Earlier detection could connect patients to newer treatments that work best in the disease’s earliest stages.

Elderly person smiling, for article on global life expectancy gains

Global life expectancy increased by 6.2 years between 1990 and 2021

By / / Good News For Humankind

Global life expectancy rose by 6.2 years between 1990 and 2021, according to a sweeping Lancet study built from over 607 billion estimates by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The biggest leap came in Eastern sub-Saharan Africa, where people gained 10.7 years of life, largely thanks to clean water, vaccines, and oral rehydration therapy beating back diarrheal diseases. Steep drops in lower respiratory infections, stroke, and heart disease added further years almost everywhere. The pandemic set things back, but the deeper story is hopeful: targeted public health investment works at scale, and extending those same tools to every country is now the defining frontier of global health.

Mushrooms, for article on psilocybin public opinion

Nearly 9 in 10 Americans now think using psilocybin is ‘morally positive,’ in dramatic shift in public opinion

By / / Good News For Humankind

Supervised psilocybin therapy just got a remarkable vote of confidence: in a new peer-reviewed survey of 795 U.S. adults, 91% of liberals and 86% of conservatives called its use for psychiatric treatment morally acceptable. That’s the kind of bipartisan agreement you almost never see anymore. Researchers from Oxford, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Granada also found that strong majorities approved of psilocybin to enhance well-being in healthy people, not just to treat illness. The authors suggest compassion-based values help explain the consensus across political lines. As more states move toward legal, supervised psilocybin services, this quiet agreement among Americans hints at a broader, more humane shift in how societies might soon approach mental health.

Milky Way arching over dark desert sagebrush landscape for an article about Oregon Outback dark sky sanctuary, for article on dark sky sanctuary

Oregon outback becomes world’s largest dark sky sanctuary at 2.5 million acres

By / / Good News For Humankind

The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary has become the largest dark sky sanctuary on Earth, covering 2.5 million acres of southeastern Oregon’s Lake County after receiving official certification from DarkSky International. The designation protects skies already considered among the darkest in the world, with nearly 1.7 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management under commitments for ongoing monitoring and lighting improvements. Beyond stargazing, the protection matters for wildlife along the Pacific Flyway and species like bighorn sheep and sage grouse that depend on undisturbed terrain. Organizers hope the sanctuary could eventually expand to over 11 million acres.

Woman receiving mammogram, for article on U.K. cancer mortality drop

Cancer deaths in middle-aged people in the U.K. have plummeted since the 1990s

By / / Good News For Humankind

Cancer deaths among middle-aged adults in the U.K. have dropped by more than a third over 25 years, according to a new Cancer Research U.K. study tracking 23 cancer types. Cervical cancer mortality led the way with a 54% fall, thanks largely to national screening programmes, while lung cancer deaths in men plummeted by 53% as smoking rates declined. Behind the statistics are people like Anne Parmenter, whose bowel cancer was caught through a routine NHS screening kit that arrived in the post — nine years later, she credits it with saving her life. For countries investing in tobacco control, HPV vaccination, or expanded screening, the U.K.’s quarter-century record offers something powerful: evidence that patient, sustained public health work genuinely saves lives.

African girl sleeping on mother's shoulder, for article on global child mortality

‘Historic milestone’ as global child mortality hits record low of 4.9 million in 2022

By / / Good News For Humankind

Child deaths worldwide have fallen to 4.9 million in 2022 — the lowest number ever recorded, and roughly half the toll of the year 2000. Behind that drop is decades of unglamorous, working-everyday care: vaccines, bed nets, oral rehydration, skilled midwives, and community health workers showing up in their own neighborhoods. Rwanda offers a remarkable glimpse of what’s possible, having cut its under-five mortality rate by more than 80% since the aftermath of the 1994 genocide through community-based insurance and a serious investment in primary care. The number is still far too high, and newborns and children in conflict zones remain especially vulnerable. But the trend is one of humanity’s quiet, steady triumphs — proof that coordinated care, sustained over decades, saves millions of lives.

A large french flag fluttering under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, for article on constitutional abortion rights

France becomes world’s first country to enshrine abortion rights in constitution

By / / Good News For Humankind

Constitutional abortion rights became reality in France on Monday when lawmakers gathered at Versailles voted 780 to 72 to embed the protection in the nation’s founding document — the first country anywhere to do so. The amendment guarantees a “freedom” to abortion, language Prime Minister Gabriel Attal framed as a moral debt owed to generations of women, and a message that “your body belongs to you.” That night, the Eiffel Tower glowed with the words “my body my choice.” The move came as a direct response to the unraveling of Roe v. Wade, and it offers the world a powerful new template: lifting reproductive freedom above the reach of shifting politics, where it becomes structurally harder to take away.

3d illustration of gut and stomach pain, for article on Crohn's disease remission

79% of Crohn’s disease patients in remission after early intervention

By / / Good News For Humankind

Crohn’s disease patients given the drug infliximab right after diagnosis reached sustained remission at a rate of 79% after one year, compared to just 15% for those on the standard step-by-step approach. The Cambridge-led trial of 386 patients also found that only one person in the early-treatment group needed urgent bowel surgery, versus ten in the conventional group. Researchers say the old wisdom of saving the strongest drugs for last lets quiet damage build up while the clock ticks. With cheaper biosimilar versions now widely available, this finding could reshape care for the millions living with Crohn’s worldwide — and it’s a powerful reminder that sometimes the best medicine is simply not waiting.

Dentist's Hand Taking Saliva Test From Woman's Mouth, for article on handheld saliva test for breast cancer

Hand-held test for breast cancer uses your saliva and gives accurate readings in 5 seconds

By / / Good News For Humankind

A handheld breast cancer screener developed by researchers in the U.S. and Taiwan can detect cancer biomarkers from a single drop of saliva in under five seconds — using a reusable circuit board that costs just $5 and paper test strips priced in pennies. Built on the same glucose-strip technology found in home diabetes kits, the device was designed specifically for clinics and communities where mammograms and MRIs aren’t an option. Lead author Hsiao-Hsuan Wan said the goal was to make screening possible where it simply hasn’t been before. Clinical trials and approvals still lie ahead, but if it gets there, early detection — one of medicine’s most powerful tools against breast cancer — could finally reach the millions of women long left out.