Health & inequality
Nurse-led heart failure care cut deaths by 22% across 22 centers in India
Heart failure care in low-resource settings depends on specialists who are scarce and appointments patients cannot reach. A cluster-randomized trial of 1,507 adults moved the work to nurses and phones.
Sep 8, 2026
Hospital takeovers cut heart attack deaths in Germany while leaving stroke deaths unchanged
Hospital consolidation is usually argued about as a question of money and market power. Comparing 125 acquired German hospitals against 821 that stayed independent asked whether patients survive.
Sep 8, 2026
London's clean air zone restored children's lung growth, and four years later the deficit was gone
A Lancet Public Health natural experiment tracked 3,209 children in London and Luton for five years. London children started with smaller lungs, grew them 10 mL a year faster after the ULEZ, and finished level with the comparison town.
Aug 28, 2026
A phone app lifted tuberculosis cure rates from 74% to 82% in a randomized trial
Tuberculosis treatment runs for months and people stop taking it. A BMJ trial of 525 patients in a low-resource setting found an interactive digital adherence tool raised treatment success by 7 percentage points and cut dropout by a third.
Aug 28, 2026
Social participation tracked 22% lower death risk in older adults across 25 cohort studies
A Geriatric Nursing dose-response meta-analysis pooled 25 prospective cohorts. Older adults who took part in clubs, worship, volunteering or sport had lower all-cause mortality, and each extra session a month tracked a further drop.
Aug 26, 2026
Social prescribing navigators beat a referral line, 50% to 36%, in 326 Ontario patients
326 primary care patients in Ontario were randomized to a navigator who stayed with them or to a referral line. 50.3% reached a needed resource against 35.8%. What nobody measured was whether their health changed.
Aug 18, 2026
Unresolved long COVID tracked leaving work in England
Among 45,864 employed adults in the REACT study, the 4% with long COVID that had not resolved had 38% lower odds of still being in paid work two years later, and four times the odds of changing their hours.
Aug 16, 2026
Social disadvantage tracked with three fewer reproductive years
A Menopause study of 8,576 US women found those facing the most stacked social disadvantage had a reproductive lifespan about three years shorter, with food insecurity weighing heaviest.
Jul 29, 2026