Research Library

Non-medical drivers of health, also known as social determinants of health, have a significant impact on health outcomes. As fellow Sandra McKay and her co-authors explain, adequate funding to identify and address non-medical drivers — housing and food insecurity, transport issues, and financial strain — can improve patients’ health and health care delivery systems, while also reducing costs.

Progress on the UN’s sustainable development goals — aimed at achieving peace and prosperity for all people and the planet — has been slow. However, fellow Harris A. Eyre and his co-authors explain how applying a brain capital framework could change the trajectory.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a gap in our ability to track and stop the spread of infectious diseases. With funding from the National Science Foundation, a Rice University research team is engineering bacteria to sustainably and continuously monitor wastewater for viruses.

Prioritizing the safety and capacity of reconstruction workers can speed up the disaster recovery process and make communities more resilient to future hazards, write Drs. William Brett Perkison and Bill Christian, researchers at UTHealth Houston.

The creation of a new industry of brain capital technologies could stimulate major economic activity, create jobs, and contribute to technological advances for the U.S. and its allies, write Harris Eyre, Rachel Meidl and co-authors.

Social distancing and stay-at-home measures provided scientists with a natural experiment to study social phenomena that hinge precisely on human mobility and contact — including criminal activity. A study by Center for the U.S. and Mexico experts and co-authors explores the relationship between COVID-19 and criminal activity in Mexico.

The food environment currently dominated by the industrialized food industry is undermining both brain health and our environment.

Brain diseases have profound impacts on our health, our communities and the economy. In this brief, fellow Harris A. Eyre explains why Texas needs to establish a state research institute to tackle a growing brain health crisis.

Expert Heidi Russell analyzes the economic impacts of relaxing vaccination requirements for children and finds that as immunization rates decline, the costs of an outbreak increase.

Anti-vaccine advocates have been deploying a new tactic: pushing for unvaccinated individuals to become a protected group under constitutional and statutory law. Expert Valerie Gutmann Koch explores why this could threaten public health.