Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The United States spends an inordinate amount of money on health care. Much of this spending goes to data acquisition, to medical monitoring, and to assessment of how our health systems function. But are there other areas where money devoted to gathering health data might be better spent? Our health is a product of the […]
“You never write…you never call….” The guilt-tripping mother is common stereotype in movies and TV. But how many adult children harbor feelings of guilt toward their aging parents? Who experiences this guilt, and why? About one in five adult children experience feelings of guilt toward their ageing mothers, based on data from a nationally representative […]
In the last four months, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has marched across the globe. It has stomped to every continent and, as of my writing, to 134 of the 195 countries in the world, sickening hundreds of thousands of people – and killing thousands of them – on its way to global […]
Keeping Upbeat in Tough Times is the new motto for the San Francisco Community Music Center. The phrase sums up the school’s attitude toward the abrupt transition to online instruction that it had to make this spring, after local schools closed their doors because of a government-ordered mandate aimed at slowing the spread of the COVID-19 […]
I read there is a spike in streaming of the 2011 film Contagion by Steven Soderbergh. The film uses a made-up virus loosely modeled after a Nipah virus outbreak. Contagion opens with a black screen, and we hear a woman coughing. The fictional virus MEV-1 hits the brain (and not the lungs as in corona virus pandemics), and we […]
During times of crisis such as the COVID-19 outbreak, citizens often rely on first responders to ensure their daily living remains largely unaffected. However, behind the scenes, people serving in high-stress occupations (i.e. soldiers, police officers, nurses, firefighters, etc.) are often plagued with lack of sleep, shift work, poor eating habits and lack of access […]
Isolation, quarantine, cordon sanitaire, shelter in place, physical distancing. These were unfamiliar words just a few weeks ago. Now, your life and the lives of many others may depend on them. Isolation is the separation of someone who has been identified as ill so that she cannot spread the disease to others. Isolation requires careful management to […]
In recent years, global environmental climate change has become a third rail in American culture, dividing us along political lines. The Republican party espouses a range of positions, from the denial of climate change (the earth is not getting warmer) to denial of our role in causing the problem (even if climate change exists, humans […]
The process of dying – what happens during those days, months, even years before we die – has changed a great deal in recent decades. We live longer than our parents and grandparents, we die for different reasons, we are less likely to die at home, we receive astonishing treatments, and our dying costs more. […]
The whole world is now shaken by the tragic coronavirus pandemic. Despite its unprecedented and devastating dynamic, such a crisis provides crucial insights to the state of the current international system, including its capacity to respond to worldwide emergencies. This helps us gauge our system’s ability to tackle more long-term issues, such as the global […]
The current COVID-19 emergency has much to interest students of politics. Does it demonstrate that authoritarian regimes are able to tackle a pandemic rather more easily and efficiently than liberal democracies? Given the origin of the virus, what does it tell us about our relationship with non-human nature? Is the pandemic a product of globalization? […]
Everyone deserves to go home from work safe and healthy. Sadly, during the current pandemic that will not be the case; some workers will die because they became infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus, the official name for the virus responsible for COVID-19, in their workplace. We expect that employers will take all reasonable steps to protect their workers […]
During the coronavirus crisis, technology will help transform the work of professionals in ways that would have seemed unimaginable only a few weeks ago. AI and the Internet have already led to enormous advances for doctors, lawyers, teachers, auditors, architects, and many others. Technology has not just streamlined traditional ways of working, but also in […]
As school closures and quarantines take place across the globe, the overwhelming anxiety is palpable in the newfound realities of a pandemic. Trips to the grocery store are now strategized, as shoppers face empty shelves and shortages of household staples. This will undoubtably continue as anxiety thrives on uncertainty increasing stress and driving us to […]
The COVID-19 pandemic was announced on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization, marking a turning point for the public health systems serving the health of constituent populations across the globe. This declaration moment is important for narrative on COVID-19 because it is the point at which it is accepted that the virus is not […]
A few hours before he died, my patient, a 21-year-old man (a boy, really) who was undergoing treatment for a blood cancer came to my ward from the emergency department where he had presented with fever. His parents came with him. The emergency clinicians had begun the right protocol to address his fever. My duties, […]