Mental health issues are a growing concern in today’s modern world. Around 450 million people suffer from mental illness of some kind, but only one in three of those people actively seek treatment. We do know that interaction with nature provides benefits for mental health and being around nature has been shown to have a positive effect on those suffering form anxiety, depression and stress. Formal ecotherapy programs are on the rise – but in our increasingly urbanised world, how can we help...

Offering all students free lunch helps boost academic performance, a new report, which looked at meal programs in New York City middle schools, shows. The study, out of Syracuse University’s Center for Policy Research, assessed the impact of universal free lunch on students who previously didn’t have access to such a meals program. Researchers found “statistically significant” bumps in reading and math state test scores once students attended schools with universal free lunch. One way to...

By Nynke R. Koning, Frederike L. Büchner, Robert R.J.M. Vermeiren, Mathilde R. Crone, and Mattjs E. Numans Background Despite being common and having long lasting effects, mental health problems in children are often under-recognised and under-treated. Improving early identification is important in order to provide adequate, timely treatment. We aimed to develop prediction models for the one-year risk of a first recorded mental health problem in children attending primary care. Methods We...

By The Lancet Public Health, October 17, 2019 On Oct 1, 2019, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) published Just Societies: Health Equity and Dignified Lives, the report of the Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas—a Commission established by PAHO, chaired by Sir Michael Marmot, and tasked to analyse the effect of drivers influencing health, while proposing actions to address health inequalities in the region. The report finds that, although there have been...

This is a very interesting podcast from NPR's Hidden Brain. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain