A weekly roundup of public health news
Measles cases may soar in US without more vaccinations
Measles — a disease once considered eliminated in the U.S. — could be on its way to an explosion of cases over the next two dozen years, a new study warns.
At current vaccination rates, the U.S. could experience 851,300 cases of measles over the next 25 years, according to the April 24 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That caseload would be expected to result in 170,200 hospitalizations and 2,550 deaths, the Stanford University-led research team said.
In comparison, the U.S. experienced only about 4,000 measles cases over the past 25 years.
If measles vaccination rates increase just 5%, the U.S. would see only about 5,800 cases by 2050, the study said. But if rates decline another 10%, the nation could see more than 11 million measles cases.
About 93% of U.S. kindergartners received their measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in the 2023-2024 school year. While high, the rate falls short of the 95% rate achieved before the COVID-19 pandemic and is lower than what is needed to provide widespread community protection. Measles vaccination rates vary by state, with generally higher rates in the eastern U.S.
The new research comes as the number of measles cases reported in the U.S. this year rises to 800, the second-highest annual case count in 25 years, according to a April 24 update in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Nearly 630 of those cases are linked to a single ongoing outbreak in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. One adult and two children have died in the outbreak, which is centered in West Texas. A middle school child in the Dallas-Fort Worth area tested positive for measles this week, though whether it was connected to the West Texas outbreak was uncertain.
Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, meaning that the disease was not being continually circulated in the country for at least a year. The nation has still experienced cases since then, but they were mostly imported by people who were infected in other countries.
If vaccination rates drop by half, researchers in the JAMA study said measles could become endemic again in the U.S. — meaning that it is regularly circulating and infecting people here — in less than five years.
Two doses of vaccine against measles are considered to be 97% effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Protection usually lasts for life.
Half of people in US breathing in dangerous air pollution
The number of people in the U.S. who breathe unhealthy air has swollen by 25 million, a new report from the American Lung Association finds. That raises the total of people exposed to poor quality air to 156 million — or nearly half the U.S. population.
The April 23 “State of the Air” report levied grades for U.S. communities based on their exposure to unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone air pollution and particle pollution over a three-year period. Only two cities — Bangor, Maine, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, made the nation’s cleanest air list.
Many of the cities cited for poor air quality are located in California, which is home to widespread wildfires, rising temperatures and a large oil drilling industry, all of which contribute to poorer air quality. California’s Bakersfield-Delano region was named the worst region for both short-term and year-round particle pollution, while the Los Angeles-Long Beach area had the worst ozone pollution.
Other states with cities that ranked poorly for air quality included Texas, Utah, Arizona, Oregon, Alaska and Washington.
People of color — especially Hispanic people — were more likely than white people to live in communities with across-the-board failing grades, the report found.
Burnout slow to fade for overtaxed health workforce
Burnout among health workers, which spiked during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, remained high even as the outbreak ebbed, a new study published April 21 in JAMA Network Open shows.
The research, which focused on workers within the U.S. Veterans Health Administration, found that burnout among health staff fell after the emergency phase of the pandemic ended in May 2023, but remained higher than before the pandemic began in March 2020.
Burnout in June 2023 was more than 16% higher in 2023 than 2020, the researchers found. Primary care physicians reported the highest burnout levels, while burnout levels were lower for staff who teleworked most of the time.
Burnout, which is characterized by physical and mental exhaustion and detachment, can be harmful both personally and professionally for health workers. On the job, burnout can lower quality of care, increase errors and raise infection risks. Burned out workers can also experience depression, anxiety and problems in their personal lives.
The study findings suggest burnout may be slower to develop and slower to improve than workplace stress, study authors said.
Other recent public health news of note includes:
• When it comes to U.S. population groups, Asian Americans experience the greatest number of healthy years of life, a new study in The Lancet Regional Health-Americas finds. The research looked at how long Americans live and how healthy they are during those years, finding Asian people averaged about 72 healthy years of life. They were followed by Hispanic people, at about 69 years; white people, 66; Black people, 64; and American Indian and Alaska Native people, at 61.
• The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased significantly, new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show. CO2 increased by 3.75 parts per million in 2024, the fastest amount of annual growth recorded, according to the federal agency. Human activities such as burning of fossil fuels are raising levels of atmospheric CO2 and causing climate change.
• Despite progress in wastewater treatment, microplastics are still common in drinking water, posing potential health and environmental hazards, according to new research in Science of the Total Environment. Microfibers, such as from clothing and other textiles, are the most common microplastic shape found in drinking water, the review by researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington found.
• Science linking microplastics to human health harms is growing. A preliminary study presented this week at an American Heart Association scientific conference found people with plaque in the blood vessels of their neck, also known as carotid arteries, have a higher amount of micronanoplastics in those vessels as well. Previous research has found that people with micronanoplastics in their carotid artery plaque are much more likely to have a heart attack or stroke.
• Two open access journals supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Environmental Health Perspectives and the Journal of Health and Pollution, announced April 23 they were pausing acceptance of new study submissions due to “recent changes in operational resources.” The Trump administration has made massive cuts to National Institutes of Health funding in recent weeks, with more expected to come in the president’s federal budget proposal.
• More than 112 million people in the U.S. get their water from systems that have potentially problematic levels of lead, a new analysis from the Natural Resources Defense Council shows. Using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the organization created a map showing where affected populations live. From January 2021 through December 2024, about 44 million people in the U.S. received their water from systems that reported lead levels that exceeded a new EPA standard set to take effect in 2027, the council said.
• DDT that was used to wipe out tree-killing insects more than 50 years ago can still be detected in fish swimming in forest lakes, a new study in PLOS One finds. Researchers examined brook trout caught in New Brunswick, Canada, where spruce trees were treated with the now-banned insecticide between 1952 and 1968. DDT levels detected in fish caught recently were often 10 times as high as the level recommended as safe for wildlife, they found.
• Low-income people with diabetes are 25% more likely to lose their health insurance than people without the disease, finds a new study in the Journal of American Family Medicine. People with uncontrolled diabetes, more complex medication plans or complications were even more likely to lose coverage. More than 60% of patients who lost private coverage never regained insurance, researchers found.
• Increasing climate change risks may jeopardize the global blood supply, according to a new study in The Lancet Planetary Health. Extreme weather and spread of infectious disease will both increase demand for blood and make it harder for people to donate, researchers said.
• New research in Occupational Health & Environmental Medicine says having a high physical workload during pregnancy increases risks for miscarriages, preterm birth and small gestational age.
• A new study in Frontiers in Public Health finds fine-particle pollution contributed to 7.83 million deaths globally in 2021. Ischemic heart disease and stroke were the leading causes of PM2.5-related deaths. Children under age 5 and older adults were most impacted. PM2.5 pollution, such as from fossil fuels, industries and wildfires, can enter the bloodstream through air sacs in the lungs and cause harm to bodily organs.
• About 1.4 billion people around the world live in areas with soil that is dangerously polluted by heavy metals, according to new findings in Science. Up to 17% of global cropland is contaminated by toxic heavy metal pollution such as arsenic, cadmium and lead, the study said.
• So-called “forever chemicals” are common in endometrial tissue, says a new study in Environmental Health Perspectives. While per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances were not found to be associated with a higher risk of having endometriosis, women with certain types of PFAS in their endometrial tissue were at higher risk of having a more severe stage of the painful disease.
The Watch is written by Michele Late, who has more than two decades of experience as a public health journalist.
