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Spring 2024

Public health

Teenagers searching online with mobile phones and tablet
Spring 2024

TikTok Rx: Youth turn to social media for health advice

Young people have lots of questions about diet, exercise, and sexual health. TikTok is one of their most trusted venues for finding out information.

“They’ll go to TikTok and ask questions,” says Nicole O’Donnell, assistant professor at Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. “They’re learning about health mostly through other people’s stories rather than some of the traditional health information you might get online.”

But are they getting good health advice? In a recent study, O’Donnell analyzed health content on TikTok. Influencers with motivational stories were prevalent, while content from credentialed health providers was lacking.

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Superbug. Illustration Luciano Cosmo
Winter 2018

Superbugs

A woman lies dying in a hospital bed in an acute care facility in Nevada. She has a common infection induced by a common bacterium, Klebsiella pneumoniae. But she’s untreatable: her infection is resistant to all 26 of the antibacterial drugs available in the United States capable of treating the bacterium. The infection spreads further, which causes her blood pressure to drop precipitously until she finally succumbs to septic shock.

While death by “superbugs” is still fairly rare, the World Health Organization warns that, if bacteria keep evolving drug resistance at the rate they have been, such bugs will globally cause 10 million deaths per … » More …

Ruth Bindler
Winter 2012

What I’ve Learned Since College—An interview with Ruth Bindler ’01

Ruth Bindler ’01 PhD grew up in the Adirondacks of New York. In the 1960s, when she started college at Cornell, the typical paths for women were teaching and nursing. Since she enjoyed her science classes, nursing seemed a logical route. Turned out it was a great fit. After working for a time at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, she moved to Wisconsin with Julian Bindler, who later became her husband, and found both nursing work and graduate school.

Bindler not only went on to become a successful public health nurse, she authored several books on children’s health and medication, was a … » More …