A new study published in Substance Use & Addiction Journal found that state-level AUD estimates among women ranged from approximately 6-13 percent, with all New England states and several in the West and Midwest exceeding the national average of 8 percent among women. More than 40 percent of addiction treatment facilities did not offer women-specific treatment, and services targeted toward women—especially childcare—were disproportionately unavailable in many states that had higher-than-average estimated AUD prevalence among women. The study was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and is the first to explore state-level differences in AUD among women and the availability of women-specific services in treatment facilities.

A twenty-year study, by researchers at Monash University in Australia, reveals that the number of people exposed to both wildfires and heatwaves globally, on the same days, has increased by 287 million over the two decades from 2000 to 2019, and that over half of the world’s population has experienced these conjoined weather events over the 20 years.

A new report (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biag125) published in the journal BioScience warns that “Earth’s climate system is moving deeper into uncharted territory,” with seven of 16 climate-related planetary vital signs now at record extremes. The study, co-led by Dr. William J. Ripple of Oregon State University and Dr. Christopher Wolf of Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates, describes the situation plainly: “We are witnessing the rapid destabilization of the Earth’s climate system. This is no longer a warning for the future; it is a diagnosis of the present.”