Four discrete cross-sectional surveys of US adults from 2020-2024 reveal US adults reporting high confidence in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dropped from 82 percent in February 2020 to a low of 56 percent in June 2022, according to a study published June 26, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Amyn A. Malik and colleagues from UT Southwestern Medical Center, United States.

Extreme droughts in LMICs are associated with increased sexual violence against girls and young women, emphasizing how climate change can indirectly exacerbate social vulnerabilities.

Increasing evidence supports the nutritional epigenetics model for autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders that explains how unhealthy diet contributes to the epigenetic inheritance of these disorders. An unhealthy diet characterized by excessive intake of ultra-processed foods results in heavy metal exposures and deficits in zinc that may impact metallothionein gene function. Metallothionein gene malfunction may result in the bioaccumulation of mercury and/or lead in the blood depending on diet. Nutritional epigenetics education may be used as an intervention to reduce the intake of ultra-processed foods and heavy metals in expectant mothers and prevent the development of autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders in children.