The Guardian Health

What happens to people’s health when air pollution is reduced?

Growing evidence that cutting coal use and bans on high-polluting vehicles are leading directly to health benefitsFailing crops, wildfires and overloaded health systems are focusing minds on the local impacts of our changing climate.While carbon emissions reduction is normally framed as having a global benefit rather than a local gain, studies published in 2025 and 2026 from Greece have added to growing evidence that cutting coal use and air pollution can provide immediate health benefits to lo

health  Aug 21, 2026

The Guardian Health

The Guardian view on Trump’s MMR executive order: endangering the children he claims to care about | Editorial

The president’s empty advice that children should receive separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella will only lead to less take-up by parentsNobody wants to hurt a child. The howl of pain, the tears, the look of betrayed shock all make it very hard to deliver a cherished small person to the needle-wielding nurse. But that’s part of being a responsible parent. It becomes a lot tougher if mum or dad is being fed mixed and erroneous messages about the benefits and harms of vaccination.Parent

health  Aug 20, 2026

The Guardian Health

Patients in Yorkshire complain AI GP receptionist cannot understand accent

Healthwatch Rotherham says Emma AI system’s failure to grasp local ‘twangs’ is leaving people frustratedPatients in a South Yorkshire town are frustrated by AI GP receptionists not understanding their “broad accents”, a health watchdog has said.Healthwatch Rotherham, a local health and social care watchdog, said a number of practices in the area had introduced a new AI receptionist called Emma. Continue reading...

health  Aug 20, 2026

The Guardian Health

Love You to Death review – is this all they asked the woman who faked her son’s illnesses?

Lisa Hayden-Johnson was convicted of child cruelty, but she still insists that she didn’t do anything wrong – and barely gets a grilling about it. Her children, who speak for the first time in this documentary, deserve much moreThere’s an increasingly common pattern emerging whereby documentary makers take a story that was run through the Outrage-A-Tron by the tabloids to produce headlines that warped public understanding (“Britain’s Worst/Most Evil/Most Deadly” and so on), then proceed to put b

health  Aug 19, 2026

The Guardian Health

The Guardian view on the Ebola outbreak in the DRC: a case study in why international aid matters | Editorial

The Trump administration’s ‘America first’ approach has contributed to the scale of the crisis now unfolding in one of the world’s poorest countriesFor months health experts have warned that the scale of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could surpass the one that swept west Africa in 2014-16. This week, the authorities in the DRC announced that a grim milestone has already been passed: at least 2,325 people have died from the virus, making it the deadliest of the

health  Aug 19, 2026

The Guardian Health

Stop putting women through brutal hysteroscopies without pain relief | Letters

The medical system is biased against women, says Carole Kendall, pointing to the very different way men who have colonoscopies are treatedI fully endorse everything Anna Moore writes in her excellent article on the lack of pain relief for hysteroscopies (‘It was barbaric. I was crying my eyes out’: why are so many women left in agony by routine womb examinations?, 16 August).I have had three of these barbaric procedures, two of them being associated with being on hormone replacement therapy (HRT

health  Aug 19, 2026

The Guardian Health

The men I see in therapy did everything right. So why do they feel so empty?

Many of my clients expected to find fulfillment from their career, marriage and home. Instead, they feel grief“I have the career I wanted, but at this point I just don’t care.”“I don’t know why I’m so angry.” Continue reading...

health  Aug 19, 2026

The Guardian Health

At 43, I was fit and happy. Then I developed a nasty – and very expensive - case of shingles | Arwa Mahdawi

Healthy women under 50 are now more at risk of the condition. What I didn’t know is that intense exercise could be to blame and the condition could cost me hundreds of dollarsIf you’re in your 40s, I have a great trick for getting people to spontaneously tell you how young you are: develop shingles. Friends, acquaintances and medical professionals will rapidly inform you that the painful rash is an older person’s disease and, “You’re a bit young to get that, aren’t you?”I say this because at the

health  Aug 19, 2026

The Guardian Health

Poor sleep can cost over-50s nine months of career, study finds

Findings highlight importance of sleep health during middle age, particularly for those with lower socioeconomic statusSleep that is extremely disrupted or that goes on too long could mean a loss of nine months from working life after the age of 50, a study has found.It also found that women with no sleep disturbances had a longer working life from 50 to 68 than their male equivalents. Continue reading...

health  Aug 18, 2026

The Guardian Health

Introducing Ulez was my hardest decision as mayor of London – but now we know its astonishing impact | Sadiq Khan

Critics said I was attacking motorists. It’s more important for me that the city’s children are no longer breathing dangerous levels of pollutionUlez led to better lung size and function among London children, study findsWhen I introduced London’s clean air zone – the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) – more than seven years ago, no city had ever attempted anything quite like it. At the time, the scheme in central London provoked fierce opposition. When I decided to expand it – first in 2021, to in

health  Aug 18, 2026

The Guardian Health

GPs’ advice service is causing cancer diagnoses to be missed, inquiry finds

Advice and guidance services for doctors in England found to be creating risk of missed or late detection of illnessCancer diagnoses have been missed or delayed because of a system designed for GPs to seek specialist advice before referring patients to hospital, according to an investigation.The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) identified patient risks linked to how advice and guidance (A+G) services have been implemented across England. Continue reading...

health  Aug 18, 2026

The Guardian Health

Contemplating death helps us to really value life | Letters

Say the thing, mend the relationship, share the story – and then get on with living, says end-of-life doula Rebecca Jo-Rushdy, while Jane Andrew thinks EM Forster said it bestWhat struck me most about this article (What end-of-life experts know about living well: love your wrinkles, celebrate birthdays and don’t obsess over work, 13 August) is the idea that preparing for the end of life can actually help us live more fully now.As an end-of-life doula, I have seen how a terminal diagnosis can sud

health  Aug 18, 2026

The Guardian Health

Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts

Tech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety featuresIn July 2025, Meta gathered parenting influencers from all over Australia at a waterfront venue overlooking the Sydney Opera House. It was a camping-themed event and in many ways was like any other influencer affair. There were Instagram-branded tents to take pictures in, an Instagram-branded step-and-repeat, a custom-tote making station and Instagra

health  Aug 18, 2026

The Guardian Health

I was abused as a child – and thought I had healed. Then I began drinking in lockdown

Decades after being sexually abused, the author and doctor Frank Spinelli believed he had moved on emotionally. But alcohol destroyed his sense of security. He describes how he confronted his shameNot so long ago, Frank Spinelli seemed to have sorted out his life. He was happily married, working as a doctor and had a sideline writing medical thrillers. He thought he had dealt with the sexual abuse he had suffered as a child – not only had he helped bring the man who groomed and abused him to jus

health  Aug 18, 2026

The Guardian Health

Extreme heat more dangerous for people 60 and over than previously thought

Study finds older adults could face harmful heat stress at just 1.5C of warming above preindustrial levelsPeople aged 60 and over face dangers to their health from exposure to heat at much lower temperatures than previously thought, research has found.Older adults will bear the brunt of increasingly frequent sustained spells of extreme heat globally as the world continues to warm up, according to a study in The Lancet Public Health. Continue reading...

health  Aug 17, 2026

The Guardian Health

Nothing less than radical whole-system change is required to fix the NHS's maternity services | Julia Sanders

It’s vital that Yvette Cooper’s taskforce acts on the Amos and Ockenden reports – and puts the needs of women and families at the heart of maternity servicesIt is hard to find the words to describe the agony for those who have experienced preventable baby loss, injury or maternal death. Understandably, families who have been through this have campaigned relentlessly for local and national investigations. Every family deserves to know what caused their loss or trauma, but current and past reviews

health  Aug 17, 2026

The Guardian Health

All aboard the cervical screening bus: how NHS clinic-on-wheels is saving lives

Exclusive: With no appointment needed and a relaxed environment, bus clinic encourages more women to be checkedIt’s 10am on one of the main pedestrian shopping streets in Warrington, and already there’s a queue of women outside a small bus the size of a supermarket delivery van. While some look calm, others are visibly nervous. This is no mobile library, post office or coffee truck – but one providing far more intimate services: cervical screening.The bus feels surprisingly spacious. There’s a c

health  Aug 17, 2026

The Guardian Health

The super-producer who made an album from his hospital bed – podcast

James Ellis Ford talks about being diagnosed with leukaemia and how making music helped him through one of the hardest periods of his lifeHe has been described as the music industry’s secret weapon; a producer loved by artists such as Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and Jessie Ware. In 2024, James Ellis Ford was at the height of his career, working with a variety of artists that included some of the world’s best-known acts.Then, he was diagnosed with leukaemia and it all ground to a halt. Continue reading.

health  Aug 17, 2026

The Guardian Health

Women should not have to travel for hours to give birth | Letters

Readers reflect on how hospital closures are putting pregnant women’s lives at riskThe situation facing pregnant women in Devon and Cornwall following the closure of North Devon district hospital is not unique (‘Babies will be born in laybys’: maternity cuts leave women with stark choices in Devon, 10 August). Many rural areas have already seen the distances travelled in labour increase due to the closure of local units over the past two decades. In south Cumbria, first-time deliveries are only

health  Aug 16, 2026

The Guardian Health

How surrogacy helped my sister and friends | Letters

Hazel Davis responds to a letter about the regulation and ethics of surrogacy I wish to respond to Lexi Ellingsworth’s letter (Regulation cannot eliminate surrogacy risks, 23 July). I gave birth to a baby for my friends in January. While the baby is living with its parents, my husband and I are the legal parents. We are waiting for our family court date in September to recognise the baby’s biological parents as legal parents.My surrogacy story started when my sister suffered complications f

health  Aug 16, 2026