According to the U.S. Census Bureau report, the older adult population will continue to grow significantly in the coming years as a result of the aging “baby boom” generation. This will affect families, businesses and health care providers. 

More than half of adults who reach age 65 will—at some point—need a high level of support with basic daily activities, such as walking, eating, bathing and getting out of bed. They may also need help with paying bills, taking medications regularly, and scheduling and getting to appointments and social activities.

With the increase in longevity and our society’s expansive aging population, more people are living with chronic health conditions, which can make it challenging to perform the activities of daily living.

With heart disease, we see major differences among different groups of people. It’s the leading cause of death for most racial/ethnic groups in the United States, and is especially common among vulnerable populations, such as ethnic minority groups and low-income populations. 

The medications and treatments that we use to deal with different illnesses and injuries have been studied using clinical trials. Unfortunately, the people who often participate rarely include those from underrepresented backgrounds—African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and people living in rural areas. This lack of diversity in clinical trials hinders opportunities for discovering medication and treatment effects that may only occur in underrepresented populations.

Over 50% of Hispanic adults are predicted to develop type 2 diabetes (CDC, 2016). Addressing this particular disease burden on the community will require a variety of efforts, including increasing Latino/Hispanic representation in clinical trials.

For the handful of nations that possess nuclear weapons, how they are controlled and managed has been a fundamental issue since the dawn of the nuclear age. North Korea—a country steeped in secrecy—raises many questions in this regard. 

Since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade provided women with safe and legal abortion, subsequent decisions have resulted in states having enacted a total of 1,142 restrictions to abortion access. This has created a patchwork of laws that impact women’s health inconsistently and impose financial hardship. 

A vast and expensive plan to “modernize” the nation's nuclear stockpile began under President Obama. A recent report in The New York Times describes how the plan’s costs have recently ballooned from $1 trillion over 30 years to more than $1.2 trillion. 

The majority of states require parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion—either by notification or consent. Since the Supreme Court ruled that states may not give parents a veto over a daughter’s choice, 36 states allow a minor to petition a judge to waive the requirement to notify parents, or obtain one or both parents’ permission.