Health and wellbeing

Health and well-being have a central role in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the United Nations, emphasizing the integral part they play in building a sustainable future. The third SDG explicitly calls for ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages. This goal encompasses a wide range of health objectives, from reducing maternal and child mortality rates, combatting disease epidemics, to improving mental health and well-being. But beyond SDG 3, health is intrinsically linked with almost all the other goals.

When addressing SDG 1, which aims to end poverty, one cannot neglect the social determinants of health. Economic hardship often translates into poor nutrition, inadequate housing, and limited access to health care, leading to a vicious cycle of poverty and poor health. Similarly, achieving SDG 2, ending hunger, also contributes to better health through adequate nutrition, essential for physical and mental development and the prevention of various diseases.

Conversely, the repercussions of climate change, encapsulated in SDG 13, profoundly impact health. Rising global temperatures can lead to increased spread of infectious diseases, compromised food and water supplies, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, all posing severe health risks. Conversely, the promotion of good health can also mitigate climate change through the reduction of carbon-intensive lifestyles and adoption of healthier, more sustainable behaviors.

SDG 5, advocating for gender equality, also has substantial health implications. Ensuring women's access to sexual and reproductive health services not only improves their health outcomes, but also contributes to societal and economic development. Furthermore, achieving SDG 4, quality education, is also critical for health promotion. Education fosters health literacy, empowering individuals to make informed health decisions, hence improving overall community health.

Lastly, SDG 17 underlines the importance of partnerships for achieving these goals. Multi-sector collaboration is vital to integrate health considerations into all policies and practices. Stakeholders from various sectors, including health, education, agriculture, finance, and urban planning, need to align their efforts in creating sustainable environments that foster health and well-being.

Hence, the relationship between health, well-being, and the SDGs is reciprocal. Improving health and well-being helps in achieving sustainable development, and vice versa. In this context, health and well-being are not just outcomes but are also powerful enablers of sustainable development. For the world to truly thrive, it must recognize and act upon these interconnections.

This study demonstrates that a multipronged SBCC (social and Behavior Change Communication) intervention can modify mothers’ complementary feeding practices, improve fathers’ and mothers’ knowledge of complementary feeding, and increase fathers’ support for complementary feeding, despite low levels of participant-reported exposure to some intervention components.
Elsevier, Current Developments in Nutrition, Volume 6, 1 May 2022
The findings in this paper suggest that both supply- and demand-side solutions are needed to improve HMG (health mothers’ group) performance and uptake in Nepal. These solutions need to include improving FCHV (female community health volunteer) skills and motivating them to provide high-quality HMG services, as well as encouraging family members to support women so that they have time to participate in the HMGs.
This paper's findings highlight various facilitators and barriers that need to be given special attention during the design and implementation phases of PDH (Positive Deviance/Hearth) and PDH-IVC (Positive Deviance/Hearth-Interactive Voice Calling program). The mental health, time, and resource constraints of elderly caregivers should also be addressed for a context like Cambodia when implementing child-focused health and nutrition programs.
Elsevier,

Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, Volume 71, May 2022

There is clear evidence that lifestyle factors affect iron bioavailability. However, information regarding the effect of alcohol and caffeine consumption on iron metabolism is limited.
Venn diagram describing the overlap in antimicrobial compound hits against M chimaera, M abscessus, and M tuberculosis.
This Article supports SDG 3, focusing on using an open drug discovery platform to identify compounds that inhibit Mycobacterium chimaera, as well as investigating possible drug repurposing options
Elsevier, Women's Studies International Forum, Volume 92, 1 May 2022
While there is much research on men's mental health and sport, there has been less focus on women's gendered experiences of mental health and sport. Sport is widely considered to improve or sustain mental health, but it can be a problematic space for women. Focusing on four in-depth interviews with two women from a case study of an Australian field hockey club, we examine how women negotiate and manage their mental health and recovery from trauma through sport participation.
This study examines the impact of adverse childhood experiences on the mental health of older adults and explores the role of physical and cognitive functions as mediators. It also finds that the number of children moderates the relationship, with ACEs having a stronger effect on mental health for older adults with fewer children.
A study in Osaka, Japan, investigated social support's effect on mental health across different age groups. The study suggests prioritizing neighbourly support in mental health interventions for the pre-old population.
Graphical abstract
This paper reveals effective etiological capabilities of theranostic F-SLOH to target and intervene multiple neuropathological changes in AD mouse models. Therefore, F-SLOH demonstrates tremendous therapeutic potential for treating AD in its early stage.
Elsevier,

Translational Autoimmunity, Autoimmune Diseases in Different Organs, Volume 4 in Translational Immunology, 2022, Pages 309-331

This chapter aligns with the SDG goal 3 of good health and wellbeing by examining current efforts to treat patients who do not adequately respond to standard immunosuppressive treatments as well as to find novel noninvasive biomarkers that can reliably substitute liver histology in assessing liver fibrosis and in predicting hard long-term outcomes.

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