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.

Elsevier,

The Lancet Digital Health, Volume 7, March 2025

Editorial highlighting the 2 papers above, discussing challenges in the field of women's health, and recommendations to address these.

The dapivirine vaginal ring is a discreet prevention choice for women at substantial risk of HIV infection as part of combination prevention approaches. This study covers a gap on research including on breastfeeding women. Those living in areas of substantial HIV transmission need options to initiate an HIV prevention method before or during pregnancy and continue their chosen method through breastfeeding and beyond.

A systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence and risk factors of frailty in people experiencing homelessness (PEH).�

Elsevier,

European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Volume 306, March 2025

Artificial intelligence can be useful in gynecologic and obstetric emergencies.
Academic Medical Centers play a key role in providing comprehensive abortion services, from primary care to complex specialty care, and in training future clinicians in abortion provision. The weekly number of abortions at University of Washington remained stable after Dobbs.
This study has shown that even with imperfect coverage of HPV vaccination targeting preadolescent girls, substantially lower incidence of CIN2+ is already observed. Thus, vaccinating population through organized and publicly funded programme should be encouraged and efforts to increase vaccination coverage should be given.
The AI-ECG model treats sex as a continuum, rather than a dichotomy (the current paradigm). This (and a derived biomarker) allows them to show that in those at low cardiovascular (CV) risk, female individuals (but not male individuals) with a higher biomarker score are at increased risk of CV death. The method can help mitigate exisiting inequities in CV healthcare.
The authors suggest that being denied a desired contraceptive method (downward coercion) may have a more profound negative impact on patients' self-efficacy, self-esteem, and reproductive autonomy. Patient autonomy needs to be safeguarded
Elsevier,

Current Developments in Nutrition, Available online 19 February 2025, 104570

This article concludes that mainstream health interventions must move beyond Western-centric models to embrace Indigenous worldviews, traditions, and leadership. The success of the RWWAK program demonstrates that community-driven, culturally grounded approaches foster deeper engagement, meaningful health improvements, and healing from historical trauma. Adopting the Two-Eyed Seeing approach, which honors both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, is essential for creating effective, sustainable health promotion strategies in Indigenous communities. Further efforts should focus on scaling and adapting such models, prioritizing Indigenous voices to ensure programs are authentic, holistic, and supportive of community well-being.

This analysis showed differences in serum EDC concentrations by R/E, sex, and age group in a military sample.

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