In a recent study, Kim and co-author Woodam Chung, PhD, a forest engineer at Oregon State University, were the first to objectively measure biomechanical stress experienced by professional timber fellers during actual timber felling operations. They also evaluated forest workers’ perceptions of wearable exoskeletons—emerging technology already being used in other physically demanding industries such as shipbuilding and automotive and aerospace manufacturing.

About The Study: Between February 28, 2025, and April 8, 2025, 694 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants were terminated across 24 of the 26 institutes and centers (including the Office of the Director) that administered active NIH grants. Targeted grant terminations have affected more than $1.8 billion in NIH funding. Terminations were spread across nearly all NIH institutes and centers, although cuts disproportionately impacted the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (30% of all funding).

About The Study: In this cohort study, depression among veterans was associated with an increased hazard of incident heart failure after controlling for demographic and cardiovascular risk factors. Higher incident heart failure rates in patients with depression remained consistent in an otherwise low-risk cohort.

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, a patient-centered measure of adverse experiences in vulvovaginal care was developed. Participants reported common past experiences with gaslighting (a patient’s concerns are dismissed without proper evaluation) and substantial distress; they frequently considered ceasing care. There is an urgent need for education supporting a biopsychosocial, trauma-informed approach to vulvovaginal pain and continued development of validated instruments to quantify patient experiences.

Children born to mothers with obesity, gestational diabetes mellitus or a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy have higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure than children born to mothers without these risk factors, according to a new USC study. Among children whose mothers had at least one risk factor, blood pressure also rose more quickly between ages 2 and 18 compared to their peers. Researchers used data collected between January 1994 and March 2023 through the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program. The data include demographic and health information on 12,480 mother-child pairs from across the country, about half of whom identified as non-white. The study found that children born to mothers with at least one cardiometabolic risk factor had a systolic blood pressure (SBP) that averaged 4.88 percentile points higher than children whose mothers had no risk factors. Diastolic blood pressure (DBP) averaged 1.90 percentile points higher. Children born to mothers with two risk factors faced even higher blood pressure. For example, when mothers had both obesity and a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, their children had SBP that averaged 7.31 points higher and DBP that averaged 4.04 points higher than children whose mothers had no risk factors.. The findings, which suggest that blood pressure interventions could start as early as pregnancy, were just published in JAMA Network Open. 

Galena Park, Texas, is on the northern bank of the Houston Ship Channel, home of the nation’s largest petrochemical complex. About 4,200 of the town’s nearly 10,500 residents live within a mile of industrial sites that handle substances that are sufficiently hazardous to be covered under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program. Now, a new, multidisciplinary study from researchers at Texas A&M University, that is part of a broader, multi-year effort, sheds light on how Galena Park residents feel about a novel remedy for their situation: home buyouts.