Culture

Lord Ara Darzi and Oliver Keown at the Institute of Global Health Innovation want a ban to help smokers quit and to protect children from seeing people lighting up.

Extending anti-smoking legislation in the UK to encompass a ban in parks and squares "is an opportunity to celebrate the great beacon of healthy living, clean air, and physical activity our green spaces are designed for," they write. "And, crucially, it is an opportunity to support our population - young and old - to make healthier lifestyle choices easier."

Sub-Saharan Africans rate their own wellbeing, their health and their health-care systems among the lowest in the world, according to a new report published by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Despite these low ratings, health care is not a primary policy concern for people in these countries. Instead, sub-Saharan Africans cite jobs as a top priority, followed by improving agriculture and tackling corruption.

Changes in pension and employment policies are making it increasingly necessary for older people in the UK to work beyond the age of 65. However, new research from the University of Surrey finds significant differences in the likelihood of employment and income levels of people beyond 65, depending on their gender and health.

New research has found some teachers mark boys' primary (elementary) school maths tests more favourably than girls, impacting girls' uptake of advanced mathematics and science subjects in high school. Entrance rates into maths and science degrees at university level can also be traced back to the impacts of teachers' gender bias in primary school.

A doctor's recommendation and a patient's race may influence flu vaccination rates, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Researchers found that 90 percent of patients received vaccination if their physician advocated for it compared to 58 percent of patients whose physician did not.

Vaccination rates were also higher in whites (93 percent) and Asians (84 percent) than African Americans (62 percent), researchers say, theorizing that African Americans might not trust the vaccination's benefit.

A new film, Surviving Terminal Cancer (www.survivingterminalcancer.com) by director/writer Dominic Hill, had its premiere at Lincoln Center February 18, 2015. Through the personal stories of Ben Williams and a remarkable wave of other long-term glioblastoma survivors following in his path, the film offers for the first time some hope for an alternative to the certain death offered by the current medical establishment for what is ordinarily considered to be an invariably fatal disease.

Although several studies have shown an association between intelligence and various health-related outcomes, the research on cognitive abilities and alcohol-related problems has been inconsistent. A new study of the association between IQ-test results and drinking, measured as both total intake and pattern of use, has found that a lower IQ is clearly associated with greater and riskier drinking among young adult men, although their poor performance on the IQ-test may also be linked to other disadvantages.