"Only the “necessary things”: the evolution of medical education alongside epidemiological shifts in burden of disease"
Katherine van Schaik
Harvard Medical School, Department of the Classics, Institute for Evolutionary Medicine
Harvard University, University of Zurich
Two thousand years ago, a Greek physician proclaimed that he would teach medical students only the “necessary things”.
"Expanding the Understanding of Evolution by Medical Students via a Student-Run Interest Group"
Michelle Blyth
New Orleans School of Medicine
Louisiana State University
In order to grow emerging physicians’ understanding and application of evolution and medical research, an evolutionary medicine interest group was found
"Evolutionary theory in public health program planning: a pragmatic step forward"
Emerald Snow
Community Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Latin American Studies Interdepartmental Program
University of California, Los Angeles
Evolutionary academics have long advocated for the application of evolutionary theory to medicine and public health, yet the bridge between research and practice appears wide (Gibson & Lawson, 2014; Nesse & Stearns, 2008).
"Integrating evolutionary insights within baccalaureate public health programs"
Bria Dunham
Department of Health Sciences
Boston University
Baccalaureate public health programs in the United States have rapidly proliferated under a cluster of program titles including health science, global health, community health, and more. At the undergraduate level, public health programs are highly diverse in size, scope, and articulation with larger schools of medicine or public health.
"A different kind of cooperative breeding: roundworm infection increases odds of conception in human females"
Aaron D. Blackwell
Department of Anthropology, Tsimane Health and Life History Project, San Borja, Bolivia
University of California Santa Barbara
Helminth infection causes TH2 biasing of immune responses, with effects on autoimmunity, microbiota, and health such that some refer to helminths as “old friends”.
"Does individual natural variation in ovarian steroid concentrations predict variation in lifetime reproductive success? An empirical test using longitudinal data from a natural fertility population."
Virginia J.
"Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep disorders"
Charles L. Nunn
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology Duke Global Health Institute
Duke University
Sleep is essential to cognitive function and health in humans, yet the ultimate reasons for sleep – i.e., why sleep evolved – remain mysterious.
"Does anxiety keep you safe? Evidence from seven large European population-based cohorts."
William Lee
Centre for Clinical Trials and Population Studies, Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry
Plymouth University
Raised trait anxiety appears to be beneficial to animals but what about humans? Our first study on the topic found raised trait anxiety to be associated with reduced deaths from injuries.
"The perils of plasticity"
Randolph M. Nesse
Center for Evolution & Medicine, School of Life Sciences
Arizona State University
Mechanisms that regulate facultative responses are especially prone to cause problems for several reasons. When information is incomplete, they inevitably sometimes respond when it is not necessary, and they fail to respond when that would be useful. While normal and inevitable such mistakes are nonetheless major medical problems.
"Extrinsic mortality risk and socioeconomic differences in health"
Gillian Pepper
Centre for Behaviour and Evolution
Newcastle University
Evolutionary theoretical models have predicted that extrinsic, but not intrinsic, personal mortality risk should alter the payoff from investment in health protection behaviours. One model also predicted that socioeconomic disparities in health behaviour could be caused by differential exposure to extrinsic mortality risk driving reduced investment in health.