For thousands of years, natural factors like rainfall and temperature helped determine the fate of economies and societies. For thousands of years, humans also engaged in human trafficking and kept one another as enslaved people. But as human prosperity increased exponentially beginning in the 19^th century, it may have seemed that such concerns were relics of the past.

We have all the tools we need for the elimination of cervical cancer, a largely preventable cancer that annually kills more than 300,000 women worldwide—the vast majority in low- and middle-income countries.

 

During the 2010s, the United States was on the verge of permanently losing competitiveness in global nuclear energy markets. This weakness threatened American geopolitical goals, with Russia further extending its nuclear market dominance and China eyeing reactor exports across the Belt and Road.

Climate change has become part of our daily lexicon. Rarely does a week pass when a hurricane, drought, wildfire, or some other climate disruption is not front page news. These headlines often offer dire predictions of mass migration as well—a bracing vision of hordes of people moving to greener pastures, often found further inland and further north, where some political leaders leverage the narrative to push their own agendas.

In 2022, the Dot-Mom column published several pieces from expert guest authors from the greater maternal and reproductive health community. In our top read guest contributor piece of the year, Susie Jolly examined the role of colonialism in sexuality education globally. Jolly highlighted examples where sexual health knowledge is built on unethical medical research carried out on racialized people, such as the study of untreated syphilis among Black men in the United States. Sexuality educators, especially those placed in the Global North, have a responsibility to work to decolonize their work. Jolly suggests supporting resources led by marginalized people, critically examining colonialism’s influence in the understanding of sexuality, and shifting the dynamics of who decides on content to lend more weight to non-Western expertise and young people learning from their own experiences.

The Population Institute’s recent report, Invisible Threads: Addressing the root causes of migration from Guatemala by investing in women and girls, has brought attention to the numerous factors that drive migration in Guatemala. One of the key factors addressed in the report is climate change, which is linked closely to issues concerning land in that country. To this day, multiple generations of indigenous women endure the effects of land displacement and inequities in access to land—as well as related social and economic pressures. In concert with other political, social, and economic problems, this particular challenge has resulted in large outflows of migrants from the region.

Abortion restrictions may create obstacles for legal access, but they do nothing to eliminate the need for life-saving reproductive healthcare. And when there is a lack of licit opportunities to obtain that care, patients find pathways to get it through alternative networks.

For instance, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision in June 2022 reversed a decades-long precedent protecting the constitutional right to an abortion, social media and online forums were filled with reactions and resources alike. Among these interventions were viral posts circulated offering to host anyone going on a “camping” trip in a state with legally protected reproductive rights. These “camping trip” posts alluded to a willingness to aid and abet individuals traveling for abortions in states with legally-protected access—and they captured the complications and conflicts embedded in these responses to the ruling.

On July 28, 2022 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted—by a count of 161 in favor, with 8 abstentions — that living in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a human right. Building on the similar declaration by the UN Human Rights Council in October 2021, the UNGA has now reinforced the notion that the growing assaults on human health through environmental hazards are transgressions against the basic rights and freedoms of people.