Measuring and tracking obesity inequality in the United States: evidence from NHANES, 1971-2014.

Background: Because people care about their weight relative to peers and society, obesity inequality plays a role in explaining obesity incidence and the impacts of being obese on subjective well-being. While the increase in obesity prevalence and mean body mass index (BMI) is well documented, the measurement of distributional changes and corresponding obesity inequality is yet to be fully explored.

Methods: The present study analyzed BMI data for adults aged 20 to 74 from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) I (1971-1974), II (1976-1980), III (1988-1994), and continuous NHANES (1999-2014).

State of the science and challenges of breeding landscape plants with ecological function.

Exotic plants dominate esthetically-managed landscapes, which cover 30-40 million hectares in the United States alone. Recent ecological studies have found that landscaping with exotic plant species can reduce biodiversity on multiple trophic levels. To support biodiversity in urbanized areas, the increased use of native landscaping plants has been advocated by conservation groups and US federal and state agencies.

Rationing health protection: a proposal to exempt nuisance dust from US Clean Air Act regulations.

The US House of Representative has passed a bill called the "Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act" (Dust Act) that would exempt most types of particulate matter (PM) in rural areas from the air quality controls of the US Clean Air Act. The Dust Act would markedly change the country's air quality standards. An examination of the proposed provisions shows that they would exempt non-combustion PM pollutants from mining, smelting, petroleum production, and power generation from existing air quality standards.