In the News

A study out of Texas A&M University’s School of Public Health found that remote work does not negatively impact productivity.

The finding comes as many companies are debating whether — and how — to bring employees back into the office full time.

The study doesn’t examine pandemic-induced work from home — it was conducted before remote labor became more commonplace in the spring of 2020, a period when over one-third of the American workforce was telecommuting. A Texas A&M research team examined the productivity at a large oil and gas company in Houston where workers were displaced from the office for seven months by Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 hurricane that hit Texas in August of 2017.

Air quality is certainly top of mind for many people in a way it was not only two years ago. As the public’s awareness of how viral particles can easily circulate throughout indoor environments, getting some insight into the cleanliness of the air inside has become ever more important.

A new study from Texas A&M University School of Public Health, published this February, showed that prolonged exposure to poorly-ventilated indoor air is associated with a variety of poor health outcomes, including mundane ones like headaches and dry eyes as well as more severe ones, like lung cancer.

Since vaccines became widely available for Texans older than 12 last May, about 82% of Texas’ COVID-19 deaths were among the unvaccinated.

Rebecca Fischer, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, said Texans should keep their guard up.

“We’re doing OK right now, but this is the time to gain ground on the virus,” Fischer said. “By no means is this a time to act like the pandemic is over.”

One hundred thousand Americans died of drug overdoses in a single year between April 2020 and April 2021. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths increased nearly 30% from the same period the year before.

Most of these overdoses are attributed to fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is lethal in very small amounts. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans age 18 to 45.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has dominated our health care conversations and stretched every aspect of our health care system for nearly two years.

But more quietly, the pandemic has also contributed to a tragic surge in opioid use and deaths across the nation. This surge represents a crisis within a crisis. And because our health care system and providers are reaching the limits of their capabilities—even more so since the Omicron variant began spreading—we must think in new and different ways to address the opioid crisis.