-The World Bank   Policy Interventions Can Turn the Tide, Says World Bank Report WASHINGTON: A new World Bank report warns that risky behaviors -smoking, using illicit drugs, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets, and unsafe sex- are increasing globally and pose a growing threat to the health of individuals, particularly in developing countries. The report looks at how individual choices that lead to these behaviors are formed and reviews the effectiveness of interventions...

-The Hindu The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a specialised arm of the World Health Organisation, has sounded an alert for policymakers with its conclusion that there is sufficient evidence now on outdoor air pollution as a cause of lung cancer. A separate evaluation of particulate matter in the air has led to its classification also as a ‘Group 1' pollutant, indicating firm evidence of cancer-causing properties. Given that rapidly...

-Outlook Bhubaneswar: A World Bank team has offered to provide technical assistance, global expertise and logistic support to Odisha and its mining sector, official sources said today. This was conveyed by the five-member World Bank Team led by Vikram Menon, State Programme Coordinator, to the state government while wrapping up its visit here yesterday. "The team expressed its willingness to provide and utilise non-lending technical assistance and world-class expertise in the state mining...

-The Hindu Clamping down on tobacco use, with measures such as tripling taxes on cigarettes and bidis, could cut by a quarter the deaths from heart disease and stroke that occur in India over the next decade, according to a modelling study just published in PLOS Medicine. Over nine million lives could be saved between 2013 and 2022 by vigorously implementing tobacco control policies in this country, say Sanjay Basu of Stanford...

-PTI   India could prevent over nine million deaths due to cardiovascular disease over the next decade if it implements smoking bans and levy higher tobacco taxes, a new study has found. Smoke-free laws and increased tobacco taxes would yield substantial and rapid health benefits by averting future cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths, researchers said. "Smoke-free legislation has not been consistently implemented, one in three adults reported being exposed to smoking at work in 2009...