This week’s newsletter urges readers to confront several considerable—and overlapping—risks to our collective health and wellbeing: rising cancer rates, chemical contamination and pollution, and shifts in the healthcare landscape that continue to exacerbate long-standing health disparities. 

In our first story, “Gen X Faces Heighted Cancer Risk,” I discuss data showing that with a few exceptions, cancer rates, which had been falling for decades, are rising again. Younger generations—including Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z—are likely to bear the brunt of this devastating trend. In “‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Endangering Our Collective Health” I discuss the reach of PFAS chemicals and describe how they have invaded nearly everything they encounter, including our water, soil, food, and even our bodies. These synthetic chemicals, which are nearly indestructible, pose a serious danger to our health. In “Another Supreme Court Decision Places Downwind Communities at Risk,” NPQ editor Alison Stine draws attention to a recent ruling that makes the “Good Neighbor” pollution rule unenforceable, a move situated within a larger trend of encroachments on the EPA’s authority. The consequences of this ruling for already marginalized communities should not be overlooked. And, lastly, I’ve featured our call for submissions for the winter Health Justice issue of Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine, focusing on the duality of health innovation, both as an instrument of oppression and, potentially, as a tool for social justice. I encourage emerging thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, and creatives to submit their work for consideration.

Confronting risks, especially those with no simple or singular solution, takes courage. No matter how formidable these challenges may seem, with our collective strength and power, we can confront them, together.