public-health
Public health in plant science studies how plants, plant diseases, and plant-derived compounds impact human population health and well-being. This field is vital because plant pathogens threaten global food security and crop productivity, while medicinal plants provide compounds essential to pharmaceutical development and human medicine. Additionally, vegetation—particularly in urban environments—contributes significantly to public health by improving air quality and mitigating environmental health risks.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-06-02
A major global study found that deaths from diarrheal and enteric diseases dropped by nearly two-thirds between 1990 and 2023, yet still killed 1.27 million people in 2023—mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with rotavirus remaining the top killer.
Global deaths from enteric infectious diseases fell from 3.69 million in 1990 to 1.27 million in 2023, a decline of roughly 66%.
Rotavirus caused 40.2% of diarrheal disease deaths in children under 5, making it the leading single pathogen; 63 of 204 countries still had not met the international child mortality target by 2023.
Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia together accounted for over 1.1 million of the 1.27 million total enteric disease deaths in 2023.