Climate change and health > It’s no coincidence that infectious disease outbreaks have risen with global temperatures over the last few decades. Researchers have been trying to understand the interactions between environmental changes stemming from higher greenhouse gas emissions and 375 infectious disease outbreaks, and one recent study linked 58% of these threats to climate change. “The health impacts of climate change are here,” Vishnu Laalitha Surapaneni, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School, told TIME in August. “And they are affecting us right here, right now.”

Open doors > A new Fairview Community Health and Wellness Hub opened August 4 in St. Paul to help address inequities in care access. “Food, housing, the ability to feel safe in your community—those social determinants of health really are what we need to look at as we think about what creates wellness and hinders it,” said Diane Tran, who directs the M Health Fairview Center for Community Health Equity in the hub, in an interview with KSTP in August. The space also includes a health clinic, mental health and addiction services, and adult day programs, as well as food storage and distribution facilities.

Reducing alcohol’s toll > A study from the Minnesota Department of Health estimated that alcohol use cost the state $8 billion in 2019, considering health care costs, lost productivity, crime, and car crashes. School of Public Health professor and Masonic Cancer Center member Traci Toomey, Ph.D., is part of a team that will try to reduce this sobering statistic by focusing on preventing alcohol overservice—or serving someone who is noticeably intoxicated. “I hope to understand how we can put some controls in place to prevent people from getting injured during an outing,” Toomey told the Pioneer Press in September, “or getting sick from alcohol use.”