Robert Hammel, Psychologist

04/11/2026

A message from the AMA's Section of Pediatrics: RSV is the #1 cause of hospitalization for infants under 1 in Canada - but it’s preventable.https://www.albertadoctors.org/media/zc0ns5hi/pediatrics-rsv-infographic.pdf

04/11/2026

Also they will have their phones and be listening to music and texting the entire time.

04/11/2026

04/11/2026

One of the more painful dimensions of the human experience is feeling lonely in a crowd, surrounded by people but unable to make a connection. It is naturally more difficult to tolerate your own separation from others when they seem just within reach.

“Eleanor Rigby,” by the Beatles, describes this kind of isolation. Rigby “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.” Wilco describes something similar in “How to Fight Loneliness.” The song’s protagonist advises, “You laugh at every joke,” and “Fill your heart with smoke,” to essentially hide how lonely you feel.

It’s a variety of loneliness that may have especially devastating consequences. Cornell University psychology researcher Anthony Ong and a team of colleagues recently decided to look more closely at the health impacts of something they call “social asymmetry”—the mismatch between how lonely you feel versus how socially connected you actually are by objective measures.

They followed nearly 8,000 older adults in England for about 13 years and tracked who developed heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and dementia as well as those who died. They split people into a few groups. Those who were both objectively isolated and also felt lonely; those who weren’t isolated but felt lonely; and those who were socially isolated but felt fine. The first group, they found, had higher risk across every health outcome. The second group—lonely but not isolated—had significantly higher risk of heart disease and death. The final group were fine on all health measures except dementia risk.

Feeling lonely, then, may be generally more dangerous than being alone.

Nautilus spoke with Ong about whether we’re in an epidemic of loneliness, whether there’s a magic number when it comes to age and loneliness, what chosen solitude has to do with happiness, and how the findings might affect evolutionary theories about cooperation and social connection. Ong expressed surprise at the dementia risk result. “It suggests that when it comes to these neurobiological phenomena, it’s more than a feeling. It’s your actual social world that may be protective,” he explains.

Read the full conversation: https://nautil.us/the-costs-of-feeling-lonely-in-a-crowd-1279612

04/10/2026

The quote comes from Chapterhouse: Dune, often regarded as the weakest novel in the series.

Frank Herbert’s idea challenges that of Lord Acton, the 19th century English historian and moral thinker best known for the line, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Herbert’s view shifts the emphasis away from corruption caused by power itself and instead suggests that power attracts people who are already predisposed to corruption.

This closely parallels Friedrich Hayek’s argument in The Road to Serfdom, where he claims that centralized systems tend to elevate the most unscrupulous individuals, a pattern he associated with the political extremes of the WW1 and WW2 era.

Both perspectives ultimately suggest that power does not simply corrupt, but selects for those most willing to wield it.

Image credit: John Schoenherr

04/09/2026

Congrats guys, we did it

04/07/2026

Happy National Public Health Week! We don’t see most of what public health does, like the infections that don’t happen, the outbreaks that never take off, and the lives quietly protected every single day. This week is a reminder to pause and recognize that.

Public health has shaped the world we live in, even if it rarely gets the spotlight. This graphic reflects an excerpt from Dr. Jess Steier’s kickoff speech for NPHW at APHA (watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/live/d0VvQUNkrwY).

04/05/2026

Self-compassion helps us feel better—not by ignoring our pain or pretending everything is fine—but by embracing our struggles with warmth and kindness.