Nordic countries dominate the top while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominate the bottom levels of the best and worst places to be a mother and a child.

The Mother's Index of US-based global humanitarian organization Save the Children highlighted in the organization's State of the World's Mothers 2008 report compares the well-being of mothers and children in 146 countries

Children living on streets with plenty of trees are less likely to have asthma than children who have fewer trees where they live.

That information comes from a study of children living in 42 health service districts in New York City, where asthma is the leading reason for hospital admissions of children under the age of 15

A recent study concluded that there was evidence to consider that smoke bans increase the number of drunk driving incidences.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of South Carolina, drew their findings from investigating recorded highway car accident deaths from 2001 to 2005 that were caused by drivers with blood alcohol over 0.08. The collected data was then compared in relation to cities where smoking bans had been enacted

Asia faces growing challenges from rising temperatures and increased rainfall that threaten to increase poverty, hunger and disease according to the World Health Organization's World Health Day report.

Although the threats from the effects of global warming are worldwide, people living in developing nations are more vulnerable because they have fewer resources to deal with the changes, officials say

Overwhelming evidence indicated that skipping breakfast is directly linked with fat gain. The results come from a five-year study called "Project Eating Among Students" or EAT, designed to examine the eating and exercise habits of 15-year-old adolescents at the time of the survey.

About 1,007 boys and 1,215 girls of different races and economic standings from public schools in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, agreed to undergo the study