800 million children still exposed to lead

UNICEF study documents a persistent, dangerous problem

NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Research News

 

As many as 800 million children have dangerously high lead values in their blood. The neurotoxin can cause permanent brain damage.

The huge international numbers come from a new report from Pure Earth and UNICEF. Pure Earth works to solve pollution problems that can be harmful to humans.

"A child's earliest years of life are characterized by rapid growth and brain development. This makes children particularly vulnerable to harmful substances in the environment," says Kam Sripada, a postdoc at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) who has contributed to the report.

Sripada collaborates with international organizations to research social health inequalities, especially among children.

"Exposure to lead during pregnancy and early in life can lead to a child never reaching his or her potential," she says.

Sripada works at NTNU's Center for Global Health Inequalities Research (CHAIN) in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and UNICEF.

Lead is an element, but also a powerful neurotoxin that can cause damage at a level as low as five micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood. Lead poisoning can be acute, and can cause everything from stomach pain to brain damage, coma and death.

But lead poisoning can also come on slowly, because it accumulates in the body over a long period of time. The most common symptom is lethargy due to anaemia. High lead levels can attack blood and bone marrow, the nervous system and the kidneys.

Lead poisoning can also contribute to a lower IQ and behavioural problems that can last a lifetime.

"Lead is a health threat to children in every single country in the world. However, children in low- or middle-income countries are the most vulnerable, especially in South Asia and among marginalized groups in general. There are major social differences when it comes to lead exposure and other environmental toxins that we need to address," says Sripada.

A lot of the lead comes from lead-acid batteries that are not responsibly recycled. The number of motor vehicles has tripled in low- and middle-income countries in the last 20 years, which in turn has led to a sharp increase in lead-containing batteries. About half of the batteries are not properly recycled or recovered.

Water pipes, industry, paint and a number of household products such as canned foods, contaminated spices, make-up and toys also contribute. Lead that was previously used in gasoline is still found in the soil to this day.

Indirectly, countries can suffer enormous income losses as the children grow up with these sources of lead exposure. As adults, they often are not able to contribute optimally to the societal economy.

"This is a report with global significance," says NTNU Professor Terje Andreas Eikemo, who heads CHAIN.

Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States believe that the situation requires international measures, such as more information and strengthening of the health care system in several countries.

"This report shines the spotlight on lead as an important global environmental and health problem that is especially tied to children's health and development," says Heidi Aase, who heads the NeuroTox study at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

The NeuroTox study examines relationships between environmental toxins in the mother's womb, including lead, and various measures of brain development. ADHD, autism and cognitive functions are considered in a large sample of Norwegian children. Environmental toxins found in the mother's body during pregnancy can affect the baby's development.

CHAIN will use the NeuroTox study to study relationships between socio-economic factors, such as income, education and living conditions, and levels of lead and other environmental toxins in pregnant women and their children.

"The UNICEF report and other studies show that poverty is associated with higher lead levels and an increased risk of harmful effects on health. We'll investigate whether this picture applies to pregnant women and children in Norway as well," says Aase.

The research results from NeuroTox and CHAIN can also be used in different ways internationally, such as to prevent social inequality in health including the harmful effects of environmental toxins.

The average blood levels of lead in children from low- and middle-income countries in the UNICEF report are far higher than in Norwegian children. Nevertheless, the report has calculated that many Norwegian children may have lead levels above the limit that we know has harmful effects on brain development.

"This is concerning," says NeuroTox researcher Gro Dehli Villanger.

Studies show that damage to the brain and nervous system can occur at far lower lead levels than the limit used in the report.

"As of today, no value limit has been established that is considered safe and therefore the number of children affected could be much higher both in Norway and in other countries," says Villanger.

Source: The toxic truth. Children's exposure to lead pollution undermines a generation of future potential. https://www.unicef.org/reports/toxic-truth-childrens-exposure-to-lead-pollution-2020

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Decent living for all does not have to cost the Earth

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

Research News

Global energy consumption in 2050 could be reduced to the levels of the 1960s and still provide a decent standard of living for a population three times larger, according to a new study.

The study led by the University of Leeds has estimated the energy resource needed for everyone to be provided decent living standards in 2050 - meaning all their basic human needs such as shelter, mobility, food and hygiene are met, while also having access to modern, high quality healthcare, education and information technology.

The findings, published in in the journal Global Environmental Change, reveal that decent living standards could be provided to the entire global population of 10 billion that is expected to be reached by 2050, for less than 40% of today's global energy. This is roughly 25% of that forecast by the International Energy Agency if current trends continue.

This level of global energy consumption is roughly the same as that during the 1960s, when the population was only three billion.

The authors emphasise that achieving this would require sweeping changes in current consumption, widespread deployment of advanced technologies, and the elimination of mass global inequalities.

However, not only do the findings show that the energy required to provide a decent living could likely be met entirely by clean sources, but it also offers a firm rebuttal to reactive claims that reducing global consumption to sustainable levels requires an end to modern comforts and a 'return to the dark ages'.

The authors' tongue in cheek response to the critique that sweeping energy reform would require us all to become 'cave dwellers' was: "Yes, perhaps, but these are rather luxurious caves with highly-efficient facilities for cooking, storing food and washing clothes; comfortable temperatures maintained throughout the year, computer networks -- among other things -- not to mention the larger caves providing universal healthcare and education to all 5-19 year olds."

The study calculated minimum final energy requirements, both direct and indirect, to provide decent living standards. Final energy is that delivered to the consumer's door, for example, heating, electricity or the petrol that goes into a car, rather than the energy embedded in fuels themselves - much of which is lost at power stations in the case of fossil fuels.

The team built a final energy-model, which builds upon a list of basic material needs that underpin human well-being previously developed by Narasimha Rao and Jihoon Min.

The study compared current final energy consumption across 119 countries to the estimates of final energy needed for decent living and found the vast majority of countries are living in significant surplus. In countries that are today's highest per-capita consumers, energy cuts of nearly 95% are possible while still providing decent living standards to all.

Study lead author Dr Joel Millward-Hopkins from the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds said: "Currently, only 17% of global final energy consumption is from non-fossil fuel sources. But that is nearly 50% of what we estimate is needed to provide a decent standard of living for all in 2050."

"Overall, our study is consistent with the long-standing arguments that the technological solutions already exist to support reducing energy consumption to a sustainable level. What we add is that the material sacrifices needed to for these reductions are far smaller than many popular narratives imply."

Study co-author Professor Julia Steinberger leader of the Living Well Within Limits project at the University Leeds and professor at the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland said: "While government official are levelling charges that environmental activists 'threaten our way of life' it is worth re-examining what that way of life should entail. There has been a tendency to simplify the idea of a good life into the notion that more is better.

"It is clearly within our grasp to provide a decent life for everyone while still protecting our climate and ecosystems."

Study co-author Professor Narasimha Rao from Yale University said: "This study also confirms our earlier findings at a global scale that eradicating poverty is not an impediment to climate stabilization, rather it's the pursuit of unmitigated affluence across the world."

Study co-author Yannick Oswald, PhD researcher at the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds said: "To avoid ecological collapse, it is clear that drastic and challenging societal transformations must occur at all levels, from the individual to institutional, and from supply through to demand."

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Further information:

The paper Providing "Decent Living with Minimum Energy: A Global Scenario" was published in Global Environmental Change on 29 September 2020

For additional information contact University of Leeds press officer a.harrison@leeds.ac.uk

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 38,000 students from more than 150 different countries, and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. The University plays a significant role in the Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Royce Institutes.

We are a top ten university for research and impact power in the UK, according to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, and are in the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings 2021.

The University was awarded a Gold rating by the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework in 2017, recognising its 'consistently outstanding' teaching and learning provision. Twenty-six of our academics have been awarded National Teaching Fellowships - more than any other institution in England, Northern Ireland and Wales - reflecting the excellence of our teaching. ?http://www.leeds.ac.uk

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How scientific leaders can enact anti-racist action in their labs

Researchers lay out 10 guidelines to help scientists who are new to anti-racist work

PLOS

Research News

 

IMAGE: AUTHOR BALA CHAUDHARY AT WORK. CHAUDHARY TEACHES ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND LEADS A RESEARCH GROUP THAT STUDIES MYCORRHIZAS, BENEFICIAL PLANT-FUNGAL SYMBIOSES, AND THEIR BELOWGROUND ECOLOGY. view more 

CREDIT: JAMIE MONCRIEF

A new paper provides 10 steps that principal investigators (PIs) and research group leaders can follow to help cultivate anti-racist professional and learning environments. V. Bala Chaudhary of DePaul University, Chicago, and Asmeret Asefaw Berhe of U.C. Merced present these guidelines in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.

The science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce exhibits disproportionately low racial and ethnic diversity due to a variety of factors that include bias, discrimination, and power imbalances within academia. The STEM community increasingly recognizes low representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC)--especially at and above the PhD level--as a significant problem. Lab leaders may be able to make considerable progress towards increased diversity by building anti-racist labs, but many lack clarity on how to do so.

To help guide lab leaders who may be new to anti-racist work, Chaudhary and Berhe have developed 10 "simple rules" that can be immediately implemented. These rules include organizing regular discussions among lab members about anti-racism, boosting the voices and recognition of BIPOC scientists in one's field, holding leaders accountable for maintaining healthy workplaces, and cultivating flexible research agendas that may be more likely to amplify and benefit from innovative contributions of BIPOC researchers.

"The global uprising against racist violence that began in May 2020 sparked in the science community a level of interest in anti-racism that I have never seen before," Chaudhary says.

Indeed, recent events such as the death of George Floyd and the racism displayed towards New York City birder Christian Cooper have prompted many Black scientists to share their experiences facing racism while working in STEM. However, science and academia have a long history of racism.

"We wrote this paper to help scientists who are new to anti-racism work identify tangible actions and connect with resources to encourage the development of a more anti-racist STEM environment that will benefit all scientists," Chaudhary says.

The ten simple rules proposed are (in brief) as follows:

1. Lead informed discussions about anti-racism in your lab regularly

2. Address racism in your lab and field safety guidelines

3. Publish papers and write grants with BIPOC colleagues

4. Evaluate your lab's mentoring practices

5. Amplify voices of BIPOC scientists in your field

6. Support BIPOC in their efforts to organize

7. Intentionally recruit BIPOC students and staff

8. Adopt a dynamic research agenda

9. Advocate for racially diverse leadership in science

10. Hold the powerful accountable and don't expect gratitude.

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Computational Biology: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008210

Citation: Chaudhary VB, Berhe AA (2020) Ten simple rules for building an antiracist lab. PLoS Comput Biol 16(10): e1008210. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008210

Funding: VBC and AAB met on Twitter, where they both sought and found a community of likeminded scholars who are passionate about equity and inclusion in the academy. VBC and AAB are supported by the National Science Foundation (DEB-1844531 and HRD-1725650, respectively). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

 

Hackers targeting companies that fake corporate responsibility

New study looks at cyber pirates who aren't just in it for the money

UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

Research News

 

A new study suggests some hackers aren't just in it for the money but instead are motivated by their disappointment in a company's attempts to fake social responsibility.

"There is emerging evidence that the hacking community is not homogenous, and at least some hackers appear to be motivated by what they dislike, as opposed to solely financial gain," said John D'Arcy, a co-author and professor of management information systems (MIS) at the University of Delaware. "Recent hacks against the World Health Organization, due to its actions (or supposed inactions) related to the COVID-19 pandemic, are a case in point."

D'Arcy and his coauthors, interested in exploring whether a firm's corporate social performance (CSP) impacts their likelihood of being breached, studied a unique dataset that included information on data breach incidents, external assessments of firms' CSP and other factors. The results, published on Sept. 18 in the Information Systems Research paper "Too Good to Be True: Firm Social Performance and the Risk of Data Breach," were intriguing.

The key to these results, D'Arcy explained, lies in understanding the difference between two different types of corporate social responsibility efforts: those that are more minor and peripheral (like recycling programs or charitable donations) versus those that involve social responsibility being embedded throughout the firm's core business and processes (like diversity initiatives and producing eco-friendly products).

Companies only participating in peripheral efforts and not more deeply embedded ones are sometimes called "greenwashing," attempting to give the appearance of social responsibility without infusing such practices throughout their entire organization. According to D'Arcy's research, firms that do this are more likely to face problems from hackers.

"An example of a firm that has been accused of greenwashing is Walmart," D'Arcy said. "This is because Walmart has touted its investments in charitable causes and environmental programs, but at the same time has been criticized for providing low wages and neglecting investments in employees' physical and psychological working environment."

The study found that hackers of all kinds -- from internal disgruntled employees to external hacktivist groups -- can "sniff out" these actions that only give the appearance of social responsibility. To an even further extent, when companies not only are trying to improve their image but also are using these actions to mask poor overall CSP, they are especially likely to be breached.

"Consequently, these firms are more likely to be victimized by a malicious data breach for these reasons," D'Arcy said. "Firms may be placing a proverbial target on their back, in an information security sense, by engaging in greenwashing efforts."

Conversely, the study found that when firms that engage in more embedded and meaningful forms of corporate responsibility, they are more likely to see solely positive outcomes. In this case, that means fewer hacks and data breaches.

"These same internal and external hackers are likely to see such embedded CSP efforts as genuine attempts at social responsibility (in other words, the company is 'walking its talk' when it comes to social responsibility) and thus they will be less likely to target these firms for a computer attack that results in a breach," D'Arcy said.

What lessons should companies take from this research? D'Arcy warned that companies should be cautious about promoting peripheral CSP efforts if they have otherwise poor records on corporate social issues.

"What was once accepted as meaningful CSP activity may no longer appease certain stakeholders," he said. "And in this era of increased information transparency and greater expectations of the firm's role in society, engaging in only peripheral actions may result in stakeholder backlash. Firms need to be cautious about promoting their CSP activities unless they can defend their actions as embedded in core practices and as authentically motivated."

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Work bubbles can help businesses reopen while limiting risk of COVID-19 outbreaks

CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL

Research News

 

Creating "work bubbles" during the COVID-19 pandemic can help reduce the risk of company-wide outbreaks while helping essential businesses continue to function, as the example of Bombardier Aviation demonstrates in an analysis published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

The need to keep essential businesses open during the pandemic has resulted in large outbreaks in factories and other locations where employees work in close proximity, jeopardizing the safety of employees and the community as well as disrupting supply chains.

"Employers have a responsibility to provide a safe work environment for their employees," says lead author Dr. Jeffrey Shaw, a critical care physician and fellow at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine, Calgary, Alberta. "Creating company cohorts, or work bubbles, can reduce the risk of a company-wide COVID-19 outbreak that could affect the larger community."

Bombardier Aviation example

The authors describe how Bombardier Aviation, a large Canadian company that employs 22 000 people at 7 factories across 4 provinces/states in Canada and the United States, adjusted to the pandemic. Most office staff worked from home, ensuring that only employees who built or supported aircraft delivery were on site. Essential employees were organized into cohorts that interacted only with each other to minimize contact with other staff.

Cohorts were organized on the principles that work bubbles should

• Include the least number of people required to do the job

• Be designed to allow business continuation if another work bubble is removed from the workforce

• Be strictly separated from other bubbles in time and/or space to prevent virus transmission between groups.

Scheduling rotating workdays and disinfecting shared spaces after use by a work bubble can ensure physical separation of employees. Daily symptom screening and rapid isolation of infected employees is also key to containing and preventing outbreaks.

"Adjusting our operational activities to the pandemic was challenging, but we are extremely proud of how proactive and efficient our teams were in adapting to their new working conditions. Keeping our employees safe is our number one priority," says coauthor Nancy Barber, COO, Industrialization, Footprint and Central Planning, Bombardier Aviation.

Despite some challenges, work bubbles offer benefits including

• Reducing the reproduction number of the disease

• Increasing efficiency of contact tracing

• Protecting employees from contracting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) at work

• Increasing employee confidence in workplace safety

• Allowing for business to continue in the case of positive cases

"As we begin to relax the public health measures brought in to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Canada, we must think of how to limit the risk of becoming infected at work," says Dr. Shaw. "Using a work bubbles strategy can help businesses continue to function and ensure the safety of employees."

Listen to a podcast with coauthors Dr. Jeffrey Shaw and Hayley Wickenheiser discussing work bubbles and their practical application to factories, schools and sports.

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"Working in a bubble: How can businesses reopen while limiting the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks?" is published September 30, 2020.

The article was written by authors from University of Calgary, Alberta; Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario; Bombardier Aviation, Montreal, Quebec; University of Toronto and University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario; and Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Enforcement more effective than financial incentives in reducing harmful peat fires?

UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA

Research News

 

A new study looking at incentives to reduce globally harmful peatland fires suggests that fear of enforcement and public health concerns influence behaviour more than the promise of financial rewards.

The findings come as wildfires devastate the US West Coast and Russian Arctic, and fire season begins in Australia, Indonesia and Brazil.

Led by the University of East Anglia (UEA), the research examined the intervention mix within a leading peat fire prevention programme in Indonesia and found that the incentives had little impact. Instead, communities responded more strongly to the deterrents of sanctions, such as fines, and to raised awareness about the negative health impacts of toxic smoke, or 'haze'. Indeed, fear of sanctions most consistently related to fire-free outcomes.

Indonesian peatlands are globally important for the carbon they store and help protect Southeast Asian biodiversity. However, they are undergoing rapid land-use change. They have been drained and frequently cleared using fire, often to enable the expansion of oil palm and acacia plantations.

Increasing fires are a leading environmental challenge, with impacts ranging from local infringements on public health, livelihoods and daily freedoms through the release of toxic haze, to regional economic losses and global burdens associated with climate change through carbon emissions.

With the fire season in Indonesia imminent, and a bad year in 2019, the authors say their findings have implications for future fire management interventions, including how to balance reward and sanction to ensure equitable and effective fire mitigation.

The study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, involved researchers from UEA, Lancaster University and the University of Cambridge, together with scientists from the US, France and Indonesia.

Lead author Dr Rachel Carmenta, from the Tyndall Centre and School of International Development at UEA, said: "Uncontrolled fires are increasing globally and the trend is predicted to continue. Humid tropical forests that wouldn't normally burn are now sites of extensive mega-fires. These include the Brazilian Amazon, which last year hit record highs, this year the Brazilian wetland ecosystem the Pantanal, which is suffering extensively from uncontrolled fires, and Indonesia's peat swamp forests, where extensive fires are now annual events.

"Our results highlight that incentives were less important than deterrents in shaping environmental outcomes. However, there was also no single pathway to fire-free outcomes, and combinations of interventions were particularly important in high fire risk situations.

"Previous research shows supporting small-scale farmers is the least controversial fire mitigation policy in Indonesian peatlands. But as we find in this study, even a scheme considered to depend heavily on incentives, in practice hinges on deterrents. This raises important equity concerns. While sanctions are effective, they may cause more damage to those most vulnerable and with least alternatives to fire dependence."

Intentional fires to clear land can more easily escape on peatland and result in extensive uncontrolled peat fires. The resulting toxic smoke is responsible for outdoor air pollution, with atmospheric particulate matter concentrations exceeding those considered extremely hazardous to health, and is linked to hundreds of thousands of public health cases.

Many solutions have been proposed, such as forest protection measures, moratoriums on peat expansion, and agricultural support. However, numerous programmes have largely failed, and what policy interventions to combine and how to align these to local conditions remains unclear.

To help address this, the researchers compared 10 Indonesian villages that participated in the Fire Free Village programme in Riau Province, Sumatra. The scheme is operated by a pulp and paper company to incentivise small-scale farmers living in communities adjacent to their acacia tree concession areas to reduce fire, and therefore the prevalence of uncontrolled fires.

If villages prevent local fires, they are rewarded with US$7,000 to support community projects. The programme includes interventions that focus on sanction and deterrent as part of the policy mix towards fire free outcomes.

The team found that effective combinations of interventions depend on the landscape context of the village. In villages with lower fire risk, a single intervention was enough to reduce fire, for example the threat of enforcement for illegal burning. In these villages people had more diverse livelihood options, most land was already being farmed - reducing the need to use fire - and people farmed on mineral soils, which do not burn.

In villages with far higher risks of fire escape, fire was reduced only where at least two methods were combined: feared enforcement and concern about the impacts of fire haze on their health. Again, incentives did not matter.

People in higher fire risk villages were primarily reliant on oil palm for their livelihood. Village areas were on larger extents of highly flammable peatland and much of the land area was not planted, so people were still clearing for agriculture.

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'Evaluating bundles of interventions to prevent peat-fires in Indonesia', Rachel Carmenta, Aiora Zabala, Bambang Trihadmojo, David Gaveau, Mohammad Agus Salim,Jacob Phelps, is published in Global Environmental Change on October 1.

 

Untapped potential exists for blending hydropower, floating PV

DOE/NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY

Research News

 

Hybrid systems of floating solar panels and hydropower plants may hold the technical potential to produce a significant portion of the electricity generated annually across the globe, according to an analysis by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

The researchers estimate that adding floating solar panels to bodies of water that are already home to hydropower stations could produce as much as 7.6 terawatts of potential power a year from the solar PV systems alone, or about 10,600?terawatt-hours of potential annual generation. Those figures do not include the amount generated from hydropower.

For comparison, global final electricity consumption was just over 22,300 terawatt-hours in 2018, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the International Energy Agency.

"This is really optimistic," said Nathan Lee, a researcher with NREL's Integrated Decision Support group and lead author of a new paper published in the journal Renewable Energy. "This does not represent what could be economically feasible or what the markets could actually support. Rather, it is an upper-bound estimate of feasible resources that considers waterbody constraints and generation system performance."

The article, "Hybrid floating solar photovoltaics-hydropower systems: Benefits and global assessment of technical potential," was co-authored by NREL colleagues Ursula Grunwald, Evan Rosenlieb, Heather Mirletz, Alexandra Aznar, Robert Spencer, and Sadie Cox.

Floating photovoltaics (PV) remain a nascent technology in the United States, but their use has caught on overseas where space for ground-mounted systems is less available. Previous NREL work estimated that installing floating solar panels on man-made U.S. reservoirs could generate about 10 percent of the nation's annual electricity production.

So far, only a small hybrid floating solar/hydropower system has been installed, and that is in Portugal.

NREL estimates 379,068 freshwater hydropower reservoirs across the planet could host combined floating PV sites with existing hydropower facilities. Additional siting data is needed prior to any implementation because some reservoirs may be dry during parts of the year or may not be otherwise conducive to hosting floating PV.

Potential benefits exist by coupling floating PV with hydropower. For example, a hybrid system would reduce transmission costs by linking to a common substation. Additionally, the two technologies can balance each other. The greatest potential for solar power is during dry seasons, while for hydropower rainy seasons present the best opportunity. Under one scenario, that means operators of a hybrid system could use pumped storage hydropower to store excess solar generation.

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Funding for the research came from NREL's Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for the Energy Department by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC.

 

Why do veterans take their own lives? New study finds surprising answers

A George Mason University study of US veterans found that while social determinants of health can predict suicide, they are not the cause of it -- mental illness is

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: DR. FARROKH ALEMI, PROFESSOR OF HEALTH INFORMATICS, LED THE STUDY THAT FOUND THAT SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH ARE PREDICTORS OF SUICIDE OR SELF-HARM, BUT THEY ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE CAUSE.... view more 

CREDIT: GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States - and in some age groups, it's even higher - the second leading cause of death for those 10-34, and the fourth for those 35-54. Suicide among veterans continues to rise despite attempts to prevent it through resilience training, stress reduction, crisis centers, and a host of other interventions.

Despite widespread clinical screening, suicide is hard to predict, but a new George Mason University College of Health and Human Services study has found a way.

Dr. Farrokh Alemi, professor of health informatics, led the study published in Health Services Research in September in the Drivers of Health* theme issue.

Alemi and colleagues analyzed U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs electronic health record (EHR) data for a population of more than five million veterans. They looked at both medical and social determinants of health (SDOH) data, although SDOH data was less frequently reported.

"We found that social determinants of health, such as homelessness, divorce, unemployment, are predictors of suicide or self-harm, but they are not necessarily the cause. Mental illness causes both these adverse life events and suicide," explains Alemi. "Programs that reduce social risk factors may not reduce suicide and self-harm, unless they also address the root cause-- mental illness," explains Alemi.

They found that SDOH can predict suicide and self-harm on their own, yet medical history, such as diagnosis of major depression, psychosis, or history of self-harm, was an even better predictor than SDOH. The combined medical history and SDOH taken together were not a better predictor of suicide and self-harm than medical history alone.

"Frustration with the rise in suicides have led many to call for abandoning suicide prevention efforts. It seems to not work," explains Alemi. "Our study shows that risk modification efforts could be improved, and will have a larger impact, if they focus on medical issues such as use of antidepressants. Modifying SDOH will improve wellness but may not reduce suicide."

The researchers recommend additional study among larger groups of women and ethnic and racial groups to test the accuracy of these predictions in those groups, as this study used veteran data which includes primarily Caucasian male participants. They also encourage health care providers and claims processors to report SDOH, as these data may be able to help predict suicide, self-harm, and countless other conditions in the future. Finally, they point out that improving wellness, reducing isolation, is an important goal by itself, independent of whether it reduces suicides.

As a supplement to the study, the researchers also developed a Social Determinants of Illness index based on EHRs to assist in predicting impact of stressful life events on suicide.

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The data used for this study was supported by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, grant number 1U01DP006299-01, Thrope, Lorna (PI).

View the companion Drivers of Health* blog post, "Want to Prevent Suicides? Understand Its Causes."

About George Mason University

George Mason University is Virginia's largest and most diverse public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls 38,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the past half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity and commitment to accessibility. For more information, visit https://www2.gmu.edu/.

About the College of Health and Human Services

George Mason University's College of Health and Human Services prepares students to become leaders and shape the public's health through academic excellence, research of consequence, community outreach, and interprofessional clinical practice. George Mason is the fastest-growing Research I institution in the country. The College enrolls 2,260 undergraduate and 1,645 graduate students in its nationally-recognized offerings, including: 5 undergraduate degrees, 13 graduate degrees, and 7 certificate programs. For more information, visit https://chhs.gmu.edu/.

*About Drivers of Health

Drivers of Health is a research and education project aimed at improving our understanding of the social determinants of health. It is run by the Harvard Global Health Institute, a research driven, university-wide entity that facilitates multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches to tackling global health challenges, and made possible with generous support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the United States' largest philanthropic organization devoted to health. Visit https://driversofhealth.org/ to learn more.

 

Natural capital a missing piece in climate policy

Accounting for the unique and long-term impacts of climate change

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS

Research News

 

Clean air, clean water and a functioning ecosystem are considered priceless. Yet the economic value of nature remains elusive in cost-benefit analysis of climate policy regulations and greenhouse-gas-reduction efforts.

A study published today in the journal Nature Sustainability incorporates those insights from sustainability science into a classic model of climate change costs. Led by the University of California, Davis, the study shows that accounting for the economic value of nature has large implications for climate policy and that the cost of climate change could be partly alleviated by investing in natural capital.

"It may seem abstract, with terms like 'natural capital,' but these are real things," said senior author Frances Moore, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy. "What we're talking about is thousands of species being at high risk of extinction and large-scale changes to the ecosystem services we depend on for our lives and our economy. At the end of the day, this paper addresses some fundamental questions of how humans depend on nature for their wellbeing."

NATURAL CAPITAL AN ECONOMIC BUILDING BLOCK

Climate economic models typically represent the economy as made of two building blocks: human capital (labor) and manufactured capital, such as buildings and machines. This study incorporates a third building block--natural capital--which comprises the natural systems and healthy habitats for species. Natural capital translates into tangible benefits for people, such as erosion control, and intangible benefits, such as preserving forests for future generations.

"If lost, such natural processes cannot easily be replaced or substituted," said lead author Bernardo Bastien-Olvera, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Davis Geography Graduate Group. "The associated economic costs of that loss are damaging in a way not currently represented in climate economic models or policy."

The authors found that under plausible assumptions about how natural capital supports economic production and human welfare, climate damage to natural systems warrants rapid mitigation. Most previous analysis has ignored the pathways by which natural systems support welfare and their unique vulnerability to climate change--potentially missing a critical piece of climate damages.

SOCIAL COST OF CARBON TOO LOW

Federal agencies use the "social cost of carbon" to represent the long-term damage done by a ton of CO2 emissions in a given year. The metric is widely used in cost-benefit analyses of climate and energy policy. Yet standard estimates only roughly account for ecological damages and do not fully account for the unique and long-term costs of climate impacts on natural systems. Because of this, the study finds that the federal social cost of carbon may well be far too low.

"With this new framework, we are more aware of the need to limit emissions," Bastien-Olvera said. "We calculate the emissions pathway that maximizes social welfare in the model. That pathway limits warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, consistent with goals of the Paris Agreement. The clues keep leading us to the same conclusion--the need to urgently reduce emissions to limit warming."

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This study was supported by the National Science Foundation, a Hellman Fellowship, a UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment Fellowship, and a Fulbright-García Robles Scholarship

 

Volunteers receiving government aid while unemployed face scrutiny, bias from public

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- With the worldwide spike in unemployment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many people may turn to volunteerism as a way to pass their newly found free time. But new research suggests that volunteers who also receive government aid are often judged negatively as "wasting time" that could be used to find paid employment.

"We found that aid recipients are scrutinized to a greater extent than those who are working, including the underemployed, with observers demonstrating a strong bias toward believing that aid recipients should be using their time to pursue employment opportunities above all else," said Jenny Olson, an assistant professor of marketing at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business and corresponding author of the research forthcoming in the International Journal of Research in Marketing. "This is beyond education, personal leisure, and spending time with family and friends.

"As a result, they are given less latitude in how they use their time, and can even be seen as more moral for choosing not to engage in prosocial behaviors, when such behaviors take time away from gaining paid employment," Olson added. "The simple act of volunteering among aid recipients -- versus not mentioning volunteering -- not only shapes judgments of the individual aid recipients, but this information can also impact views toward federal tax policy more broadly."

Although volunteering is a positive activity that partially combats the negative stereotype of a welfare beneficiary, Olson and her colleagues found that it also sparks anger among observing consumers, with aid recipients being perceived as being "less moral for choosing to volunteer." Factors that minimize these judgments include being perceived as taking strides toward gaining employment via education and being perceived as unable to work.

Other co-authors of the paper, "How Income Shapes Moral Judgments of Prosocial Behavior," are Andrea Morales of Arizona State University, Brent McFerran of Simon Fraser University in Canada and Darren Dahl of the University of British Columbia. The research was supported in part by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

According to a 2019 report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, public spending on government assistance averaged more than 20 percent across 36 countries in 2018. Many countries -- including those in Asia, Europe, and the Americas -- have seen a rise in the number of people receiving benefits over the years, a total now reaching into the billions.

The extent to which the welfare state is supported depends, in no small part, on public sentiment. Previous research has shown that support for government spending on welfare programs is directly related to how the voting public perceives the beneficiaries. This is the first paper to document a link between prosocial behavior and support for federal spending on welfare programs.

"Given that individuals perceive opportunity costs for their own time, it stands to reason that they perceive them for others as well," Olson said. "Because government programs are supported by 'their' taxpayer dollars, observers often feel justified in suggesting how aid recipients spend their time."

The research shows that consumers prefer different patterns of tax redistribution as a function of viewing aid recipients making nonfinancial choices. Specifically, consumers support allocating fewer tax dollars toward supporting government assistance programs after hearing about an aid recipient who volunteers his time.

Researchers conducted nine studies across three countries. They randomly presented participants with scenarios about hypothetical aid recipients and asked them to offer judgment about how the recipients used their time, such as engaging in volunteer activities or sending out resumes. Participants were asked how they viewed target individuals on a morality index and how they felt about them emotionally.

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