Artificial intelligence can be used to better monitor Maine’s forests, UMaine study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MAINE

 

IMAGE: UMAINE RESEARCHERS TESTING WIRELESS SENSORS USED TO COLLECT FOREST DATA. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MAINE

Monitoring and measuring forest ecosystems is a complex challenge because of an existing combination of softwares, collection systems and computing environments that require increasing amounts of energy to power. The University of Maine’s Wireless Sensor Networks (WiSe-Net) laboratory has developed a novel method of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to make monitoring soil moisture more energy and cost efficient — one that could be used to make measuring more efficient across the broad forest ecosystems of Maine and beyond.

Soil moisture is an important variable in forested and agricultural ecosystems alike, particularly under the recent drought conditions of past Maine summers. Despite the robust soil moisture monitoring networks and large, freely available databases, the cost of commercial soil moisture sensors and the power that they use to run can be prohibitive for researchers, foresters, farmers and others tracking the health of the land.

Along with researchers at the University of New Hampshire and University of Vermont, UMaine’s WiSe-Net designed a wireless sensor network that uses artificial intelligence to learn how to be more power efficient in monitoring soil moisture and processing the data. The research was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. 

“AI can learn from the environment, predict the wireless link quality and incoming solar energy to efficiently use limited energy and make a robust low cost network run longer and more reliably,” says Ali Abedi, principal investigator of the recent study and professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Maine.

The software learns over time how to make the best use of available network resources, which helps produce power efficient systems at a lower cost for large scale monitoring compared to the existing industry standards.

WiSe-Net also collaborated with Aaron Weiskittel, director of the Center for Research on Sustainable Forests, to ensure that all hardware and software research is informed by the science and tailored to the research needs. 

“Soil moisture is a primary driver of tree growth, but it changes rapidly, both daily as well as seasonally,” Weiskittel says. “We have lacked the ability to monitor effectively at scale. Historically, we used expensive sensors that collected at fixed intervals — every minute, for example — but were not very reliable. A cheaper and more robust sensor with wireless capabilities like this really opens the door for future applications for researchers and practitioners alike.”

The study was published Aug. 9, 2022, in the Springer’s International Journal of Wireless Information Networks.

Although the system designed by the researchers focuses on soil moisture, the same methodology could be extended to other types of sensors, like ambient temperature, snow depth and more, as well as scaling up the networks with more sensor nodes.

“Real-time monitoring of different variables requires different sampling rates and power levels. An AI agent can learn these and adjust the data collection and transmission frequency accordingly rather than sampling and sending every single data point, which is not as efficient,” Abedi says. 

---

JOURNAL

International Journal of Wireless Information Networks

DOI

10.1007/s10776-022-00572-9 

ARTICLE TITLE

Sharing wireless spectrum in the forest ecosystems using artificial intelligence and machine learning

Fast charging over 10,000 cycles: For future electric vehicles, Harvard engineers’ solid-state battery technology points to a leap in performance and reliability

Startup Adden Energy granted technology license from Harvard to scale innovative lithium-metal battery technology for commercial deployment

Business Announcement

HARVARD JOHN A. PAULSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES

Harvard’s Office of Technology Development has granted an exclusive technology license to Adden Energy, Inc., a startup developing innovative solid-state battery systems for use in future electric vehicles (EVs) that would fully charge in minutes. Adden Energy has closed a seed round with $5.15M in funding led by Primavera Capital Group, with participation by Rhapsody Venture Partners and MassVentures.

The license and the venture funding will enable the startup to scale Harvard’s laboratory prototype toward commercial deployment of a solid-state lithium-metal battery that may provide reliable and fast charging for future EVs to help bring them into the mass market. 

Developed by researchers in the lab of Xin Li, PhD, Associate Professor of Materials Science at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the lab-scale coin-cell prototype has achieved battery charge rates as fast as three minutes with over 10,000 cycles in a lifetime, with results published in Nature and other journals. It also boasts high energy density and a level of material stability that overcomes the safety challenges posed by some other lithium batteries. 

Adden Energy was co-founded in 2021 by Li, along with William Fitzhugh, PhD ’20, and Luhan Ye, PhD ’22, both of whom contributed to the development of the technology as graduate students in Li’s Harvard lab. Fred Hu, PhD ’93, founder and Chairman of Primavera Capital, is also a founder of Adden Energy.

The startup aims to scale the battery up to a palm-sized pouch cell, and then upward toward a full-scale vehicle battery in the next three to five years. “If you want to electrify vehicles, a solid-state battery is the way to go,” said Li, who is a scientific advisor to Adden Energy. “We set out to commercialize this technology because we do see our technology as unique compared to other solid-state batteries. We have achieved in the lab 5,000 to 10,000 charge cycles in a battery’s lifetime, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 charging cycles for even the best in class now, and we don’t see any fundamental limit to scaling up our battery technology. That could be a game changer.”

Fitzhugh, CEO of Adden Energy, noted that in 2019, 29% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions were produced by transportation. “Complete electrification of the vehicle fleet is one of the most meaningful steps we can take to fight climate change,” he said. “However, broad adoption of electric vehicles requires batteries that can meet a diverse set of consumer needs. For example, 37% of Americans don’t have garages at home, so at-home overnight charging is not possible. In order to electrify this segment, EVs need to recharge at comparable times to internal combustion vehicles, essentially in the time you’d currently spend at the gas pump.”

The technology developed at Harvard, which includes core innovations in solid-state battery design and electrolyte production methods, may offer other crucial advantages.

“Typically, lithium-metal anodes in other solid-state designs develop dendrites, twig-like growths that can gradually penetrate through the electrolyte to the cathode. We defeat the growth of dendrites before they can cause damage, by novel structural and material designs,” said Ye, who is now CTO of Adden Energy. “As a result, the device can sustain its high performance over a long lifetime. Our recent study shows that this nice feature can also be maintained at scale-up.” 

“Climate change is the defining challenge facing the world. It is more important than ever to accelerate the transition to clean energy and zero-emission transportation,” said Hu, who also serves on the Global Board of the Nature Conservancy. “Adden Energy’s mission is to develop cutting-edge battery technologies, thereby enabling mass adoption of electric vehicles and contributing to a greener and more sustainable global economy.” 

“Electric vehicles cannot remain a luxury fashion, literally the ‘one percent’ of vehicles on the road, if we are to make progress toward a clean energy future, and the U.S. won’t have a used-car market if EV batteries last only 3 to 5 years,” added Li. “The technology needs to be accessible to everyone. Extending the lifetime of the batteries, as we’re doing here, is an important part of that.” 

The solid state battery research advances in Li’s Harvard lab that have been licensed to Adden Energy were enabled in part by funding from the University’s Climate Change Solutions Fund, which supports research and policy initiatives addressing climate change, the transition to clean energy, and related health impacts; and from Harvard OTD’s Physical Sciences and Engineering Accelerator, which advances researchers’ most commercially promising innovations toward the launch of new startups and industry engagements. Li’s lab has also received funding in support of solid-state battery research from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) Catalyst Program, the Harvard Data Science Initiative, the Harvard FAS Dean’s Competitive Fund for Promising Scholarship, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

About Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development

Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) promotes the public good by fostering innovation and translating new inventions made at Harvard University into useful products that are available and beneficial to society. Our integrated approach to technology development comprises sponsored research and corporate alliances, intellectual property management, and technology commercialization through venture creation and licensing. More than 100 startups have launched to commercialize Harvard technologies in the past 5 years, collectively raising more than $4.4 billion in financing. To further bridge the academic-industry development gap, Harvard OTD manages the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Physical Sciences & Engineering Accelerator. For more information, please visit https://otd.harvard.edu. 

Teenagers more likely to vape if their parents smoke

Reports and Proceedings

EUROPEAN LUNG FOUNDATION

Teenagers whose parents are smokers are 55% more likely to try e-cigarettes, according to research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Barcelona, Spain [1]. In a large study of Irish teenagers, the researchers have also found that the proportion who have tried e-cigarettes has been increasing dramatically [2] and that although boys are more likely to use e-cigarettes, the rate of use among girls in increasing more rapidly [3].

 

The researchers highlight the risks associated with nicotine addiction and call for more effective regulation to protect children and teenagers.

 

The research was carried out by a team at the TobaccoFree Research Institute Ireland (TFRI), in Dublin. They examined data on 6,216 17-18-year-olds, including information on whether their parents smoked while they were growing up. The teenagers were asked whether they smoked or used e-cigarettes.

 

The study showed that teenagers whose parents smoked were around 55% more likely to have tried e-cigarettes and around 51% more likely to have tried smoking.

 

The team also combined several Irish data sets to provide the most comprehensive analyses of teenage e-cigarette use in Ireland, with information on more than 10,000 Irish teenagers (aged 16 to 17), to look at the overall numbers of teenagers trying or regularly using e-cigarettes and how this is changing over time. This showed that the proportion who had tried e-cigarettes had increased from 23% in 2014 to 39% in 2019.

 

The main reasons teenagers gave for trying e-cigarettes were curiosity (66%) and because their friends were vaping (29%). Only 3% said it was to quit smoking. The proportion who said they had never used tobacco when they first tried e-cigarettes increased from 32% in 2015 to 68% in 2019.

 

TFRI Director General Professor Luke Clancy explained: “We have found increasing use of e-cigarettes in Irish teenagers and that’s a pattern that is emerging elsewhere in the world. There’s a perception that vaping is a better alternative to smoking, but our research shows that this doesn’t apply to teenagers who usually haven’t tried cigarettes prior to e-cigarettes. This indicates that, for teens, vaping is a route into nicotine addiction, rather than out of it.”

 

Finally, the researchers looked in detail at data on 3,421 16-year-olds to see if there were differences between boys and girls. Although boys were more likely to try or use e-cigarettes, the researchers found that rates were increasing more quickly among girls with 23% saying they had tried e-cigarettes in 2015 and 39% in 2019, and 10% saying they were currently using e-cigarettes in 2015, rising to 18% in 2019. Researchers found that having friends who smoke and having less parental monitoring were both major factors in teenage use of e-cigarettes, more so for boys than girls.

 

Doctoral researcher Ms Salome Sunday told the Congress: “We can see that parents and friends have an influence on teenagers’ decisions to try e-cigarettes and that’s important because these are factors that we can try to change. However, governments need to play their part by making laws to protect children and young people. We already do this with smoking and we need to do the same with vaping.”

 

Lead Researcher Dr Joan Hanafin added: “We can see that the number of teenagers using e-cigarettes is changing fast, so we need to keep monitoring the situation in Ireland and around the world. We also plan to study social media to understand how this influences girls’ and boys’ vaping behaviour.”

 

Professor Jonathan Grigg is Chair of the European Respiratory Society’s Tobacco Control Committee and was not involved in the research. He says: “These findings are worrying, not just for teenagers in Ireland, but for families all around the world. We know already that children of parents who smoke are more likely to take up smoking. This study suggests that teenagers are also influenced by smoking parents to start using e-cigarettes and become addicted to nicotine.

 

“This work indicates that more and more teenagers are trying e-cigarettes and they are not doing so to help them quit smoking. This is important because we know that e-cigarettes are not harmless. The effects of nicotine addiction are well-established, and we are discovering that e-cigarettes can harm the lungs, blood vessels and brain. We need to do more to protect children and teenagers from these harms.”

---

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

How tardigrades bear dehydration

A new mechanism explains how water bears survive in some extreme conditions

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

 

VIDEO: HERE YOU CAN SEE CAHS PROTEINS FORMING GEL-LIKE FILAMENTS AS A HUMAN CULTURED CELL UNDERGOES DEHYDRATION. view more 

CREDIT: ©2022 A TANAKA AND T KUNIEDA.

Some species of tardigrades, or water bears as the tiny aquatic creatures are also known, can survive in different environments often hostile or even fatal to most forms of life. For the first time, researchers describe a new mechanism that explains how some tardigrades can endure extreme dehydration without dying. They explored proteins that form a gel during cellular dehydration. This gel stiffens to support and protect the cells from mechanical stress that would otherwise kill them. These proteins have also been shown to work in insect cells and even show limited functionality in human cultured cells.

Tardigrades often draw attention to themselves, despite being so tiny. Their uncanny ability to survive in situations that would kill most organisms has captured the public’s imagination. One could easily imagine that by decoding their secrets, we could apply the knowledge to ourselves to make humans more resilient to extreme temperatures, pressures, and even dehydration. This is just science fiction for now, but nevertheless, researchers, also captivated by the microscopic creatures, seek to understand the mechanisms responsible for their robustness, as this could bring other benefits too.

“Although water is essential to all life we know of, some tardigrades can live without it potentially for decades. The trick is in how their cells deal with this stress during the process of dehydration,” said Associate Professor Takekazu Kunieda from the University of Tokyo’s Department of Biological Sciences. “It’s thought that as water leaves a cell, some kind of protein must help the cell maintain physical strength to avoid collapsing in on itself. After testing several different kinds, we have found that cytoplasmic-abundant heat soluble (CAHS) proteins, unique to tardigrades, are responsible for protecting their cells against dehydration.”

Recent research into CAHS proteins reveals that they can sense when the cell encapsulating them becomes dehydrated, and that’s when they kick into action. CAHS proteins form gel-like filaments as they dry out. These form networks that support the shape of the cell as it loses its water. The process is reversible, so as the tardigrade cells become rehydrated, the filaments recede at a rate that doesn’t cause undue stress on the cell. Interestingly though, the proteins exhibited the same kind of action even when isolated from tardigrade cells.

“Trying to see how CAHS proteins behaved in insect and human cells presented some interesting challenges,” said lead author Akihiro Tanaka, a graduate student in the lab. “For one thing, in order to visualize the proteins, we needed to stain them so they show up under our microscopes. However, the typical staining method requires solutions containing water, which obviously confounds any experiment where water concentration is a factor one seeks to control for. So we turned to a methanol-based solution to get around this problem.”

Research on mechanisms related to dry preservation of cells or organisms could have many future applications. Kunieda and his team hope that through this new knowledge, researchers might find ways to improve the preservation of cell materials and biomolecules in a dry state. This could extend the shelf life of materials used for research, medicines with short expiry dates, or maybe even whole organs needed for transplants.

“Everything about tardigrades is fascinating. The extreme range of environments some species can survive leads us to explore never-before-seen mechanisms and structures. For a biologist, this field is a gold mine,” said Kunieda. “I’ll never forget New Year’s Day 2019, when I received an email from Tomomi Nakano, another author of the paper. She had been working late trying to see the condensation of CAHS proteins and observed the first CAHS filament networks in human cultured cells. I was astonished at seeing such clearly defined microscopic images of these. It was the first time I had seen such a thing. It was a very happy new year indeed!”

Knowing how to isolate and activate these special proteins, though, is just the beginning. Kunieda and his team plan to sift through more than 300 other kinds of proteins, some of which likely play a role in the incredible life-preserving ability of these tiny water bears.

CAPTION

Here is a tardigrade captured by an electron microscope. Despite their minuscule size, they contain a bounty of biological secrets.

CREDIT

©2022 S Tanaka, H Sagara, T Kunieda.

CAPTION

Scanning electron microscope image of the dehydrated tardigrade, Ramazzottius varieornatus.

CREDIT

(c)2022 Tanaka S, Sagara H, Kunieda T

VIDEO Transition to dehydrated state and recovery by rehydration of the tardigrade, Ramazzottius varieornatus. CREDIT (c)2022 Hashimoto T, Kunieda T

VIDEO Young tardigrades walking on an agar-coated plate. CREDIT c)2022 Kunieda T

Journal article: Akihiro Tanaka, Tomomi Nakano, Kento Watanabe, Kazutoshi Masuda, Gen Honda, Shuichi Kamata, Reitaro Yasui, Hiroko Kozuka-Hata, Chiho Watanabe, Takumi Chinen, Daiju Kitagawa, Satoshi Sawai, Masaaki Oyama, Miho Yanagisawa, Takekazu Kunieda. “Stress-dependent cell stiffening by tardigrade tolerance proteins that reversibly form a filamentous network and gel”, PLOS Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001780

Funding: This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS; https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/) KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP16H01632, JP16H02951, JP18H04969, JP20H04332, JP20K20580, JP21H05279 (to TK); JP21J11385 (to AT); and JP21H05871 (to MY). MY received the funding from KOSE Cosmetology Research Foundation

Useful links:
Department of Biological Sciences
http://www.bs.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/about_us/faculties/biology.html

Graduate School of Science
https://www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
https://www.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/eng_site/info/academics/grad/

About the University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter at @UTokyo_News_en.

---

JOURNAL

PLoS Biology

DOI

10.1371/journal.pbio.3001780 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Human tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

Stress-dependent cell stiffening by tardigrade tolerance proteins that reversibly form a filamentous network and gel

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Sep-2022

Orphanhood and Caregiver Loss Among Children Based on New Global Excess COVID-19 Death Estimates

Susan Hillis, PhD¹; Joel-Pascal Ntwali N’konzi, MSc²; William Msemburi, PhD³; et alLucie Cluver, PhD⁴; Andrés Villaveces, MD, PhD⁵; Seth Flaxman, PhD⁶; H. Juliette T. Unwin, PhD⁷

 Research Letter

September 6, 2022

JAMA Pediatr. Published online September 6, 2022. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.3157

The availability of new excess mortality data enables us to update global minimum estimates of COVID-19 orphanhood and caregiver death among children.^1-4 Consequences for children can be devastating, including institutionalization, abuse, traumatic grief, mental health problems, adolescent pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, and chronic and infectious diseases.^4,5 Global totals and country comparisons were previously hampered by inconsistencies in COVID-19 testing and incomplete death reporting. The new orphanhood estimates derived here based on excess deaths provide a comprehensive measure of COVID-19’s long-term impact on orphanhood and caregiver loss.

Methods

Using previous methodology for combining age-specific death and fertility rates,⁴ we use Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting (GATHER) reporting guideline for this epidemiologic modeling study to update COVID-19 estimates of parent and caregiver loss. We computed excess mortality-derived estimates for bereft children in every country, using data from the World Health Organization (WHO), The Economist, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).^1-3,6 We replaced COVID-19 deaths in previous logistic models with excess deaths (except when excess deaths were negative) to generate composite deaths for January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2021, and for January 1, 2020, through May 1, 2022 (eMethods in the Supplement; Table). We used bootstrapping to calculate uncertainty around estimates from fertility and death data. We present regional and national estimates using WHO-based mortality methods.

Results

Using WHO excess mortality (more conservative than findings from IHME and The Economist), we estimate that 10 500 000 children lost parents or caregivers (Table), and 7 500 000 children experienced COVID-19–associated orphanhood through May 1, 2022. Greater numbers affected by orphanhood by primary and/or secondary caregiver loss were found in the Africa (24.3% [95% credible interval [CI], 19.3%-27.6%]) and Southeast Asia (40.6% [95% CI, 35.3%-46.2%]) WHO regions, compared with the Americas (14.0% [95% CI, 12.6%-15.8%]), Eastern Mediterranean (14.6% [95% CI, 12.9%-16.2%]), European (4.7% [95% CI, 4.4%-5.3%]) and Western Pacific (1.8% [95% CI, 1.7%-1.9%]) regions through May 1, 2022 (Figure A). Similarly, variation in estimates arises at national levels, with India (3 490 000 [95% CI, 2 430 000-4 730 000]), Indonesia (660 000 [95% CI, 390 000-1 020 000]), Egypt (450 000 [95% CI, 360 000-540 000]), Nigeria (430 000 [95% CI, 40 000-900 000]), and Pakistan (410 000 [95% CI, 80 000-770 000]) worst affected through May 1, 2022 (Figure B). Among the WHO regions most affected, countries with the highest numbers of bereaved children in Southeast Asia included Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Nepal and in Africa included Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Our updated Orphanhood Calculator⁶ provides these new numbers for every country.

Discussion

COVID-19–associated orphanhood and caregiver death has left an estimated 10.5 million children bereaved of their parents and caregivers. While billions of dollars are invested in preventing COVID-19–associated deaths, little is being done to care for children left behind. However, billions of dollars invested in supporting AIDS-orphaned children showcase successful solutions ready for replication.⁴ Only 2 countries, Peru and the US, have made national commitments to address COVID-19–associated orphanhood. At the 2nd Global COVID-19 Summit (May 12, 2022), President Biden emphasized the urgency of caring for the millions of children orphaned. Urgently needed pandemic responses can combine equitable vaccination with life-changing programs for bereaved children. An important limitation is that modeling estimates cannot measure actual numbers of children affected by caregiver death; future pandemic surveillance should include such children. Given the magnitude and lifelong consequences of orphanhood, integration into every national pandemic response plan of timely care for these children will help mitigate lasting adverse consequences. Evidence highlights 3 essential components: (1) prevent death of caregivers by accelerating vaccines, containment, and treatment; (2) prepare families to provide safe and nurturing alternative care; and (3) protect orphaned children through economic support, violence prevention, parenting support, and ensuring school access. Effective, caring action to protect children from immediate and long-term harms of COVID-19 is an investment in the future and a public health imperative.

Back to top

Article Information

Accepted for Publication: June 28, 2022.

Published Online: September 6, 2022. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.3157

Corresponding Authors: Joel-Pascal Ntwali N’konzi, MSc, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, KN 3 Rd, Kigali, Rwanda (joelpascal.ntwali@aims.ac.rw); Susan Hillis, PhD, University of Oxford, 32 Wellington Square, OX1 1NF, Oxford, United Kingdom (susanhillis12@gmail.com).

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License. © 2022 Hillis S et al. JAMA Pediatrics.

Author Contributions: Dr Unwin and Mr Ntwali N’konzi had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Hillis, Villaveces, Flaxman, Unwin.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Hillis, Ntwali N’konzi, Msemburi, Villaveces, Flaxman, Unwin.

Drafting of the manuscript: Hillis, Villaveces, Flaxman, Unwin.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Hillis, Ntwali N’konzi, Msemburi, Villaveces, Flaxman, Unwin.

Statistical analysis: Hillis, Ntwali N’konzi, Flaxman, Unwin.

Obtained funding: Flaxman.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Hillis, Msemburi, Villaveces.

Supervision: Unwin.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Cluver reports grants from UK Research and Innovation, Oak Foundation, and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding/Support: We acknowledge the following sources of funding support: UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (L.C. and J.-P.N.N.), Wellspring Philanthropic Fund (L.C.), Oak Foundation (L.C.), and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (S.F.). Dr Unwin acknowledges funding from the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis (grant MR/R015600/1), jointly funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), under the MRC/FCDO concordant agreement and is also part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union and acknowledges funding by Community Jameel. Dr Cluver thanks an anonymous family foundation for their support for the University of Oxford.

Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Disclaimer: The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or of the World Health Organization.

Additional Contributions: We acknowledge Jon Wakefield, PhD, University of Washington, with permission, for his help with accessing data and comments on the manuscript. Dr Wakefield did not receive compensation.

References

1.

Wong H. Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Published October 15, 2021. Accessed June 24, 2021. https://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths

2.

Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries. The Economist. Published October 20, 2021. Accessed April 24, 2022. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

3.

World Health Organization. 14.9 Million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 [press release]. World Health Organization. May 5, 2022. Accessed May 5, 2022. https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2022-14.9-million-excess-deaths-were-associated-with-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-2020-and-2021

4.

Unwin  HJT, Hillis  S, Cluver  L,  et al.  Global, regional, and national minimum estimates of children affected by COVID-19-associated orphanhood and caregiver death, by age and family circumstance up to Oct 31, 2021: an updated modelling study.   Lancet Child Adolesc Health. 2022;6(4):249-259. doi:10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00005-0PubMedGoogle ScholarCrossref

5.

Thomas  T, Tan  M, Ahmed  Y, Grigorenko  EL.  A Systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions for orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS worldwide.   Ann Behav Med. 2020;54(11):853-866. doi:10.1093/abm/kaaa022PubMedGoogle ScholarCrossref

6.

Global Orphanhood estimates real time calculator. Imperial College London. Published February 14, 2022. Accessed May 6, 2022. https://imperialcollegelondon.github.io/orphanhood_calculator/#/country/Global

THIRD WORLD U$A

Women with disabilities more likely to report poor diet, food insecurity

CDC data reveal health disparities in diet quality and access to food

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Women with disabilities are nearly twice as likely to rate their diet as poor and are more likely to experience food insecurity compared to women without disabilities, according to a new study led by researchers at the NYU School of Global Public Health. The findings are published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Nearly one in five U.S. women ages 18 to 44 reports having at least one disability related to hearing, vision, cognition, mobility, self-care, or independent living. However, there has been limited research on the diets of women with disabilities.

“Eating a nutritious diet is central to preventing many chronic diseases. For women of reproductive age, a healthy diet can also support good outcomes during and after pregnancy,” said Andrea Deierlein, associate professor of public health nutrition at NYU School of Global Public Health and the study’s lead author. “But a healthy diet requires access to healthy foods and the resources or ability to prepare them, and women with disabilities may face obstacles due to medical conditions or physical limitations.”

To better understand the diets of women with disabilities, the researchers analyzed data from the 2013 through 2018 waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 3,579 women, ages 18 to 44, were asked about their food intake on a given day (which was calculated into diet quality scores) and other diet-related factors, including food security and participation in food assistance programs.

Women were also asked if they have a disability, which was defined as serious difficulty hearing, seeing, concentrating, walking, dressing, and/or running errands due to physical, mental, or emotional conditions. Sixteen percent of respondents reported having a disability and six percent reported having two or more types of disabilities.

There were few differences in women’s diet quality scores by their disability status, with the exception that women with two or more types of disabilities had slightly lower diet quality scores related to their intake of fruit and protein-rich foods like meat, nuts, and seafood.

Compared to women without disabilities, women with disabilities were more likely to rate their diet as poor and report their food security as low or very low. They were also more likely to consume frozen foods and participate in food assistance programs.

Women with disabilities were also less likely to be the main person in their households responsible for meal planning, preparing, and food shopping.

The researchers note that more studies are needed—particularly research that examines the intersection of disability status and social determinants of health like neighborhood food environment, housing conditions, and social support that affect food storage and preparation—to identify potential areas for intervention among all individuals with disabilities.

“Learning more about the diets of women with disabilities will help us to better assess this population’s diet quality and nutrient intake, identify barriers to improving diet, and develop tailored nutrition programs and policies, with the goal of reducing health disparities,” said Deierlein.

Additional authors include Jacqueline Litvak of NYU School of Global Public Health and Cheryl R. Stein of NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The research was funded by the New York University Research Challenge Fund Program.

About the NYU School of Global Public Health

At the NYU School of Global Public Health (NYU GPH), we are preparing the next generation of public health pioneers with the critical thinking skills, acumen, and entrepreneurial approaches necessary to reinvent the public health paradigm. Devoted to employing a nontraditional, interdisciplinary model, NYU GPH aims to improve health worldwide through a unique blend of global public health studies, research, and practice. The School is located in the heart of New York City and extends to NYU's global network on six continents. Innovation is at the core of our ambitious approach, thinking and teaching. For more, visit: publichealth.nyu.edu

---

JOURNAL

Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

DOI

10.1016/j.jand.2022.07.010 

ARTICLE TITLE

Dietary Quality and Diet-Related Factors Among Female Adults of Reproductive Age With and Without Disabilities Participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 2013-2018