Energy insecurity is an underappreciated social and environmental determinant of health

The clean energy economy is out of reach for many households

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

In light of climate change and the impending transition to clean energy, many long-standing programs to address energy insecurity need to be refreshed. A new paper published online in the journal Health Affairs provides growing documentation of the connections between energy insecurity and poor health. The paper, by Diana Hernandez, PhD, associate professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, also offers an overview of current policy initiatives and discusses ways that current policies can be improved upon.

The average U.S. household allocates 3.1 percent of its income to energy expenses but for low-income households, this figure is upward of 8.1 percent, according to Hernandez. “This financial hardship often means that for low-income households there are fewer financial resources available for other basic needs such as housing, food, clothing, child care, medical expenses, digital access, and transportation.”

Disconnection of electric or gas service is considered the crisis point of energy insecurity and is disproportionately high among households below the poverty level and headed by persons of color. Nearly 15 percent of households received at least one disconnection notice during the prior twelve months, Earlier research by Hernandez was the first known prevalence study of shutoffs in the U.S.

Energy insecurity or the “inability to adequately meet basic household energy needs has profound implications for health and health equity,” says Dr. Hernandez, who is also managing director of the Energy Opportunity Lab’s Domestic Program at the Center for Global Energy Policy in Columbia’s School of International and Policy Affairs. “Energy insecurity encompasses much more than electricity, gas, or other power sources used for lighting, cooling, and heating. Instead, there are three primary dimensions of energy insecurity—the physical, economic, and coping which reflect financial hardship, housing quality issues and the adaptive strategies people use to manage unaffordable bills and subpar living conditions.”

Hernandez makes the following key points:

• As of 2020 more than thirty million U.S. households were energy insecure.
• Low-income households and those comprised of people of color are disproportionately affected by energy insecurity.
• Structural racism, poor housing conditions, inflation, climate change, and the clean energy transition contribute to and exacerbate energy insecurity.
• Energy insecurity adversely affects physical and mental health and can be fatal.
• Policy and programmatic solutions exist to reduce and eliminate energy insecurity.

Home renters, rural dwellers, residents of houses built before 1980 with inadequate insulation, and people living in the Northeast and Southern regions were at greatest risk of experiencing energy insecurity as well as mobile home occupants and households with children compared to those with an elderly resident, according to Dr. Hernandez. “The latter is, in part, because of shutoff protections for seniors.”

“The somewhat good news is that there is hope for addressing energy insecurity now with recent world events including the COVID-19 pandemic, global social unrest and the war in Ukraine which may spur further investments in renewable energy,” noted Hernandez.

The policy brief was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (grants 78975 and 84643); Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center for Environmental Health and Justice in Northern Manhattan (grant P30 ES009089).

Addendum: This energy insecurity  dashboard:  https://energyinsecuritydashboard.shinyapps.io/shinyappDeploy/  provides state level estimates on energy insecurity using government sponsored survey data (the Census' Household Pulse Survey, which has been tracking EI regularly throughout the pandemic; and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey, which was administered in 2020 and is the basis of the estimates reported in the policy brief and fact sheet. 

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the fourth largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master’s and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit www.publichealth.columbia.edu

JOURNAL

Health Affairs

DOI

10.1377/hpb20230518.472953 

ARTICLE TITLE

“Energy Insecurity And Health: America’s Hidden Hardship”

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jun-2023

 

New single-photon Raman lidar can monitor for underwater oil leaks

System could be used aboard underwater vehicles for many applications

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OPTICA

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS DEVELOPED A SINGLE-PHOTON RAMAN LIDAR SYSTEM THAT OPERATES UNDERWATER AND CAN REMOTELY DISTINGUISH VARIOUS SUBSTANCES THEY DEMONSTRATED THE SYSTEM BY USING IT TO DETECT VARYING THICKNESSES OF GASOLINE OIL IN A QUARTZ CELL THAT WAS 12 METERS AWAY FROM THE SYSTEM IN A LARGE POOL. view more 

CREDIT: MINGJIA SHANGGUAN, XIAMEN UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON — Researchers report a new single-photon Raman lidar system that operates underwater and can remotely distinguish various substances. They also show that the new system can detect the thickness of the oil underwater up to 12 m away, which could be useful for detecting oil spills.

“Differentiating substances in water and detecting their distribution characteristics in the ocean are of great significance for marine monitoring and scientific research,” said research team leader Mingjia Shangguan from Xiamen University in China. “For instance, the remote sensing of underwater oil that we demonstrated could be useful for monitoring leaks in underwater oil pipelines.”

Although lidar approaches based on Raman signals have been previously used for detection of underwater substances, existing systems are impractical because they are bulky and require large amounts of power.

In the Optica Publishing Group journal Applied Optics, the researchers describe their new lidar system, which uses just 1 μJ of pulse energy and 22.4 mm of receiver aperture. The entire lidar system is 40 cm long with a diameter of 20 cm and can be operated up to 1 km underwater. To boost sensitivity, the researchers incorporated single-photon detection into their compact underwater Raman lidar system.

“Mounting an underwater Raman lidar system on an autonomous underwater vehicle or remotely operated vehicle could enable monitoring for leaks in underwater oil pipelines,” said Shangguan. “It could potentially also be used to explore oceanic resources or be applied in detecting seafloor sediment types, such as coral reefs.”

Single-photon sensitivity in underwater lidar

Traditional lidar systems designed to operate above water on ships, aircraft or satellites can achieve large-scale ocean profiling, but their detection depth is limited, especially during rough sea conditions. Raman lidar systems, however, can be used for analysis underwater at different depths without being affected by sea conditions.

Raman lidar works by emitting a pulse of green laser light into the water that interacts with substances such as oil. This excites inelastic Raman signals that can be used to identify substances. By measuring the intensity of Raman signals at specific wavelengths, lidar can provide information about the oil content in the water.

“Traditional Raman lidar systems rely on increasing laser power and telescope aperture to achieve remote sensing detection, which leads to a large system size and high-power consumption that make it difficult to integrate lidar systems onto underwater vehicles,” said Shangguan. “The use of single-photon detection technology made this work possible by improving detection sensitivity to the level of single photons.”

The researchers demonstrated their new lidar system by using it to detect varying thicknesses of gasoline oil in a quartz cell that was 12 m away from the system. Both the lidar system and the quartz cell were submerged at a depth of 0.6 m underwater in a large pool. The lidar system was able to detect and distinguish all thicknesses of gasoline, which ranged from 1 mm to 15 mm.

  

Mingjia Shangguan from the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science at Xiamen University's College of Ocean and Earth Sciences led a Lidar team at the Optical Oceanography Laboratory in developing a new Raman underwater lidar system for stand-off detection of oil in water.

CREDIT

Mingjia Shangguan, Xiamen University

The researchers are now working to increase the number of detection channels and the Raman spectral resolution of the single-photon lidar system to enhance its ability to distinguish different substances in water. This would allow it to be used to analyze underwater bubble types and to detect corals and manganese nodules.

Paper: M. Shangguan, Z. Yang, M. Shangguan, Z. Lin, Z. Liao, Y. Guo, C. Liu, “Remote sensing oil in water with an all-fiber underwater single-photon Raman lidar,” Applied Optics vol. 62 issue 19  pp. 5301-5305 (2023).
DOI: doi.org/10.1364/AO.488872

About Applied Optics

Applied Optics publishes in-depth peer-reviewed content about applications-centered research in optics. These articles cover research in optical technology, photonics, lasers, information processing, sensing and environmental optics. Applied Optics is published three times per month by Optica Publishing Group and overseen by Editor-in-Chief Gisele Bennett, MEPSS LLC. For more information, visit Applied Optics .

About Optica Publishing Group

Optica Publishing Group is a division of Optica (formerly OSA), Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide. It publishes the largest collection of peer-reviewed content in optics and photonics, including 18 prestigious journals, the society’s flagship member magazine, and papers from more than 835 conferences, including 6,500+ associated videos. With over 400,000 journal articles, conference papers and videos to search, discover and access, Optica Publishing Group represents the full range of research in the field from around the globe.

 

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JOURNAL

Applied Optics

DOI

10.1364/AO.488872 

ARTICLE TITLE

“Remote sensing oil in water with an all-fiber underwater single-photon Raman lidar

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jun-2023

 

A seed survival story: How trees keep ‘friends’ close and ‘enemies’ guessing

Global study uncovers intricate balance between seed defense and dispersal by forest trees

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK — Around the globe, forests are facing unprecedented challenges. They're grappling with wildfires, diseases, droughts and deforestation. The survival of these great forests hinges on their ability to regrow — and for many trees, a process called "masting" is key to this regeneration.

Masting — the unpredictable boom-and-bust cycle of seed production — can have profound consequences for plant populations and the food webs that are built on their seeds. But the complex relationship between seed-production cycles and seed consumers and dispersers has been poorly understood.

A new study by an international team of scientists that included millions of tree-year observations worldwide, published today (July 29) in Nature Plants, for the first time documents and analyzes the intricate balance between seed defense and dispersal by forest trees at a global scale. 

Seeds, fruits and nuts — high in carbohydrate, fat and protein content — are among the highest quality plant foods in nature, noted the study’s lead author Tong Qiu, assistant professor in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. When there are a lot of seeds, seed consumers such as birds, squirrels and insects have a feast. Their populations grow because there is plenty of food for them to eat and feed their offspring. But in the years following a mast, when seed production is low, these animals might struggle to find enough food, and this could lead to a drop in their populations.

“At the same time, some seeds that aren't eaten during the mast year might germinate and grow into new trees, and this can lead to an increase in tree numbers, affecting the forest's overall growth and the habitat for other creatures,” Qiu said. “Understanding masting patterns can guide forest managers in their conservation efforts. During lean years of seed production, conservationists may choose to plant seeds manually or implement measures to protect struggling animal populations.”

Erratic seed crops may help trees confound their seed predators, but Qiu and colleagues wondered what they do to the seed dispersers the trees may need to insure successful germination? If unreliable seed production that thwarts a tree’s "enemies" has the same negative impacts on their disperser friends, they hypothesized, then perhaps the tree species that rely most heavily on animal disperser species must forego this defensive option.

“When trees have big swings in seed production, take a long time between high seed years and all produce lots of seeds at the same time, predators can be overwhelmed,” Qiu said. “This seed-production strategy potentially hampers the ability of seed consumers to mitigate the effects of interannual fluctuations by foraging among various host trees. Our research revealed that masting relies on three critical aspects that affect both trees’ friends and foes, seed dispersers and seed predators.”

In the paper, the researchers introduce three elements of masting based on 12 million tree-year observations worldwide. The first is volatility, which reflects the amount seeds fluctuate year to year. The second is periodicity, which refers to the time interval between the years of high seed production. Third is synchronicity, representing a common trend where many trees bear large seed crops in the same years.

But there is a problem with this explanation for masting, pointed out the study’s senior author James Clark, Nicholas Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science at Duke University, who has built the Mast Inference and Forecasting network, better known as MASTIF.

The same tree species that attract seed predators may also depend on mammals and birds to disperse their seeds, he suggested. These friends are so valuable that many tree species pack their fruits and nuts with extra resources and advertise them with colorful displays, all to attract their important mutualist dispersers.

In the paper, the researchers evaluated whether the unreliable seed production that thwarts a tree’s enemies had the same negative impacts on their disperser friends. If masting effectively guards against enemies — and it does, they confirmed — then perhaps the tree species that rely most heavily on animal disperser species must forego this defensive option.

“An analysis of seed production in hundreds of tree species across five continents shows this mixed benefit of masting — the tree species that depend most on animal dispersers are the ones that avoid masting,” Clark said. “In the temperate forests of North America and Eurasia, oaks and firs are prolific mast species. Pines and spruces also mast, but to a lesser degree. Hickories and walnuts still less. Chestnut and the fleshy fruits of black gum, holly, hack- and sugarberry, persimmon, juniper, yew and pawpaw, hardly at all — they are reliable resources.”

The masting firs, pines and spruce fall prey to birds and many rodents in the canopy and also when they reach the forest floor, Clark added. In the tree, conifers can defend their seeds in woody, resin coated cones, many of which are armed with spines. Once on the forest floor, the exposed seeds are rapidly depleted by rodents. With few mutualist dispersers, they are prime candidates for masting.  

Nutrient and climate gradient also play a role in masting, the researchers reported. Species that require a lot of nutrients tend to have low year-to-year changes in seed production, while those often found in nutrient-rich, warm and wet areas show shorter time intervals between high-seed- production years. Meanwhile, masting is more common in cold and dry places.

“Interestingly, this happens in areas where weather conditions mean there is less need for animals to spread seeds, unlike in the wet and warm tropics where such help from animals is more common,” Qiu said. “This fascinating interplay reminds us that our diverse forests are a result of countless factors working together in harmony, adapting to their unique circumstances to thrive.”

At the opposite extreme, rich, colorful fruits avoid wild fluctuations — the trees that produce them depend on their animal dispersers, Clark said. Although there is still plenty of year-to-year variation, because a large, expensive fruit is sensitive to moisture stress.

“A good two-week drought in mid-summer will see many trees abandoning much of their fruit crop — early abortion,” he said. “This includes not only fleshy fruits like persimmon, hackberry (including nettle tree in Europe), and black gum. Acorns and hickory nuts also have high moisture content; they too will abort many partially developed seeds to trim the resource demand. Still, a string of years with suitable climate conditions can see reliable crops in many of these species, one after another.”

Researchers from 70 institutions contributed to the Nature Plants paper. Principal funding came from the National Science Foundation, the Belmont Forum, NASA, and France’s Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir (Make Our Planet Great Again) initiative.

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JOURNAL

Nature Plants

DOI

10.1038/s41477-023-01446-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Masting is uncommon in trees that depend on mutualist dispersers in the context of global climate and fertility gradients

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jun-2023

 

Sociogenomics: The intricate science of how genetics influences sociology

Using genetics to understand human behavior

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PURDUE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: ROBBEE WEDOW IS AN EXPERT IN SOCIOGENOMICS. HIS RESEARCH WORKS TO INTEGRATE DATA SCIENCE APPROACHES WITH SOCIOLOGY RESEARCH FOR DEEPER INSIGHTS INTO HOW GENETICS HELPS SHAPE HUMAN BEHAVIOR. view more 

CREDIT: PURDUE UNIVERSITY PHOTO/KELSEY LEFEVER

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Humans contain multitudes. Each person on the planet contains enough DNA to stretch to Pluto – several times. 

Studying how all this genetic material works, and especially how genes influence human behavior, is an enormously complicated undertaking – one that’s being made easier by the emergence of massive banks of genetic data and complex data science analysis techniques to parse that data.

Robbee Wedow, an assistant professor of sociology and data science in Purdue University’s College of Liberal Arts, an adjunct assistant professor of medical and molecular genetics in the Indiana University School of Medicine, and Purdue’s inaugural faculty-in-residence at AnalytiXIN/16 Tech in Indianapolis, maps those miles of genes for insights into how genetics interacts with social forces and environments. He uses genetic databases to study how tiny bits of genes called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, affect complex, overarching traits including sexual behavior, educational attainment, socioeconomic status, health behaviors and more.

“We know that social forces like socioeconomic status play a role in influencing a person’s life and life outcomes,” Wedow said. “But we also know there is a genetic component to every behavior. What we don’t understand yet is how these biological forces interact with the environment and what these sorts of interactions might mean for social science – and what we think we know about social science research to date. We are using well-powered genetic data to do more accurate and replicable social science and to explore what might be possible at the intersection of genetic and behavioral science.”

When scientists sequenced the first human genome in 2003, the true scale of genetics started to become apparent. Early geneticists thought that finding a gene for each trait was simply a matter of looking in the right place. 

However, DNA bases and genes are not simply keys on a massive piano upon which human lives are played like masterpieces. Instead, DNA operates more like a pipe organ, where stops, switches and pedals can change the way notes sound, mute them or increase their volume. Environment, nutrition, pollution, life experiences and other circumstances can change when and how genes matter for certain outcomes, and even change which places in the genomes matter for those outcomes altogether. There isn’t a single gene for a behavioral outcome. Biology isn’t destiny: It may lay out the musical score, but musicians are free to improvise and interpret as they play.

The idea, Wedow stresses, is not that these genes control a person’s life or destiny. Each SNP, in fact, has a very small effect on an overall outcome like educational attainment. No “Gattaca”-level reading of one’s destiny from their genes – in the style of the dystopian 1990s movie – is on the horizon. Rather, being able to clarify the genetics of certain behaviors can help scientists understand the nuances of human behavior.

“People think that genetics is always about biology, but in the case of sociogenomics it’s more about using the advantages of this new, well-powered data to better understand the outcomes themselves, or about allowing researchers to do more accurate social science and behavioral research,” Wedow said. “The social sciences have recently struggled with replicating studies. Oftentimes the sample sizes are too small for rigorous estimates and certainty. That’s where the potential of using these huge banks of genetic data for the social sciences comes in. They help us get a much clearer, more certain look at what’s really going on.”

Analyzing the genetics is only the first step. An American geneticist in the early 1800s could have correlated genetics with educational mastery and concluded that anyone with two X chromosomes tended to have less education. That is not because the chromosomes had anything at all to do with education. Rather, the correlation reflected social and gender biases present in the culture at the time. Similar insights lurk in Wedow’s research.

“Sociogenomics isn’t necessarily about biology, like some might think,” Wedow said. “When someone studies cancer genetics, they are studying it because they want to elucidate the biology of cancer; they want to figure out ways to better diagnose it, track it and treat it. But researchers in the field of sociogenomics want to study the genetics in order to do better social science. No one would ever study sociology without considering socioeconomic status and environment. We want to be able to take genetics into account in the same way.”

In a study in volume 7, No. 7 of the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Wedow, his co-corresponding author Andrea Ganna from the University of Helsinki, and his other co-authors looked at 109 survey questions in over 300,000 individuals to examine the ways that people’s genes correlated with whether they answered certain questions or left them blank in surveys answered in the UK Biobank. That may sound fairly abstruse, but it fills a gap that the field of sociology has struggled with for decades.

“How do you know what you don’t know or how someone might have answered a question if they choose not to answer it?” Wedow said. “It turns out that the genetics of people who either answer the survey question, or do not, overlaps with the genetics of other outcomes like education, income or certain health behaviors.”

That means that scientists can use this type of data to get a better understanding of how people who choose not to answer questionnaires might also share similar responses to questions about health or social behaviors. Geneticists can also use the results of this study to correct for bias in genetic studies of any behavioral, psychiatric or medical outcomes.

“We can’t parcel out the signal from the noise yet or causally tease apart the effects of environment from the effects of biology,” Wedow said. “We know the genetics correlate with certain outcomes, but we are not at a point where we can say any specific gene causes any one outcome. The effect of each individual gene is small. It’s only in large data sets that we start to get the statistical power to get meaningful, reproducible results. We are using these new exciting, emerging data and tools to revolutionize social science.”

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to today’s toughest challenges. Ranked in each of the last five years as one of the 10 Most Innovative universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at https://stories.purdue.edu.

Writer/Media contact: Brittany Steff, bsteff@purdue.edu        

Source: Robbee Wedow, rwedow@purdue.edu

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JOURNAL

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-023-01632-7 

ARTICLE TITLE

Patterns of item nonresponse behaviour to survey questionnaires are systematic and associated with genetic loci

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jun-2023

Analysis of cancer mortality trends reveals disparities for Hispanic populations

In multi-year study, Mass General Cancer Center researchers found increase in rates for liver cancer deaths among Hispanic men and rates for liver, pancreatic, and uterine cancer deaths among Hispanic women

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM

While cancer mortality rates in the U.S. have decreased, cancer remains the leading cause of death among Hispanic individuals, who generally having lower cancer incidence compared to non-Hispanic white individuals. A new study by investigators from the Mass General Cancer Center, a member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, evaluated cancer mortality trends and identified disparities for Hispanic men and women by age group, cancer type, and United States region over two decades. They found that while cancer mortality rates overall declined, rates of liver cancer death among Hispanic men and women and rates of pancreatic and uterine cancer deaths among women increased from 1999 to 2020. Their results are published in JAMA Oncology.

“Despite the great strides in cancer screening, education and treatment advances, there are  populations in the U.S. that haven't benefited from these improvements equally,” said senior and corresponding author Sophia C. Kamran, MD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Mass General Cancer Center. “Cancer incidence is fairly low among Hispanic populations, but it the leading cause of death. My team wanted to know which cancers might be driving this.”

Kamran and colleagues used data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s public Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) database to answer this question. The database captures the cause of every death in the U.S. from death certificates and is maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics. Data are disaggregated by sex, age of death, place of death, and more.

The researchers analyzed 690,677 cancer deaths among Hispanic individuals and found that, overall, cancer mortality decreased for Hispanic individuals from 1999 to 2020, with a larger decrease among men compared to women. One exception was an increase in cancer mortality rates among Hispanic men between the ages of 25 to 34 years. Upon further analysis, the team discovered that rates of colorectal and testicular cancer deaths were especially high for men in this group.

“This finding was pretty striking and may be driving the increase in overall cancer specific mortality in this particular age group,” Kamran said. “There could be a lack of awareness, education, and screening since there is a stigma associated with testicular cancer. And we know colorectal cancer mortality is increasing among younger populations in general.”

The team found additional cancer types where mortality also increased across all age groups from 1999 to 2020: liver cancer among men and liver, pancreatic, and uterine cancer among women. Liver cancer mortality rate also increased significantly in the West for Hispanic men and women compared to other regions of the U.S.

The authors have some hypotheses that may help explain these disparities: Hispanic immigrants may have less access to health care and insurance coverage, and Hispanic patients are more likely to be diagnosed at advanced cancer stages, which could drive poor survival. In addition, Hispanic patients are often not well-represented in cancer clinical trials.

Researchers did see substantially reduced lung cancer mortality rates among both Hispanic men and women.

“This might be pointing to the fact that there’s been a lot of education about smoking cessation and improvement in screening and treatment for this cancer,” Kamran said. “That was very encouraging.”

Equipped with this information about cancer mortality trends, researchers, educators, and policymakers can identify populations and cancer types that require additional efforts to reverse increasing mortality trends.

Limitations of the study included potential for the WONDER database misclassifying cause of death. The study also does not include undocumented populations nor account for migration or changes in zip code over time. Further, data about stage of cancer, previous treatments, insurance status, education, employment, or language were not available so the analysis could not account for these factors that might affect cancer mortality rate.

More granular data collection and analysis could strengthen investigations and allow researchers to replicate results in similar studies for specific disaggregated Hispanic subpopulations. Still, current findings underscore unique disparities that exist for Hispanic individuals.

“Clearly, the Hispanic population can't just be lumped together with all other U.S. cancer patients,” Kamran said. “We have to think a little bit differently and target specific cancer research, education, and treatments toward this population, so we are caring for these patients as best we can.”

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JOURNAL

JAMA Oncology

DOI

10.1001/jamaoncol.2023.1993 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

US Cancer Mortality Trends Among Hispanic Populations From 1999 to 2020

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Jun-2023

COI STATEMENT

Dr. Fumiko Chino reported receiving a grant from the National Cancer Institute during the conduct of the study.

 

Sandia leans into a hybrid work model

Increasing remote and telecommuting options nationwide

Business Announcement

DOE/SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES

 

IMAGE: MATTHEW-RYAN MORRELL, STRATEGIC SITE PLANNING MANAGER, USES A SOUNDPROOF BOOTH TO PARTICIPATE IN A TEAMS MEETING AT THE COLLABORATION SPACE IN IPOC AT SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES. (PHOTO BY CRAIG FRITZ) view more 

CREDIT: BY CRAIG FRITZ

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is adopting a permanent hybrid workforce, increasing the number of telecommuters and remote workers across the organization. Sandia also plans to establish several hubs around the country that eventually will allow classified work to be done at secure locations other than those in New Mexico and California.

The move toward remote work was sparked by the pandemic, but over time has proven not only efficient, but a preferred option for some employees.

While the vast majority of Sandia employees have returned to on-site work, as of January Sandia had approximately 1,700 full-time telecommuters, 1,100 part-time telecommuters and 1,200 remote workers spread out around the country. That is about 30% of Sandia’s workforce.

The change has allowed some current employees to relocate to other states while staying with the organization. The hope is flexibility will also attract talented professionals who never considered coming to work for Sandia due to its physical locations.

“In a time where most companies are figuring out how to do business in a hybrid realm, Sandia cannot afford to not follow suit,” said Matthew-Ryan Morrell, manager of strategic site planning. “This offering is an added benefit to the workforce and helps us tap into job markets we had only dreamed of.”

A 2021-2022 remote work study conducted at Sandia showed significant increases in the number of qualified candidates applying for a remote position that was identical to an on-site position, demonstrating that remote work options are a competitive aid to recruitment and retention.

Re-evaluating where classified work can be done

Sandia’s mission of ensuring the U.S. nuclear arsenal is safe, secure and reliable comes with significant security responsibilities, a key consideration in opening hub sites in different parts of the country. Sandia already has identified multiple possible hub sites with immediate plans for three: Sandia’s Minnesota site, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Texas A&M University. Part of the hybrid plan includes identifying positions that weren’t traditionally hybrid compatible and adapting to support remote options.

“We are identifying partners for whom locating part of the Sandia workforce will be mutually beneficial. Texas A&M is eager to become a hub because they see it as a way to increase research collaborations and bring additional opportunities for their students,” said Jen Gaudioso, leader of the remote hub strategy and member of the Sandia Hybrid Task Force. “Sandia already has a footprint there; that gives students another career pathway.”

Opening up office space for others

As a significant portion of Sandia’s workforce has opted for remote or telecommuting work, Sandia is looking to make the best use of on-site office spaces. Building renovations have begun in nine facilities on the Albuquerque campus.

“From a facilities perspective, we are physically limited to the square footage we have to conduct work,” Morrell said. “Expanding the offerings for employees to telecommute or work remotely allows us not only to tap into new job markets, but it also means we are less constrained on square footage. That allows more work to be conducted, as we don’t focus on where people are physically doing their work.”

Office space designs are changing as Sandia prepares for the workforce of the future. New collaboration centers feature modern furniture and a more relaxed environment for individual work or team meetings.

Labs leadership also recognizes that hybrid work sometimes comes with IT challenges. As one way to answer that call, Sandia has created a drop-in Swift Bar for employees to get help with their IT issues. One is located off Kirtland Air Force Base at Sandia’s Innovation Parkway Office Complex, or IPOC, in Albuquerque and another at building 915 in Livermore, California.

“People wanted an area that they felt they could just go into and put their computer down and be like, ‘Help me, I have no idea what is going on,’” Morrell said.

Ensuring remote and telecommuting workers feel connected

Sandia recognizes the challenges in adapting to a hybrid workforce. A remote work study that Sandia released in 2022 showed remote workers often want ways to better connect with one another, or report feeling loneliness and uncertainty about their ability to advance in the organization.

As a result, Sandia introduced more regular formal and informal meetings. Some leaders also are experimenting by bringing team members on-site occasionally and focusing on activities that build connections and tie people to the mission. Some teams have held online team celebrations; others have taken part in virtual team building activities.

“I think we have to learn how to build community and a connection when we don’t see people every day,” Gaudioso said. “The water cooler conversations don’t take place, which are really important in creative work and the research environment. We need to be more intentional in making people feel connected and like they belong. So, I think it requires us to rethink how we build a sense of identity and community.”

Overall, Sandia has found managers and employees view remote work as beneficial because it provides flexibility for workers who would otherwise leave or not consider joining Sandia, and it does not have detrimental effects on productivity.

Sandia hopes to fully enact its hybrid model over the next five years by increasing the physical capacity of the lab, growing its nationwide workforce and improving access to resources that help further its mission.

“I don’t think Sandia knows all the answers, but we are essentially applying our learning mindset to figuring this out to attract and retain the workforce of the future,” Gaudioso said.

collaboration centers 

From left, Clint Moore, Chris Lucero, Colin Laskar and Natalie Jung, with Strategic Facilities and Infrastructure Integration, take part in a hybrid meeting at the collaboration space in IPOC at Sandia National Laboratories.

swift bar

Stan Atcitty, leader of Sandia National Laboratories’ Energy Storage Power Electronics subprogram, left, is helped by Donavan Moore, a member of the support staff at the Swift Bar in IPOC.

CREDIT

Photo by Craig Fritz

Sandia National Laboratories’ remote workers across the U.S. (Graphic by Dane Snyder)

CREDIT

Graphic by Dane Snyder

Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia Labs has major research and development responsibilities in nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies and economic competitiveness, with main facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California.