Hannover Messe: Virtual skin contact – Smart textiles are making remote hugs tangible

SAARLAND UNIVERSITY

 

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SMART TEXTILES ARE MAKING VIRTUAL REALITY MORE IMMERSIVE AND ENABLING WEARERS TO EXPERIENCE THE SENSATION OF PHYSICAL TOUCH. AN ULTRATHIN FILM THAT CAN TRANSMIT TOUCH SENSATIONS IS ABLE TO TURN TEXTILES INTO A VIRTUAL SECOND SKIN. AT THIS YEAR´S HANNOVER MESSE, THE RESEARCH TEAM LED BY PROFESSORS STEFAN SEELECKE AND PAUL MOTZKI FROM SAARLAND UNIVERSITY WILL BE DEMONSTRATING THEIR TECHNOLOGY WITH WATCHES THAT HAVE A SMART FILM APPLIED TO THEIR BACKS. PHD STUDENT SIPONTINA CROCE (LEFT) AND STUDENT LUKAS ROTH (RIGHT) ARE CONDUCTING RESEARCH INTO TEXTILES THAT INCORPORATE HIGH-TECH FILMS. IN RELATED PROJECTS, THE ENGINEERS HAVE USED THEIR TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE INTERACTIVE GLOVES FOR FUTURE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION PROCESSES.

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CREDIT: CREDIT: OLIVER DIETZE

Smart textiles are making virtual reality more immersive and enabling wearers to experience the sensation of physical touch. An ultrathin film that can transmit touch sensations is able to turn textiles into a virtual second skin. For seriously ill children in hospital isolation wards, this new technology offers them the chance to feel the physical closeness of their parents during computer-simulated visits and to experience again the feeling of being held, hugged or cuddled. The research team led by Professors Stefan Seelecke and Paul Motzki from Saarland University will be presenting the technology behind these smart textiles at Hannover Messe from 22 to 26 April (Hall 2, Stand B10).

A hand on a shoulder, the stroke of an arm or a simple hug. Human touch can bring calm, comfort and closeness, a sense of safety and of being protected. When the nerve cells in our skin are stimulated by touch, numerous parts of our brain are triggered, causing immediate changes in our body's biochemistry. Hormones and signalling molecules are released, including oxytocin, which creates a sense of well-being and bonding. Video calls, on the other hand, tend to leave us cold. We miss the closeness and emotional connection that in-person meetings produce. But what happens when physical closeness is essential, when children are seriously ill, but their parents are unable to visit? When physical contact is not possible due to a weakened immune system?

An interdisciplinary research team at Saarland University, htw saar University of Applied Sciences, the Centre for Mechatronics and Automation Technology (ZeMA) and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is working on a technology that will enable children in hospital isolation wards to feel in a very natural way the close physical proximity of their parents during virtual visits. The 'Multi-Immerse' project is at the interface of engineering science, neurotechnology, medicine and computer science and the members of the research team are developing ways to realize multi-sensory virtual encounters between individuals. The aim is to create new technology that will allow young patients to see, hear and feel their parents and siblings in as realistic a manner as possible so that the children experience a strong sense of close physical interaction even though they are physically separated.

The research group led by Professors Stefan Seelecke and Paul Motzki at Saarland University and ZeMA in Saarbrücken is responsible for the tactile side of the project and for creating technical systems that deliver a realistic sense of touch. The Saarbrücken engineers are experts in using thin silicone films to impart novel capabilities to surfaces. They have developed films that are a mere 50 micrometres thick and that can be worn like a second skin. Just as our skin is our body's interface to the outside world, these ultrathin films are the body's interface to the virtual world. The goal is to create a lifelike sensation of touch from interactions between people in a virtual environment.

When incorporated into textiles, these high-tech films allow the child to experience being touched when the mother or father strokes a second smart textile elsewhere. 'The films, known as dielectric elastomers, act both as sensors – detecting the tactile input from mum or dad – and as actuators – that transmit these movements to the child,' explained Professor Seelecke, who heads the Intelligent Material Systems Lab at Saarland University. When functioning as a sensor, the film is able to recognize with very high precision how a hand or finger presses or stretches the film as it brushes over it. This physical deformation caused by the parent's hand is then reproduced exactly in a second textile that is in contact with the child's skin – giving the child the realistic impression of being stroked on the arm, for example.

‘A highly flexible electrically conducting layer is printed onto each side of the ultrathin film to create what is known as a dielectric elastomer. If we apply a voltage to the elastomer film, the electrodes attract each other, compressing the polymer and causing it to expand out sideways, thus increasing its surface area,' said Professor Paul Motzki, who holds a cross-institutional professorship in smart material systems for innovative production at Saarland University and at ZeMA. Even the slightest movement of the film alters its electrical capacitance, which is a physical quantity that can be precisely measured. When a finger runs over the film, the film deforms and an exact value of the electrical capacitance can be assigned to each individual position of the film. A sequence of these measured capacitance values represents the path taken by the finger as it moves. The film is therefore its own flexible sensor that can recognize how it is being deformed.

By knowing how capacitance values and film deformations correlate, the researchers can use the smart textile to transfer the stroking motion of a parent's hand to the child's arm. The research team is able to precisely control the motion of the elastomer film. By combining the capacitance data and intelligent algorithms, the team has developed a control unit that can predict and program motion sequences and thus precisely control how the elastomer film deforms. 'We can get the film to perform continuously controlled flexing motions so that it exerts increasing pressure on the skin, or we can get it to remain in a fixed position”, explained PhD student Sipontina Croce, who is carrying out doctoral research in the project. They can also create tapping movements at a specified frequency. The amplitude and frequency of the motion can be precisely regulated.

At this year's Hannover Messe, the team will be demonstrating their technology with a "watch" that has a smart film applied to its back. 'We can create chains of these smart components so that they can transmit long stroking motions. To do this, we interconnect the components so that they can communicate and cooperate collectively within a network,' explained Paul Motzki.

This smart-textile technology is inexpensive, lightweight, noiseless and energy-efficient. By providing a tactile element to computer gaming, the novel elastomer-film technology can also be used to make the gaming experience more realistic. In related projects, the engineers have used their technology to create interactive gloves for future industrial production processes, or to create the sensation of a tactile 'button' or 'slider' on flat glass display screens, which is literally bringing a new dimension to touchscreen interactions.

At this year's Hannover Messe, the experts for intelligent materials from Saarbrücken will be showcasing other developments that make use of dielectric elastomers, such as sensory shirts or shoe soles, or industrial components like pumps, vacuum pumps and high-performance actuators.

Background:
The ERDF project 'Multi-Immerse', which is headed by Professor Martina Lehser (htw saar University of Applied Sciences / ZeMA), is a collaboration involving the Center for Digital Neurotechnologies Saar (CDNS), which is based at Saarland University's medical campus in Homburg, htw saar and the Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology (ZeMA). In addition to Professor Martina Lehser and Professors Stefan Seelecke and Paul Motzki, research is also being conducted by Professor Daniel Strauss (Director of the Systems Neuroscience & Neurotechnology Unit), Professor Michael Zemlin (Director of the Saarland University Children's Hospital), Professor Eva Möhler (Director of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Saarland University Medical Center) and computer scientists from Saarland University (Professor Jürgen Steimle) and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

The dielectric elastomer technology continues to be developed by PhD students conducting research as part of their doctoral dissertation projects under the supervision of Professors Seelecke and Motzki. The results have been published as papers in a variety of scientific journals. The research work has also received support from numerous sources. Funding from the EU was provided through a Marie Curie research fellowship. The Saarland state government has provided financial support through the ERDF projects iSMAT and Multi-Immerse, and ME Saar (the Association of Metalworking and Electrical Industries in Saarland) has funded a doctoral research scheme. The team also wants to develop the results of its applied research for commercial and industrial applications, which is why the company ‘mateligent GmbH’ was spun off from Professor Seelecke's department.

 

New study shows LLMs respond differently based on user’s motivation

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS SCHOOL OF INFORMATION SCIENCES

A new study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) reveals how large language models (LLMs) respond to different motivational states. In their evaluation of three LLM-based generative conversational agents (GAs)—ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Llama 2, PhD student Michelle Bak and Assistant Professor Jessie Chin of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that while GAs are able to identify users' motivation states and provide relevant information when individuals have established goals, they are less likely to provide guidance when the users are hesitant or ambivalent about changing their behavior.

Bak provides the example of an individual with diabetes who is resistant to changing their sedentary lifestyle.  

"If they were advised by a doctor that exercising would be necessary to manage their diabetes, it would be important to provide information through GAs that helps them increase an awareness about healthy behaviors, become emotionally engaged with the changes, and realize how their unhealthy habits might affect people around them. This kind of information can help them take the next steps toward making positive changes," said Bak.

Current GAs lack specific information about these processes, which puts the individual at a health disadvantage. Conversely, for individuals who are committed to changing their physical activity levels (e.g., have joined personal fitness training to manage chronic depression), GAs are able to provide relevant information and support. 

"This major gap of LLMs in responding to certain states of motivation suggests future directions of LLMs research for health promotion," said Chin.

Bak's research goal is to develop a digital health solution based on using natural language processing and psychological theories to promote preventive health behaviors. She earned her bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of California Los Angeles.

Chin’s research aims to translate social and behavioral sciences theories to design technologies and interactive experiences to promote health communication and behavior across the lifespan. She leads the Adaptive Cognition and Interaction Design (ACTION) Lab at the University of Illinois. Chin holds a BS in psychology from National Taiwan University, an MS in human factors, and a PhD in educational psychology with a focus on cognitive science in teaching and learning from the University of Illinois.

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JOURNAL

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association

DOI

10.1093/jamia/ocae057 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The potential and limitations of large language models in identification of the states of motivations for facilitating health behavior change

 

For mining in arid regions to be responsible, we must change how we think about water, say UMass Amherst researchers

In an unprecedented study of the South American “Lithium Triangle,” hydrologists discover that not all water responds the same way to environmental change and human use

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

 

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A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE COMPLEX HYDROLOGY IN ARID REGIONS WILL GIVE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGERS THE INFORMATION THEY NEED TO MAKE THE BEST POSSIBLE DECISIONS.

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CREDIT: DAVID BOUTT

April 3, 2024

 

In an unprecedented study of the South American “Lithium Triangle,” hydrologists discover that not all water responds the same way to environmental change and human use

AMHERST, Mass. – A research team led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in collaboration with the University of Alaska-Anchorage and Columbia University, has conducted the widest-ever hydrological tracer analysis of the Dry Andes region in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, home to the majority of the world’s lithium deposits and other elements, such as copper, critical to the green energy transition away from oil and toward electricity. But the Dry Andes, as well as other hyper-arid regions, is also extremely sensitive to any activity, such a mining, that may disrupt the presence, composition and flow of both surface and subsurface water. Until now, however, there has been no reliable, comprehensive understanding of exactly how the hydrological systems in extremely arid landscapes work, which means that environmental regulators don’t have the information they need to best manage the mining industry and the transition to more environmentally sustainable future. The research appears in PLOS Water.

“We’ve been thinking about water all wrong,” says Brendan Moran, the paper’s lead author and a postdoctoral research associate in geosciences at UMass Amherst. “We typically assume that water is water, and manage all water the same way, but our research shows that there are actually two very distinct pieces of the water budget in the Dry Andes, and they respond very differently to environmental change and human usage.”

Water is especially important for lithium, the crucial component of the powerful batteries in such things as electric and hybrid cars and photovoltaic systems. Lithium doesn’t like to be in solid form and tends to occur in layers of volcanic ash— but it reacts quickly with water. When rain or snowmelt moves through the ash layers, lithium leaches into the groundwater, moving downhill until it settles in a flat basin where it remains in solution as a briny mix of water and lithium. Because this brine is very dense, it often settles beneath pockets of fresh surface water, which float on top of the lithium-rich fluid below. These fresh and brackish lagoons and wetlands often become havens for unique and fragile ecosystems and iconic species such as flamingos, and they are also composed of different kinds of water—so how does one tell types of water apart?

Moran and his co-authors, including David Boutt, professor of geosciences at UMass Amherst, a Lee Ann Munk, professor of geological sciences at the University of Alaska, had previously developed a method to determine how old any given sample of water is and trace its interaction with the landscape by using 3H, or tritium, and the ratio between the oxygen isotope 18O and the hydrogen isotope 2H. Tritium occurs naturally in rainwater and decays at a predictable rate. “This lets us get the relative age of the water,” says Moran. “Is it ‘old,’ as in, did it fall a century or more ago, or is it ‘contemporary’ water that fell a few weeks-to-years ago?”

The ratio between 18O and 2H additionally allowed the team to trace how much evaporation the water had been subject to. “The 18O/2H ratio is like a specific fingerprint, because different water sources—streams or lakes—will have different ratios. This lets us know where the water came from and how long it has been near the surface and out of the ground.”

For this new research, Moran and Boutt worked with stakeholders in the Dry Andes to sample nearly every water source in the entire region—an unprecedented feat, given how inhospitable and sparsely inhabited the Dry Andes are—and to measure their various isotopes.

Doing so allowed them to discover that old and young waters don’t really mix and behave very differently.

“The deep, old groundwater sustains the hydrological system throughout the Dry Andes,” says Boutt. “Only 20% - 40% of the water is contemporary surface water—but that’s the water that is most sensitive to climate change, storm cycles and anthropogenic uses like mining. Scientists used to think that surface water was the most stable water because it was constantly being recharged by runoff, but in extremely arid places, like the Dry Andes, that isn’t true. And the problem is, this new understanding of how water works hasn’t been incorporated into any management system anywhere.”

The implications of this are immediate, and Moran says that among the most important is to protect the various conduits—streams, rivers, seeps etc.—by which fresh, young rainwater flows into the lagoons and wetlands that are so environmentally critical. It also means that managers need to develop different methods for managing young and old waters—there is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work.

Perhaps most importantly, Boutt points out, “What we see in the Dry Andes is representative of hydrology in all extremely arid regions—including the U.S. West. It’s not limited to lithium mining, either.”

“Water across the globe’s arid regions works the same way,” adds Moran, “and so water managers the world over need to be aware of the age and source of their waters and implement the right policies to protect their differing hydrological cycles.”

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JOURNAL

PLOS Water

DOI

10.1371/journal.pwat.0000191 

ARTICLE TITLE

Contemporary and relic waters strongly decoupled in arid alpine environments

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

2-Apr-2024

 

Red flags: I’m not the bug for you!

SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

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BOTH MALE AND FEMALE MATADOR BUGS SHOW OFF AND WAVE THEIR PRETTY RED HINDLEG FLAGS, PROMPTING RESEARCHERS AT THE SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE TO ASK WHY.

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CREDIT: ANA ENDARA/STRI

In the quaint town of Gamboa, nestled near the Panama Canal, a team of scientists embarked on a unique endeavor: attaching red flags onto the legs of crickets and observing how birds respond to them. These eye-catching flags were borrowed from the matador bug (Anisoscelis alipes), an insect renowned for the colorful adornments on its hind legs. This trait has captivated Ummat Somjee— a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution and Stengl-Wyer Scholar at The University of Texas at Austin—for several years, particularly given the matador bug’s tendency to wave them. The persisting question: Why does it wave its colorful hind legs?

A previous study, also supervised by Dr. Somjee, suggested a surprising finding that the fancy leg waving was probably not a sexual display. Some of the most obvious and elaborate traits in animals are used to attract mates and these are predominantly expressed in males; think dances of birds of paradise or an elk’s large antlers. Yet, with matador bugs, both males and females showed off their pretty legs. Also, the waving behavior didn't change whether there were potential mates around or not.

This prompted researchers to explore alternative explanations. Did the waving behavior serve to divert predatory attacks towards their removable hindlegs, increasing their chances of escaping? Alternatively, could the colorful legs be serving as a warning signal to potential predators, alerting them to the bug’s chemical defense or bad flavor? These were the questions asked by Juliette Rubin, currently the Tony Coates Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and lead-author of this study. She had previously spent years understanding how butterflies and moths use elaborate features of their wings to avoid predatory attack, and the matador bugs flags were a mystery ripe for the picking.

This is where the crickets—a popular snack among birds—came into play. Drs. Rubin and Somjee, along with co-authors Jorge Medina and Dr. Jay Falk, observed how predatory birds behaved when presented with true matador bugs and crickets that had matador bug flags attached to their legs. To do so, they used motmots – brilliant, large birds with iridescent feathers, long pendulous tails, and keen eyesight.

Catching the motmots was a whole adventure in and of itself. STRI research assistant Jorge Medina selected a location near the town of Gamboa where the birds were frequently observed and, for several weeks, went into the forest early in the morning to place bird nets.

"We placed the nets in areas of the forest where we saw that the birds moved the most and, when an individual was captured, it was immediately taken to the cages and tested,” said Medina, who spent about a month catching the birds for the experiment. “When the birds were finished with the tests, we released them back in the same area where they were captured.”

The experiment found that predator strikes were not primarily aimed at the hindleg flags, thus discrediting the deflection hypothesis. However, the results supported the chemical defense explanation. Regular crickets were always attacked, but those with flags got fewer hits. Meanwhile, matador bugs were actively avoided, whether they had flags or not, indicating the flags are just one component of their defense strategy.

To support their finding that matador bugs are distasteful prey,  the researchers offered crickets and matador bugs to inexperienced chicks – both of which the chicks had never seen before. Again, they found that matador bugs, with or without their flags, seemed to warn these predators to stay away. When the chicks did attack, however, they demonstrated that the bugs were distasteful – shaking their heads and usually refusing to consume another bug. Crickets, on the other hand, were readily attacked and heartily eaten. Their results were published in Behavioral Ecology.

“I was fascinated to see that when we outfitted tasty crickets with the matador bug flags they immediately became less appealing to their bird predators,” said Rubin. “It seems like this warning signal is enough to make the birds cautious, but bugs themselves are so well equipped with ‘don't eat me!’ signals that even without the flags, experienced birds wouldn't touch them.”

This study revealed that the flags signal birds that matador bugs aren't a delectable or safe choice. Yet, these flags collaborate with other aspects of the bug's appearance to emphasize the message, indicating that they are part of a complex defense strategy that has likely evolved over time to protect these bugs from being eaten by birds.

Although focused on a single insect species, this study represents a significant advancement in deepening our comprehension of the evolution of elaborate traits in nature. These findings enhance our understanding of the reasons behind the presence of brightly colored and unusual physical features in certain animals.

The authors involved in the study represent the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Florida Museum of Natural History, the University of Florida, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Headquartered in Panama, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute is a unit of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The institute furthers the understanding of tropical biodiversity and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems.

Crickets with red flag legs [VIDEO] | 

To test whether the matador bug used its red flags to deter predators, the authors observed how motmots reacted to them and to crickets. STRI research assistant Jorge Medina, who is known for his deep knowledge of birds, supported the team by catching the birds for the experiment.

CREDIT

Steven Paton/STRI

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JOURNAL

Behavioral Ecology

DOI

10.1093/beheco/arae019 

ARTICLE TITLE

The matador bug’s elaborate flags deter avian predators

 

Developing a vaccine for the “zombie drug” xylazine

Scripps Research chemical biologists design an early “proof-of-concept” vaccine that could lead to the first effective treatment of xylazine overdose in people

SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

LA JOLLA, CA—Xylazine is an FDA-approved sedative and pain reliever for use in animals, but it has severe adverse effects when used in humans. It is now illicitly being added to opioids, like fentanyl and heroin, as well as cocaine—leading to a sharp rise in overdose deaths.

Now, Scripps Research chemical biologists have developed a vaccine to block the effects of xylazine’s toxicity. The vaccine works by training the immune system to attack the drug, which is described in a new paper published in Chemical Communications on April 1, 2024.

“We demonstrated that a vaccine can reverse the symptoms of a xylazine overdose in rodents,” says study senior author Kim D. Janda, PhD, the Ely R. Callaway, Jr. Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research. “There is currently no remedy for xylazine poisoning other than supportive care, thus, we believe our research efforts and the data we have provided will pave the way for an effective treatment in humans.”

The rapid increase in lethal drug overdoses attributed to xylazine combined with fentanyl prompted the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to declare this combination an emerging threat to the United States. Xylazine intoxication presents similarly to opioid overdose, causing respiratory and central nervous system depression, and it can heighten the effects of opioids. However, naloxone—typically administered to reverse the effects of opioids—does not tackle the impact of xylazine, highlighting the need for effective measures to treat acute toxicity caused by xylazine.

Researchers suspect xylazine works by reducing blood flow to the brain, among other areas of the body. The drug also causes non-healing skin lesions and wounds, often located on the forearms and lower legs, that can require amputation in some cases—giving it the nickname “zombie drug.”

Although no treatment currently exists, targeted vaccines may offer a solution. Vaccines nudge the immune system to create antibodies to fend off invaders. Antibodies can target viruses, bacteria and toxins. However, sometimes molecules are too small to initiate an immune response, as is the case with xylazine. So, to circumvent this problem, the researchers created a vaccine using a design principle that Janda pioneered, which relies on pairing the drug molecule (called a hapten) with a larger carrier molecule (a protein) and an adjuvant.

In this study, the scientists combined a xylazine hapten with multiple different protein types, to see which combination would create a robust immune response against xylazine. The team tested three vaccine formulations (termed TT, KLH and CRM197, based on the protein involved) to see which vaccine cocktail could help rodents after being challenged with xylazine. One of the three vaccines (TT) significantly increased movement in mice given xylazine after 10 minutes, while two of the three vaccines (TT and KLH) led to an improvement in breathing.

The scientists also examined how these vaccines would limit xylazine blood brain barrier, (BBB) permeation, a filtering mechanism that scrutinizes drug penetration. When xylazine was injected, it immediately crossed into the brain to bind with receptors. Antibodies typically cannot navigate the BBB; however, two of the three vaccines (TT and KLH) showed a strong ability to stop xylazine from reaching its receptors in the brain, limiting its detrimental effects.

A provisional patent has been filed on the research. In the future, his team will build off this work to create a bifunctional antibody that will reverse both fentanyl and xylazine’s toxicity simultaneously, something that naloxone cannot do.

“A monoclonal antibody treatment could be given in tandem with the vaccine to provide both immediate and long-term protection from both opioid substance use disorders as well as opioid-xylazine overdoses,” says Janda. “This strategy could make a significant impact on the opioid epidemic.”  

“Evaluation of a Hapten Conjugate Vaccine Against the ‘Zombie Drug’ Xylazine” was co-authored by Mingliang Lin, Lisa M. Eubanks, Bin Zhou, and Kim D. Janda, all of Scripps Research.

Funding for the study was provided by the Shadek family and Pearson Foundation.

 

About Scripps Research

Scripps Research is an independent, nonprofit biomedical institute ranked one of the most influential in the world for its impact on innovation by Nature Index. We are advancing human health through profound discoveries that address pressing medical concerns around the globe. Our drug discovery and development division, Calibr, works hand-in-hand with scientists across disciplines to bring new medicines to patients as quickly and efficiently as possible, while teams at Scripps Research Translational Institute harness genomics, digital medicine and cutting-edge informatics to understand individual health and render more effective healthcare. Scripps Research also trains the next generation of leading scientists at our Skaggs Graduate School, consistently named among the top 10 US programs for chemistry and biological sciences. Learn more at www.scripps.edu.

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DOI

10.1039/D4CC00883A 

 

Lower income US adults were left behind as the rest of the United States experienced large declines in heart attack and stroke risk over three decades

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Over the last three decades, heart disease deaths have plummeted in the US, but a new study suggests cardiovascular benefits apply only to people in higher income populations. For poor populations, heart attack rates stayed the same or got worse during that 30-year period.

“The decline in cardiovascular health has not been shared equally over the last three decades,” said Adam Richards, George Washington University associate professor of global health and medicine. “This study shows we need to be looking long and hard about ways to improve access to healthcare and other social determinants of health that play a role in higher cardiovascular risks for low income households.” 

Richards and his colleagues evaluated data from national surveys of nearly 27,000 people aged 40 to 75 years old who had not experienced a prior heart attack or stroke. They calculated the estimated 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease for each six-year period of the study. Without factoring in income, national level trends show improvement in cardiovascular disease from 1988 to 2018. 

However, when the researchers explored the distribution of these changes according to household income they found much of the heart healthy benefits were not experienced equally among members of society. Although the 10-year cardiovascular risk fell from 7.7% to 5.1%  for the wealthiest segment of the population and from 7.6% to 6.1% for the second-wealthiest group, cardiovascular risk for people with the lowest incomes remained stagnant at over 8%.

This study was not designed to look for the underlying reasons behind the inequities, but other research demonstrates that improvements in treatments and improved risk factor control each explain approximately half the decline in cardiovascular mortality over this period, and that it is likely the case that differential trends in treatment access and risk factors contribute to the widening of income-related inequalities. 

The United States is the only high income country without a universal health insurance system, and even poor people with insurance face financial, transportation and other barriers to care access. Income and other measures of socioeconomic status and power fundamentally shape the landscape of opportunity to lead healthy and long lives in the United States, said Richards. Tobacco smoking, obesity and diabetes are increasingly concentrated among low income groups, and relative to other high income countries, the US invests less in a wide array of policies that promote the social determinants of health, including paid childcare, medical and family leave, food and nutrition benefits and others that blunt the unhealthy effects of poverty, he said. 

According to the American Heart Association, heart attacks and strokes have been the leading cause of death in the U.S. for 100 years.

The study, Trends in Income Inequities in Cardiovascular Health among US Adults, 1988–2018, was published April 3, 2024 in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

-GW-

 

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JOURNAL

Circulation Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes

ARTICLE TITLE

Trends in Income Inequities in Cardiovascular Health among US Adults, 1988–2018

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-Apr-2024

WAIT A WHILE

Massachusetts population survey shows no increase in problem gambling following introduction of casinos

New resorts have attracted residents who formerly gambled in Connecticut

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

 

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RACHEL VOLBERG, A RESEARCH PROFESSOR IN THE UMASS AMHERST SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH SCIENCES, LEADS THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF GAMBLING IN MASSACHUSETTS (SEIGMA) RESEARCH TEAM AT UMASS AMHERST.

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CREDIT: UMASS AMHERST

The prevalence of problem and at-risk gambling has not significantly changed since casinos were introduced in Massachusetts beginning in 2015, according to the first statewide population survey that compares gambling behavior and attitudes before and after the opening of three casinos in the commonwealth.

That key finding, from the groundbreaking Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) research team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, does not come as a surprise to longtime gambling behavior expert Rachel Volberg, SEIGMA’s principal investigator, even though the gambling literature suggested an increase in problem gambling could be expected. Volberg presented the findings, which compare data from the baseline pre-casino survey in 2013-2014 and the follow-up survey in 2021-2022, to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission on Wednesday, April 3.

Volberg notes the pre-casino survey found a high level of overall participation (73.1%) in different types of gambling among Massachusetts residents, including 21.5% who traveled to resorts in Connecticut and other states with a casino industry. In 2021, 60.2% of residents surveyed said they had participated in gambling in the past year; the researchers’ analysis suggests the decline was in part due to the lingering effects of COVID-19 restrictions.  

“We hypothesized that because of the clear exposure to casinos in Connecticut, we might not see the increase in problem gambling that often happens in the wake of the introduction of a new form of gambling,” says Volberg, a research professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. “And it was nice to see our hypothesis confirmed.”

Volberg also attributed the steady rate of problem gamblers (2% in 2013 and 1.4% in 2021) and at-risk gamblers (8.4% in 2013 and 8.5% in 2021) to Massachusetts’ robust problem gambling prevention programs – GameSense, PlayMyWay and voluntary self-exclusion. “These programs are best practice internationally,” says Volberg, additionally noting legislative measures to prevent problem gambling.

Problem gamblers are defined as those who experience significant impaired control over their gambling and negative consequences as a result. At-risk gamblers are those whose behaviors place them at greater risk of experiencing a gambling problem, such as persistently betting more than planned, spending more time gambling than intended and borrowing money to gamble. 

Jordan Maynard, interim chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, says the commission “is committed to funding important research related to the impacts of gambling in the commonwealth. Through the information collected from studies like this, commissioners, staff and stakeholders have the opportunity to continue developing evidence-based policies and regulations to ensure the gaming industry in the commonwealth prioritizes consumer protections and responsible gaming.”

One objective of the 2011 Expanded Gaming Act was to generate revenue by keeping Massachusetts gamblers in-state by opening casinos. That seems to have happened. Out-of-state casino patronage dropped from 21.5% in 2013 to 10.2% in 2021.

“It did come through pretty clearly that there has been a substantial recapture of people who were going to Connecticut who decided to gamble at Massachusetts casinos instead,” Volberg says.

One area of concern was revealed by the latest survey: the proportion of gambling expenditures that came from at-risk gamblers increased from 51% in 2013 to 68% in 2021. “These aren’t problem gamblers,” she says, “but the financial losses are still an impact on them and their families and their communities.”

That increase suggests that the target for minimizing and mitigating gambling harm needs to shift to identify potential gamblers in need earlier, Volberg says.

To conduct the 2021 survey, the SEIGMA team questioned 6,293 adults, aged 18 and over, who had the option of completing the survey online, on paper or by telephone. The representative sample included targets for Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and adults aged 18-29, groups that are less likely to participate in surveys.

Other survey highlights:

• Massachusetts adults had mixed opinions about the impact of casinos in the state, with almost equal numbers of people believing the casinos had been harmful (25.1%) or beneficial (29.1%). 
• The most positive impacts of casinos in Massachusetts were viewed as employment (36.7%) followed by retaining money that was leaving Massachusetts (17.3%) and increased government revenue (14.3%). 
• The most negative impacts of casinos in Massachusetts were viewed as increased gambling addiction (45.1%) followed by increased traffic congestion (18.8%) and increased crime (10.7%). 

• Considerably more people now believe that gambling is too widely available (increase from 15.6% to 67.5%). 
• Considerably more people now believe that the benefits of casinos are about equal to the harms (increase from 18.9% to 45.8%), with corresponding decreases in the percentage of people who believe that casinos are predominantly harmful or beneficial. 

 

 

Talking politics with strangers isn’t as awful as you’d expect, research suggests

ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Many of us avoid discussing politics with someone who holds an opposing viewpoint, assuming the exchange will turn nasty or awkward. But having those conversations is far more gratifying than we expect, a new research paper suggests. 

Across a series of experiments involving hundreds of U.S. adults, a team of scientists found that individuals underestimate the social connection they can make with a stranger who disagrees with them. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. 

These low expectations may help to explain why people think those on the opposite side of the political spectrum have more extreme views than they actually do, behavioral scientists Kristina A. Wald (University of Pennsylvania), Michael Kardas (Oklahoma State University), and Nicholas Epley (University of Chicago) wrote in an article about their research.  

“Mistakenly fearing a negative interaction may create misplaced partisan divides,” they wrote, “not only keeping people from connecting with each other but also keeping people from learning about each other and from each other.” 

The experimenters found evidence, through experiments conducted online and in person, that people prefer to avoid hot-button issues, especially with people who disagree with them. People also tend to advise their friends and relatives to avoid such conversations.   

But Wald, Kardas, and Epley believed people would find discussing their political differences to be a more positive experience than expected, at least partly because people fail to appreciate the extent to which conversations are informative and draw people closer together.  

To test their theory, they asked nearly 200 participants in one experiment for their opinions on divisive political and religious topics, such as abortion and climate change. The researchers then divided the participants into pairs and assigned them to discuss one of these topics. Some participants were told in advance whether their partners agreed with them or not, but others entered the discussions unaware of their partners’ views.  

All the participants reported how positively or negatively they expected the conversation to be, then engaged in the discussion while being video recorded. Afterward, the participants rated their sentiments about the dialogue. Research assistants also viewed the videos of the conversations and evaluated them across several dimensions.  

As predicted, the participants underestimated how positive their conversation experience would be, but this tendency was largest when they disagreed with their partner.  Participants in this disagreement condition also underestimated the similarities in their opinions. Coders who watched the videos of these conversations confirmed that participants tended to stay on topic, and that the conversations were consistently positive whether the participants agreed or disagreed. 

In another experiment, the researchers tested their hypothesis that people underestimate how the process of conversation itself—actual back-and-forth dialogue—connects people. To do so, they randomly assigned participants to discuss a divisive topic they agreed or disagreed on, but they also randomly assigned participants to either have a conversation about the topic in a dialogue format or to simply learn of their partners’ beliefs on the topic in a monologue format. In the monologue format, each person separately recorded themselves talking about their opinion and then watched the other person’s recording.   

Overall, the participants underestimated how positive their interactions would be, especially when they disagreed with their partner, the researchers noted. But this tendency was especially strong when people actually had a conversation with their partner rather than simply learning of their beliefs in a monologue. The social forces in conversation that draw people together through back-and-forth dialogue are not only powerful, but they appear to be even more powerful than people expect.  

The researchers cautioned that their experiments involved participants talking with strangers; the experiments did not reveal how disagreements unfold among family and friends. Still, they said their findings illustrate the benefits of talking and listening to others rather than typing and broadcasting in debates on social media.  

Our reluctance to discuss our differences denies us some positive social interactions, the authors concluded. 

“Misunderstanding the outcomes of a conversation,” they wrote, “could lead people to avoid discussing disagreements more often, creating a misplaced barrier to learning, social connection, free inquiry, and free expression.” 

The article, "Misplaced divides? Discussing political disagreement with strangers can be unexpectedly positive," is currently available for free at https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797624123000

 

The Association for Psychological Science is the scientific home of thousands of leading psychological science researchers, practitioners, teachers, and students from around the world. APS is dedicated to advancing scientific psychology across disciplinary and geographic borders and committed to disseminating psychological science to the public, incentivizing global collaboration among researchers, catalyzing the further development of psychological science, and promoting the application of psychological science to public policy.

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JOURNAL

Psychological Science

DOI

10.1177/09567976241230005 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Misplaced Divides? Discussing Political Disagreement With Strangers Can Be Unexpectedly Positive

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Mar-2024