Study: Cultural variables play important role in perceptions of status, power


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 CULTURAL VARIABLES PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN PERCEPTIONS OF STATUS AND POWER IN BUSINESS, ACCORDING TO RESEARCH CO-WRITTEN BY CARLOS TORELLI, A PROFESSOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AND THE JAMES F.... view more  CREDIT: PHOTO BY GIES COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Are powerful individuals such as politicians necessarily viewed by others as having high status? And conversely, are high-status individuals such as tech moguls always seen as powerful? According to new research co-written by a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign expert in consumer behavior and global marketing, the answer depends on one's cultural orientation.

Cultures with a "vertical collectivist orientation," in which the individual willingly submits to authority by subordinating personal goals and accepting hierarchy, respond differently to the power-status dynamic than cultures with a more egalitarian "horizontal collectivistic orientation" that emphasizes communality and pro-social cooperation, said Carlos Torelli, a professor of business administration and the James F. Towey Faculty Fellow at Illinois.

"Power and status are different sources of social hierarchy with distinct consequences," he said. "Power equates to control over resources, while status broadly means respect and admiration. A bill collector has power but doesn't have high status. An Olympic athlete, on the other hand, has high status but doesn't have power. Our paper seeks to advance understanding of social hierarchies by proposing that this variation can be explained, at least in part, by one's cultural orientation."

Across six studies, Torelli and his co-authors used a range of methodologies to investigate the perceptions of the power-status dynamic to better understand the established effects on fairness.

"Power and status are distinct bases of social hierarchy with unique effects," said Torelli, also the executive director of Executive and Professional Education at the Gies College of Business. "Yet evidence suggests wide variation in whether perceptions of status and power are highly correlated versus relatively distinct. We use a cross-cultural lens to explain this variation and suggest that cultural orientation shapes the effect of power on perceived status, and vice versa."

These cultural contingencies, in turn, have implications for established effects of power and status.

Because vertical collectivism - common in east Asia - is associated with a tendency to automatically respect those in positions of power and authority, the extent to which individuals perceive high-power individuals as also having high status increases, according to the research.

"In those cultures, it's not uncommon for powerful leaders - say, a Bill Gates type - to be widely respected and also seen as a high-status individual," Torelli said.

On the other hand, cultures with a horizontal collectivistic orientation - common in some parts of Latin America - view hierarchy in a much dimmer light, he said. As a result, horizontal collectivists don't automatically submit to authority, and believe goals are best achieved via cooperation and pro-sociality toward others. Accordingly, these cultures foster perceptions that high-status individuals - say, a LeBron James type - also have power.

The insights gleaned from the research have practical relevance for organizations and individuals in the global economy, Torelli said.

"The results have important implications for navigating social hierarchies in different cultural settings," he said. "If you're a manager or other high-level executive and you're transferred to a vertical-collectivist culture, you'll automatically be respected. But you also need to exercise that power. You can't lurk in the background. You have to be out front and assert yourself."

If you move to a more horizontal-collective environment, you shouldn't assume that "just because you're the boss, people will automatically respect you," Torelli said.

"You have to earn their respect by showing your employees your interpersonal ability - your empathy, your concern about your subordinates, your level of cooperation. That becomes more important in a horizontal-collectivistic environment, less so in a vertical-hierarchical environment. It's more important to perform in that environment."

Although the U.S. is an individualistic country that doesn't in aggregate subscribe to vertical or horizontal collectivism, pockets of collectivism exist in the southern U.S., Torelli said.

"Immigration patterns are also bringing more cultural diversity to the workplace - for example, collectivism associated with Latin American and east Asian immigrants - and younger generations are increasingly endorsing a horizontal-collectivist orientation," he said. "Managers operating in these settings should also pay attention to perceptions of the power-status dynamics."

Torelli said the research has direct consequences for American managers operating in global environments.

"There are important consequences for C-level executive types who are looking to break into markets in certain parts of east Asia or Latin America," Torelli said. "And that's important because the east Asian market is going to define the global economy for many years to come."

Torelli's co-authors are Lisa M. Leslie, of New York University; Jennifer L. Stoner, of the University of North Dakota; and Christopher To, of Northwestern University.

The paper was published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

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How did an ancient plant from Latin America become Asia's second-most-important cash crop?

Valued at dining room tables and factory floors alike, cassava is worth about $10 billion in Asia. The continued growth of the commodity faces challenges from climate change, land degradation and limited investment in crop improvement and disease
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TROPICAL AGRICULTURE (CIAT)

ROWS OF YOUNG CASSAVA PLANTS IN A FIELD IN THAILAND. view more
CREDIT: NEIL PALMER / INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TROPICAL AGRICULTURE

Half a century ago, cassava was a simple staple crop for some smallholder farmers in Asia eking out a living in harsh landscapes.

The hardy crop that Europeans brought from Latin America many centuries before was a dependable source of nutrition - as long as it was skillfully processed to remove the toxins from bitter types to be turned into food.

While sweet varieties of cassava remain a staple in places like Indonesia, which is the world's third-largest producer, things have changed a lot for Manihot esculenta, the scientific name for yuca, manioc or mandioca.

Today, yields in Asia have increased dramatically and industry is growing bitter varieties for starch, biofuels and a variety of other ingredients. In Southeast Asia, only sugarcane and rice surpass cassava in total tonnage produced. Some 8 million farmers from India to China depend on the crop for food and income.

Ideally suited to flourish despite climate change, cassava is poised to become an even more important crop in the next fifty years in Asia, argue scientists in a comprehensive review of cassava research over the last 50 years in Asia. The article was published in March in Breeding Science.

"We need to continue investment in increasing yields, even more so under climate change, land degradation and new pests and disease outbreaks; the next big thing is improving the resilience of our cassava resources," said Luis Augusto Becerra Lopez-Lavalle, the program leader for cassava at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

The article looks at increases in yields, breeding strategies, development and deployment of different varieties over the last half-century. Countries in the study include China, India, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Authors from more than a dozen institutions contributed to the review, which summarizes major contributions from almost 170 different research articles.

The authors highlight the striking versatility and resilience of cassava, which has been gradually improved and adapted to local needs through cutting-edge plant breeding and agronomy.

Thank the genebanks

Becerra said many advances are due to the rich collection of cassava germplasm at the Alliance's genebank in Colombia, which includes a large collection of native varieties generally more diverse than varieties found further afield. By tapping the resources of the genebank and collections kept by breeding programs around the world, scientists have found traits to make widely used varieties more productive and resistant to disease and climate extremes.

In Vietnam, yields have increased from about 3 tons per hectare to 20 tons, largely through improved varieties and fertilizer management. Intercropping - sowing other crops alongside cassava - and crop rotation to include maize, peanuts, and beans, has improved soil fertility and increase farmer incomes.

"The introduction of germplasm into national breeding programs from the Alliance combined with improved agronomic practices markedly increased cassava yield in the region," said lead author Al Imran Malik, who is based at the Alliance's Lao PDR office. Malik also credited partners who support the new ideas and initiatives.

In Indonesia, breeding has focused on better-tasting and more nutritious cassava. In China, scientists have bred high-starch industrial cassava ideal for higher latitudes, which are generally cooler than those in cassava's native range.

"Over the past decades, cassava researchers in Asia, particularly breeders, have had to respond to changing market and policy conditions to ensure that the crop and the farmers that grow it are competitive in global markets," said Jonathan Newby, the research coordinator for the Alliance's cassava program in Southeast Asia.

Across the region today, researchers study erosion and health of the soil, sustainable intensification, artificial intelligence, and advanced genetics for crop improvement. Scientists are also intensely focused on controlling emerging diseases, which threaten productivity gains. Last year, the Alliance worked with national researchers and partners to draw up an emergency control plan for cassava mosaic disease (CMD), a project led by Becerra.

Becerra is also a global research leader in the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas, which contributed to the study.

Cassava cooperation

One of the great lessons of the review was the extent to which local collaboration and ground-up initiatives were key to cassava improvement in the region.

In particular, the Alliance led partnerships with national agricultural research institutes in the region. NARIs from Vietnam, Thailand, China, Japan, Indonesia, Lao PDR, and Cambodia collaborated on many border-crossing cassava projects in the last few decades.

Partnerships among research organizations in Asia facilitated the understanding of specific contexts, allowing researchers to create appropriate recommendations in breeding and agronomy so farmers could grow cassava in accordance with their needs.

The Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) emphasized that the development in cassava research in Asia has great potential outside the region.

"This work will not only contribute to the prosperity of cassava in Asia but also contribute to the food security of people in Africa," said Wenjun Ou, a co-author from CATAS.

Outside of research partnerships, Dr. Malik said funders have been key supporters for ongoing, long-term research. Continued partnerships and support are key for controlling CMD, which requires regionally coordinated efforts in research on seed systems, pest and disease control, and capacity-building.

No longer 'a crop for the poor'

While there is still an impression that cassava is a poor man's crop in Asia, Becerra and Newby push back on this notion, highlighting its potential for wealth creation amongst smallholder farmers targeting a wide global market. "The future is bright for cassava as food and as an industrial ingredient in a range of new products that modern consumers demand," said Newby. "It will be critical that cassava breeders keep pace with these changes and opportunities to ensure that smallholder farmers in Asia continue to reap the benefits of this 'hidden' crop in our daily lives."

Becerra emphasized how different regions will contribute to a South-South knowledge transfer to ensure further prosperity for the crop, saying, "The key to cassava improvement is still at its center of origin. We ought to help sub-Saharan African farmers obtain the same genetic gains as Asian resource-poor farmers, where the Alliance built on genetic resources from Latin America."

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About the Alliance

The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) delivers research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people's lives. Alliance solutions address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. http://www.bioversityinternational.org http://www.ciat.cgiar.org http://www.cgiar.org

Relying on 'local food' is a distant dream for most of the world

AALTO UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: OPTIMIZED DISTANCE BETWEEN FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION GRAPHIC. view more 

CREDIT: AALTO UNIVERSITY

Globalisation has revolutionised food production and consumption in recent decades and cultivation has become more efficient As a result, diets have diversified and food availability has increased in various parts of the globe. However, it has also led to a situation where the majority of the world population live in countries that are dependent on, at least partially, imported food. This can intensify vulnerabilities during any kind of global crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, as global food supply chains are disrupted.

Aalto University dissertation researcher, Pekka Kinnunen, says 'There are big differences between different areas and the local foliage. For example, in Europe and North America, temperate crops, such as wheat, can be obtained mostly within a radius of 500 kilometres. In comparison, the global average is about 3,800 kilometres'.

The recent study, published in Nature Food and led by Kinnunen, modelled the minimum distance between crop production and consumption that humans around the world would need to be able to meet their food demand. The study was conducted in collaboration with the University of Columbia, the University of California, the Australian National University and the University of Göttningen. The study factored in six key crop groups for humans: temperate cereals (wheat, barley, rye), rice, corn, tropical grains (millet, sorghum), tropical roots (cassava) and pulses. The researchers modelled globally the distances between production and the consumer for both normal production conditions and scenarios where production chains become more efficient due to reduced food waste and improved farming methods.

It was shown that 27% of the world's population could get their temperate cereal grains within a radius of fewer than 100 kilometres. The share was 22% for tropical cereals, 28% for rice and 27% for pulses. In the case of maize and tropical roots, the proportion was only 11-16%, which Kinnunen says displays the difficulty of relying solely on local resources.

Foodsheds as areas of self-sufficiency

'We defined foodsheds as areas within which food production could be self-sufficient. In addition to food production and demand, food fences describe the impact of transport infrastructure on where food could be obtained', Kinnunen explains.

The study also showed that foodsheds are mostly relatively compact areas for individual crops. When crops are looked at as a whole, foodsheds formed larger areas, spanning the globe. This indicates that the diversity of our current diets creates global, complex dependencies.

According to Associate professor Matti Kummu, who was also involved in the study, the results clearly show that local production alone cannot meet the demand for food; at least not with current production methods and consumption habits. Increasing the share of effectively managed domestic production would probably reduce both food waste and greenhouse gas emissions. However, at the same time, it could lead to new problems such as water pollution and water scarcity in very densely populated areas, as well as vulnerabilities during such occurrences as poor harvests or large-scale migration.

'The ongoing COVID-19 epidemic emphasises the importance of self-sufficiency and local food production. It would be important also to assess the risks that dependence on imported agricultural inputs such as animal feed proteins, fertilisers and energy, might cause', says Kummu.

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Kummu and Kinnunen work in Water and Development Research Group at Aalto School of Engineering. The group focuses on the sustainability of water resources, especially in the context of water used in food production. Read more: https://wdrg.aalto.fi

Mismanagement, not tampering, at root of supply problems for Ugandan farmers

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT

For years, speculation about the poor quality of vital agricultural supplies in the African nation of Uganda has focused on questions of deliberate tampering with products - adding rocks to bags of seed in order to charge more money for the heavier product, for instance. But in a recent publication, two UConn researchers found no evidence of deliberate adulteration - but plenty of proof that mismanagement and inadequate infrastructure pose a significant problem for Ugandan farmers.

"For whatever reason, there's very little research in Africa on the food supply chain," says Nathan Fiala, Assistant Professor in UConn's Agricultural and Resource Economics department. Part of Fiala's work has been aimed at improving our understanding of these supply chains, so when an organization contacted him and co-author and PhD student Alicia Barriga to further investigate this concerning trend, they were eager to learn more.

Barriga explains that in Uganda, as in some other Sub-Saharan African and developing countries elsewhere, small-scale farmers rely on agriculture for subsistence. The local government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have made efforts to improve agricultural technology and production to ultimately reduce hunger. Overall food security has improved in Uganda, yet it remains uneven across the country, and there are vulnerabilities, especially in regards to weather and internal conflict, says Barriga. For example, in 2019 several districts reported acute an food crisis due to heavy rain, pests, and diseases.

Fiala says that Uganda's supply chain is an interesting one to study because food security and food insecurity are so evident in the country.

"People in Uganda don't eat three meals a day seven days a week generally," he says. "We see lots of skipping of meals, and people oftentimes only eat one or two times a day, generally due to food insecurity and poverty."

In the fertile land of Uganda, Fiala says, you can plant seeds pretty much anywhere and the seeds will grow. Despite this, food productivity remains low, and previous studies revealed discrepancies in the quality of agricultural supplies like seeds and fertilizers.

Agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizers, and herbicides oftentimes show signs of corruption from other materials. Barriga says that seeds, for example, can be mixed with rocks, dirt, or sand in order to bulk the bags up.

Fiala explains that authors of previous studies surmised the discrepancies were due to adulteration of the product, and as often happens, people jumped to the conclusion that the supplies were being purposefully corrupted. This explanation prevails despite lack of evidence of tampering.

To investigate these claims, Fiala and Barriga sampled along the seed supply chain in a method called a "mystery shopper approach" from seed sellers all the way to the farmer. The seeds were then tested for purity, germination, rigor, and DNA similarity. What they found was surprising.

"We found absolutely no evidence of adulteration. What it looks like is that along the supply chain the materials are being handled improperly. The discrepancies we see in the quality of the supplies is likely due to mismanagement," says Fiala.

"For example, if you get a bag of fertilizer and throw it into the back of a truck and transport it to the north of the country where it's hot and you don't have a refrigerated truck, the fertilizer can lose half its nitrogen. This loss is just through transportation, not adulteration."

The mishandling of the supplies is not malicious or deliberate -- these supplies are being handled this way because there is simply no infrastructure in place to handle them properly. For instance, access to refrigerated trucks or buildings may be minimal or non-existent.

"We use the words 'corruption' and 'adulteration' when we don't really know what that is, and it is hard to distinguish deliberate actions from just incompetence and mismanagement," he says. "When researchers say corruption they are combining corruption and mismanagement together."

Fiala also points out that there remains a market for fertilizer and seed. If the supplies were all bad, it is reasonable to conclude the market would have disappeared.

"The answer is the supplies are not that bad on average but there is high variation, which can be bad news if you are a farmer," he says.

Though this research could have major policy implications, Fiala says it is unlikely to lead to efforts in the near term to improve the supply chain and food security for Ugandan citizens anytime soon.

"I have spoken to the Ugandan government about this and they are really interested in this work but they have no money and there is no political will to react," he says. "The economic return to government is low, and focus is on things like manufacturing and economic growth. Most people don't see the last-mile farmer as a way to improve growth. This will probably only get worse due to the COVID-19 crisis."

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Mutual funds with lower tax burdens have higher returns

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN\

MUTUAL FUNDS A CANADIAN INVENTION LIKE ETF'S

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IMAGE: MUTUAL FUNDS WITH LOWER TAX BURDENS HAVE HIGHER RETURNS. view more 

CREDIT: SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT

AUSTIN, Texas -- After a wild couple of months of equity market volatility, many mutual fund investors are now cautiously exploring how best to rebalance their portfolios. As they do so, new research from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin says they should keep an important factor in mind: taxable capital gains.

McCombs finance professor Clemens Sialm compared tax burdens and mutual fund performance in a new study published in the April 2020 issue of The Journal of Finance. The results showed a direct correlation in tax rates and performance, indicating that tax-efficient funds provide higher gains for investors and, therefore, more income for shareholders.

"The average equity mutual fund generates quite a bit of tax burden," Sialm said. "Most investors don't consider taxes as much as they should. So, in the coming months, as many investors make many portfolio adjustments meant to maximize their long-term objectives, they would be wise to rethink this issue," he said. "Harvesting losses can help offset future capital gain realizations, for example."

Short-term capital gains on stocks held for less than a year get taxed at rates as high as 37%. Holding stocks more than a year brings the top rate down to 20%.

"Often, it's fairly easy to avoid a higher tax rate on a capital gain," Sialm said. "If I've held a stock for 11 months, it's better to wait one more month to sell it."

In order to see whether minimizing taxes had negative effects on fund performance, Sialm and Hanjiang Zhang of Washington State University looked at U.S. equity mutual funds with more than $10 million in assets from 1990 to 2016. During that period, tax rates rose and fell between a high of 43% and a low of 15%. To calculate the bite taken by capital gains, the researchers used the rates in effect when a fund sold a stock.

What they found proved their theory. Low-tax funds actually outperformed the average fund, both before and after taxes. A 1.18% drop in a fund's tax burden boosted its return 0.55% before taxes and 0.99% after taxes.

"Tax-managed funds aren't sacrificing performance," Sialm said.

What made the tax-efficient funds do so well, Sialm found, is better all-around management. Funds that had lower tax burdens also displayed better stock-picking abilities. They also showed lower trading costs - presumably because they traded less often.

"They have a more sophisticated and more holistic approach," he said. "They take taxes and trading costs into account, and they have better stock-selection abilities."

Based on this research, fund shoppers should look at both fees and taxes when making decisions. The researchers said one way to tamp down taxes is to shop for certain kinds of funds - ones that tend to hold stocks for longer than a year:

• Tax-managed funds, which reduce capital gains by balancing them against losses. Their after-tax returns were 0.81% better than similar funds that weren't tax managed.
• Momentum funds, which buy stocks while they're rising and sell when they start to fall. "If you have a winning stock, you hold on to it longer," Sialm said. "If it's a losing stock, you sell it and take the capital loss."
• Index funds, which try to match indexes like the Standard & Poor's 500. They hang onto a stock for as long as it's part of the index.

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For more details about this research, read the McCombs Big Ideas feature story.

Low-cost, easy-to-build ventilator performs similarly to high-quality commercial device

Ventilator could support coronavirus treatment in low-income regions or where supplies are limited

EUROPEAN LUNG FOUNDATION

LOW-COST, EASY TO BUILD PROTOTYPE VENTILATOR DURING USE. THE VENTILATOR CAN BE USED TO SUPPORT COVID-19 TREATMENT IN LOW INCOME REGIONS OF WHERE VENTILATOR SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED. view more CREDIT: PHOTOS COURTESY OF PROF. RAMON FARRÉ.
A low-cost, easy-to-build non-invasive ventilator aimed at supporting the breathing of patients with respiratory failure performs similarly to conventional commercial devices, according to new research published in the European Respiratory Journal [1].

Non-invasive ventilators are used to treat patients with breathing difficulty and respiratory failure, a common symptom of more severe coronavirus disease. Non-invasive ventilation is delivered using facemasks or nasal masks, which push a set amount of pressurised air into the lungs. This supports the natural breathing process when disease has caused the lungs to fail, enabling the body to fight infection and get better.

The research paper provides a free to replicate, open source description for how to build the ventilator. The researchers say the prototype ventilator could support treatment of coronavirus and other severe respiratory diseases in low income regions or where ventilator supplies are limited.

The study was led by Ramon Farré, Professor of Physiology in the Unit of Biophysics and Bioengineering at the School of Medicine of the University of Barcelona, Spain. He said: "In light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the escalating need for respiratory support devices around the world, we designed a ventilator that can be built at a low cost using off-the-shelf components. The ventilator is intended to support hospitals and health systems that are struggling to meet the demand for ventilatory support due to coronavirus and other severe lung diseases."

The research team designed, built and tested the low-cost non-invasive ventilator with a small high-pressure blower, two pressure transducers and a controller with a digital display, which are available at a retail cost of less than $75 USD (equivalent to £60 GBP / €67 EUR).

To assess the effectiveness of the ventilator prototype compared with a commercial ventilator, the research team tested the device using 12 healthy volunteers. The participants' breathing was partially hindered by having them wear bands around the chest, mimicking obstruction at the upper airways to simulate different levels of chest tightness and breathing difficulty caused by disease.

The participants wore face masks fitted over the nose to facilitate breathing and were asked to score the level of comfort or discomfort they experienced both with and without ventilatory support.

The researchers observed no faulty triggering of changes to the levels of air pushed from the ventilator during use, and the team says it effectively supported spontaneous breathing rhythm, suggesting that the prototype assists natural breathing well. Further, they found that the feeling of breathing relief provided by the prototype was virtually the same as what was reported using the commercial ventilator.

The team also carried out respiratory "bench testing", where lung modelling is used to assess how well the ventilator supports the breathing of patients with different levels of airflow obstruction or restriction. The ventilator prototype was tested under 16 different simulated conditions, covering real life settings where non-invasive ventilation is used in clinical practice.

The bench test showed that, across all simulated conditions, the prototype ventilator worked effectively to support the lungs to operate efficiently and there was no faulty triggering.

Professor Farré said: "Our tests showed that the prototype would perform similarly to a conventional, high-quality device when providing breathing support for patients who, although with great difficulty, can try to breathe by themselves. This low-cost device could be used to treat patients if commercial devices are not available, and it provides clinicians with a therapeutic tool for treating patients who otherwise would remain untreated."

The researchers highlight that the prototype is a non-invasive ventilator; it is not intended for the most severely diseased patients in intensive care units, who are intubated and require a mechanical ventilator to take full control of the patients' breathing, as the prototype only provides breathing support.

Professor Leo Heunks is an expert in intensive care medicine from the European Respiratory Society and was not involved in the study. He said: "World Health Organization data suggests that around 80% of people who get coronavirus recover without needing hospital treatment, but those who do develop severe symptoms can experience breathing difficulties, which is distressing and puts health systems under additional pressure. Low-cost solutions like the ventilator described in this paper could provide treatment for those patients, potentially improving outcomes and helping to alleviate pressure on health systems by reducing the need for more invasive types of ventilatory support."

An open source description with full technical details on how to build the non-invasive ventilator is included in the research paper. The authors say that to build the device no prior knowledge of ventilation is required, and only basic engineering skills are needed.

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Gender-based violence in the COVID-19 pandemic

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH  

 

April 20, 2020 -- Gender-based violence has been shown to increase during global emergencies. In a paper just published by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, researchers report that according to early evidence it is the same for the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are online in the journal Bioethics.

Early results from China suggest that domestic violence has dramatically increased. For example, a police station in China's Hubei Province recorded a tripling of domestic violence reports in February 2020 during the COVID?19 quarantine. Other reports suggest that police have been reluctant to intervene and detain perpetrators due to COVID?19 outbreaks in prisons.

"Gender norms and roles relegating women to the realm of care work puts them on the frontlines in times of crisis, resulting in greater risk of exposure while excluding them from developing the response," said Terry McGovern, chair of the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia Mailman School, director of the Program on Global Health Justice and Governance, and senior author of the study.

For example:

• Globally women perform three?quarters of unpaid care work, including household disease prevention and care for sick relatives, and there is not a country in the world where men provide an equal share of unpaid care work.
• in China's Hubei province 90% of frontline healthcare workers are women as in many other parts of the world.

However, the researchers make the point that it is not too late to include the voices of women in tackling COVID-19:

• Governments can incorporate gender considerations into their response.
• Technology can be leveraged to ensure women continue to receive essential services when they need them most. For example, emergency services and victim support can be maintained via text, phone, and online services.
• Telemedicine should be considered an alternative and secure way to provide women and girls access to contraceptives and abortion medication.

"Recognizing, valuing, supporting women's roles and giving them a voice in global health governance can go a long way in avoiding unintended consequences, building resilient healthcare systems, and reducing intersectional inequalities and vulnerabilities across gender, race, class and geography," noted Neetu John, first author and assistant professor in Columbia Mailman School's Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, and the co-authors.

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Co-authors are: Sara Casey, Columbia Mailman School; and Giselle Carino, International Planned Parenthood Federation.

THIRD WORLD USA

Segregation and local funding gaps drive disparities in drinking water

Ongoing legacies raise risk that many US community water systems can't cope with future drought

DUKE UNIVERSITY

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AS DROUGHTS BECOME MORE FREQUENT AND INTENSE, MANY SMALL COMMUNITY WATER SYSTEMS MAY BE UNABLE TO COPE, A NEW DUKE UNIVERSITY ANALYSIS FINDS. view more CREDIT: MEGAN MULLIN, DUKE UNIVERSITY

DURHAM, N.C. -- As droughts become more frequent and intense, the fragmentation of water service in the U.S. among tens of thousands of community systems, most of which are small and rely on local funding, leaves many households vulnerable to water contamination or loss of service, a new Duke University analysis finds.

These vulnerabilities aren't distributed equally, the study shows. Households in low-income or predominantly minority neighborhoods are likely to face the highest risks.

Resolving this disparity and making sure the taps in these homes don't run dry will require a fundamental re-evaluation of how the nation's patchwork of community water systems (CWSs) is managed and funded.

"Small water systems already are at a disadvantage when it comes to protecting water security during drought, because of the financial constraints they face," said Megan Mullin, associate professor of environmental politics at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, who wrote the analysis. "Underlying patterns of segregation can amplify these weaknesses along economic and racial lines."

Mullin published her peer-reviewed article April 17 in a special drought edition of Science.

Disparities in drinking water insecurity are rooted in segregation and the local political economy of public services, she explained. Because CWSs rely on user fees for their funding, they historically have extended service to neighborhoods or adjacent municipalities where residents are more able to pay. The result is that some communities get high-quality water service, while others - often rural communities or places where poverty is concentrated - get lower-quality service. Repairs or upgrades to pipes and other infrastructure are made less frequently, allowing leaks and increasing the potential risks of contamination. When drought arrives, these systems can't cope.

"Drought aggravates vulnerabilities for small, under-resourced water systems. The user fee finance model then limits options for drought response, because policies that conserve dwindling water resources reduce revenue for water systems and make it harder for residents to pay their water bills," Mullin said.

"Until now, people have tried to resolve these disparities through piecemeal approaches. We need to think more fundamentally about our reliance on user fees as a financial model for the delivery of such an essential service. States should consider equalizing resources across water systems to counter the legacy of racism and segregation, as we have done in public school funding," she said.

To do this, policymakers need to have a clearer understanding about the nature and extent of demographic disparities between water systems, she said. Recent efforts to develop maps of water system service areas in several states show promise, she said, and should be replicated nationwide and integrated with data on drinking water finance, infrastructure, and water supply and use.

Over the last year, Mullin has been leading a team of Duke students to produce such a map of North Carolina water systems, through a partnership with the state's Division of Water Resources.

"Of the 50,000+ community water systems delivering water year-round in the United States, more than 80% serve fewer than 3,300 people," Mullin said. "Systems this small face tremendous challenges in delivering safe drinking water even under normal conditions, and as droughts become more frequent and intense, the challenges are going to mount."

For these systems to become more resilient, they need to encourage and enforce water conservation. The strongest tools at their disposal for doing that are tiered pricing and mandatory use restrictions, but these reduce the water-use fees the systems depend on for funding and create an economic burden for low-income customers that could result in failure to pay and subsequent service shutoff.

Equalizing resources across water systems, as states already do for public schools, would circumvent many of these trade-offs and improve water security to millions of American homes.

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Research supporting the new review paper was funded by a Research Collaboratory grant from Duke University.

CITATION: "The Effects of Drinking Water Service Fragmentation on Drought-Related Water Security," Megan Mullin. April 17, 2020, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.aba7353

Stanford study reveals a holistic way to measure the economic fallout from earthquakes
Stanford researchers have developed a way to quantify the economic toll that a major earthquake is likely to exact, and their analysis shows that such a disaster will likely hit hardest at the poor

STANFORD SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

CHART A: (DED IN GRAPHIC). CRECAPTION EMBEDDIT: FARRIN ABBOT
When an earthquake or other natural disaster strikes, government relief agencies, insurers and other responders converge to take stock of fatalities and injuries, and to assess the extent and cost of damage to public infrastructure and personal property.

But until now, such post-disaster assessment procedures have focused on the dollar value of damages to property while failing to account for something that is equally important but harder to quantify; namely, that the poorer someone or their family is, the harder it is for them to recover and regain their former standard of living.

Now, civil engineers at Stanford, working with economists from the World Bank, have devised the first disaster assessment model that combines the well-understood property damage estimates with a way to calculate two previously nebulous variables - the community-wide economic impacts caused by disruptions to industry and jobs, and the social costs to individuals and families.

Although such an analysis might seem obvious, no one had ever put brick-and-mortar losses together with pain and suffering consequences until the Stanford civil engineers teamed up with World Bank economists Stephane Hallegatte and Brian Walsh to create this holistic damage assessment model.

A hypothetical scenario

In a study published March 30 in Nature Sustainability, the researchers test their model using a hypothetical 7.2 magnitude earthquake on the Hayward fault near San Francisco. "We've developed a financial model that builds upon previous property damage procedures in a way that allows us to quantify the pain and suffering people feel after a quake depending on their socioeconomic status," said study co-author Jack Baker, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.

Although the researchers tailored their approach specifically for earthquakes, they hope experts in hurricanes, tornados, floods and other disasters will also adopt the new economic and sociological measures in order to give policymakers new tools to plan for disasters.

Study first author Maryia Markhvida, a former graduate student of Baker's, said the researchers started with traditional models of property damage assessment, and added on top of these a second layer of analysis to quantify a concept called "well-being," which they borrowed from economists and sociologists. The model calculates the incomes and consumption levels of people in different socioeconomic strata to assign a numerical value to well-being, which can be thought of as how people feel about daily life as they recover from a disaster.

The researchers combined the physical damage tools with economic and well-being assessments to create a more holistic model of disaster effects. For example, should the property damage part of their system show that a particular building is likely to collapse, the second layer of analysis would kick in to extrapolate how such structural damage would affect where people work and how it would affect a variety of industries in ways that would trickle down to impact people's incomes and spending power, thus diminishing their sense of well-being.

Policy implications

Much of the income, expense and spending data for the analysis was derived from Census data, which enabled the researchers to tie their well-being calculations to the relative poverty or prosperity of people living in different neighborhoods.

When they estimated the relative loss of well-being for people in each of four income brackets, they found that those at the bottom felt a roughly 60 percent loss of well-being as a fraction of the Bay Area's average annual income, relative to something closer to 25 percent for those at the top (see Chart A available via image download).

The researchers also compared three types of losses for 10 cities in the San Francisco Bay Area (see Chart B available via image download). These calculations factored in the vulnerability of each city's building stock (the number and types of homes, offices and other structures), its proximity to the hypothesized earthquake and other factors such what sort of savings and insurance people had as safety cushions. The chart shows that, even when property damages are roughly equal, well-being losses are larger in cities that have lower-income population and lower household savings.

"It makes sense that the people who have less in the first place feel that life becomes that much harder when they lose some of what little they had," Markhvida said.

The researchers envision that policymakers will use the model to consider in advance how to mitigate the impacts of a quake and speed the region's recovery afterward. They might, for instance, run "what if" exercises to weigh the relative benefits of measures such as tightening building codes, providing incentives to do retrofits or get earthquake insurance, or make contingency plans to extend or expand unemployment benefits.

"This model could help government officials decide which policies provide the best bang for the buck, and also see how they might affect not just potential property damages, but losses to people's sense of well-being," Baker said.

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Children face three times more air pollution during the school run

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

 

Children face a worrying threefold increase in air pollution during the daily school runs, causing air quality experts to call for restrictions on the use of cars during those periods.

In a study published by the journal Science of the Total Environment, experts from the University of Surrey's world-renowned Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) partnered with a local school and the local community in Guildford to investigate the impact cars have on air quality in and around schools during drop-off and pick-up times.

In a school of around 420 pupils, the research team installed air quality sensor kits in five key areas around the school - including drop-off points where cars often sit idling in queues, the playground which is located near a main road, and a classroom. The team investigated the concentration of fine (PM2.5) and coarse particulate matter, as well as carbon dioxide in the morning (7:30am until 9:30am) and the evenings (2pm until 4pm).

The study discovered that dangerous PM2.5 from vehicles lining up to drop off children were the main source of air pollution around the school. The team also found that PM2.5 levels were nearly three times higher during morning drop-off periods than the afternoon pick-up or active school periods. This is due to the fact that pick-ups were conducted from off-site parking areas and a large number of pupils took part in after school activities.

The team also found that PM2.5 levels rose slightly within the classrooms closest to the road during drop-off and pick-up times. Researchers speculated that this could be because of the classroom's dependence on natural ventilation (open windows) which brings in unfiltered air.

The study also found that the playground's close proximity to the main road, a characteristic similar to many of the country's schools, resulted in the playground having consistently high PM2.5 levels at key times in the school day.

The researchers from GCARE have recommended that schools provide safe and accessible off-site parking drop-off points to help reduce levels of air pollution. The team has also recommended the use of green hedges as physical barriers to prevent air pollutants reaching children from cars at drop-off points and the main road.

Professor Prashant Kumar, Director of GCARE at the University of Surrey, said: "This is work of global significance, but we are also proud to collaborate with our local community on this work - employing smart sensing technology and a citizen science approach. The findings will be of great concern to parents locally and further afield. It goes without saying that our children's health and wellbeing is of the highest priority in society and that is why we must protect them from the dangers of air pollution, including where the school run can now be seen to be directly impacting the school environment.

"Every school is different. However, many have characteristics that will mean that children are exposed to hotspots of air pollution in school premises. We have found that the use of cars during the school run is increasing the number of dangerous particles our children breath in, even during playtime long after they have been dropped off."

Mr Neil Lewin, the Headteacher of St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School in Guildford, said: "Minimising air pollution exposure in and around the school has to be at the top of our agenda and we need to find practical but effective ways to reduce this exposure to air pollution in our school environment. This co-designed study has been an excellent experience for our children (especially our eco-warriors) giving them hands-on real science experience, and I hope will be very influential in compelling our parents to think again about their journeys to and from school to ensure the safest environment for their children."

Mr Andrew Strawson, the Chairman of Merrow Residents' Association in Guildford, said: "This is a rare and welcome opportunity for direct community involvement in the co-creation and co-design of a scientific study aimed at addressing important local and national issues. We thank Professor Kumar and his team for their continuing involvement with this community programme. His team promotes excellent guidance on green infrastructure initiatives. He has now taken this further and enabled this joint project which provides key data and strategies for use in helping to protect our children from air pollution at school."

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This work was supported by the H2020 iSCAPE project (Grant Agreement #689954) and builds upon previous GCARE research into citizen science as a part of Guildford Living Lab.

Reference

Kumar, P., Omidvarborna, H., Pilla, F. and Lewin, N., 2020. A primary school driven initiative to influence commuting style for dropping-off and picking-up of pupils. Science of the Total Environment. Free online link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138360

New report: Inclusive food systems needed to boost development, resilience

Inclusive food systems play a critical role in meeting global goals to end poverty, hunger, and malnutrition; the report offers recommendations for making food systems more inclusive for marginalized groups

INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

CREDIT: IFPRI

Washington, D.C. - The rapid spread of COVID-19 and efforts to contain it are generating growing concerns that food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty may escalate, particularly among marginalized people in the developing world. To build more resilient, climate-smart, and healthy food systems that help people withstand these types of shocks policymakers must prioritize making them inclusive, according to the 2020 Global Food Policy Report, released earlier this month by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

"Food systems provide opportunities to improve food and nutrition security, generate income, and drive inclusive economic growth, but even in prosperous times too many people are excluded from fully participating in them and securing these benefits," said Johan Swinnen, director general of IFPRI. "In times of crisis like today, inclusion is an even greater imperative for protecting the most vulnerable."

The report highlights the central role that inclusive food systems play in meeting global goals to end poverty, hunger, and malnutrition, and offers recommendations for making food systems more inclusive for four marginalized groups - smallholders, women, youth, and conflict-affected people - as well as analysis on transforming national food system.

More than 60% of people in low income countries are employed in agriculture and smallholders comprise more than 70% of farm units in Africa south of the Sahara and 85% of farms in South Asia. The rapid expansion of food markets across Africa and Asia offers tremendous potential for many of these smallholders to benefit if they can increase farm production or engage themselves in food distribution, processing and other parts of the supply chain where ample well-paying employment opportunities will emerge.

Currently, many smallholders lack the means and kind of support to gain from growing food demand. "Initiating and sustaining a process of inclusive transformation requires supporting smallholders' market access by investing in basic infrastructure, creating market incentives, and promoting inclusive agribusiness models. But it is as important to invest in the 'hidden middle' of supply chains where millions of small- and medium-scale enterprises already operate in food processing, storage, logistics and distribution. Getting this right will be essential to lift smallholders from poverty and food insecurity," said Rob Vos director of IFPRI's Markets, Trade and Institutions Division.

Women are already making significant contributions throughout food systems, but these contributions are often not formally recognized, and women often face constraints that prevent them from engaging on equitable terms. Increasing women's decision-making power and control over resources and assets such as credit, land, and training helps empower them to contribute to food systems in ways that benefit both men and women. "Women's empowerment can spur a wide range of improvements that often reverberate throughout households and societies - from agricultural productivity, to household food security and dietary quality, to maternal and child nutrition," said Hazel Malapit, senior research coordinator at IFPRI.

In African south of the Sahara, youth are expected to play a growing role in food systems but their role in driving growth is often misunderstood. Projections show Africa south of the Sahara will add 30 million people to its working age population each year by 2050, and that much of this growth will be in rural areas. "Africa's rural areas will need to play a major role in providing employment opportunities for young people, but focusing on broad-based rural growth to create thriving economic environments for food system business will likely do more to support these growing youth populations than policies narrowly focused on youth," said James Thurlow, senior research fellow at IFPRI.

Political instability and conflict have been fundamental drivers to the recent surge in global hunger numbers, with more than half of all undernourished people living in conflict-affected countries. "Integrating conflict-affected people into food systems - either in their places of origin or the locales to which they have fled - can substantially help them rebuild their lives," said Vos. Providing long-term refugees with access to land and means to build secure livelihoods can support their own food security while also contributing to local economies. Rebuilding local agriculture and food value chains for conflict-affected people will bolster resilience thereby reducing the risk of further conflict and sowing the seeds for last peace.

Across the developing world national food systems are already transforming rapidly, creating challenges and opportunities to make them more inclusive to all these groups. Case studies of these transformations in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Viet Nam provide useful examples of the drivers and components of change, as well as the promising entry points for actions that can increase inclusion. "Approaches to food system transformation must be country specific, as each country's food system is unique," said John McDermott, director of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.

Governments can foster these inclusive food systems by enacting laws, policies, and regulations that provide basic infrastructure, create the right market incentives, promote inclusive agribusiness models and leverage the potential of digital technology. Additionally, investments in human capital in areas such as secure land tenure rights, improved access to information, and stronger social protections can lower the barriers to participation that man marginalized groups face.

"The spread of COVID-19 has highlighted how vulnerable we all can be to global shocks," said Swinnen. "Greater inclusivity in food systems is not a panacea for this or any other crisis, but it is a critical part of strengthening our resilience. Times of crises also offer opportunities for change and it is essential that we act now so that everyone, especially the most vulnerable, can recover from the COVID-19 shock and be prepared to withstand future shocks."

The report also features chapters analyzing developments in agri-food systems in Africa south of the Sahara, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

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For more information, download the report, click here.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze alternative national and international strategies and policies for meeting the food needs of the developing world, with particular emphasis on low-income countries and on the poorer groups in those countries. It is a research center of CGIAR, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development. Visit http://www.ifpri.org