Colorado River Basin has lost water equal to Lake Mead due to climate change

A rapid rate of reductions in runoff associated with the Colorado Basin’s snowpack region, quantified here for the first time, is largely responsible for the water loss.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION

 

IMAGE: HUMAN-DRIVEN CLIMATE CHANGE HAS SAPPED THE EQUIVALENT OF A FULL LAKE MEAD FROM THE COLORADO RIVER BASIN, ACCORDING TO NEW RESEARCH IN AGU’S JOURNAL WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH. view more 

CREDIT: SHANNON1/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

American Geophysical Union 
Release No. 23-28
24 July 2023 
For Immediate Release 

This press release and accompanying multimedia are available online at: https://news.agu.org/press-release/colorado-river-basin-has-lost-water-equal-to-lake-mead-due-to-climate-change/

Colorado River Basin has lost water equal to Lake Mead due to climate change

A rapid rate of reductions in runoff associated with the Colorado Basin’s snowpack region, quantified here for the first time, is largely responsible for the water loss.

AGU press contact:
Rebecca Dzombak, news@agu.org +1 (202) 777-7492 (UTC-4 hours)

Contact information for the researchers:
Benjamin Bass, University of California Los Angeles, benb0228@g.ucla.edu (UTC-7 hours)

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WASHINGTON — From 2000 to 2021, climate change caused the loss of more than 40 trillion liters (10 trillion gallons) of water in the Colorado River Basin — about equal to the entire storage capacity of Lake Mead — according to a new study that modeled humans’ impact on hydrology in the region.

Without climate change, the drought in the basin most likely would not have reduced reservoir levels in 2021 to the point requiring supply cuts under the first-ever federally declared water shortage, according to the study, which was published in the AGU journal Water Resources Research, which publishes original research on the movement and management of Earth’s water.

“While we knew warming was having an impact on the Colorado Basin’s water availability, we were surprised to find how sensitive the basin is to warming compared to other major basins across the western U.S., and how high this sensitivity is in the relatively small area of the basin’s crucial snowpack regions,” said Benjamin Bass, a hydrological modeler at the University of California-Los Angeles and lead author of the study. “The fact that warming removed as much water from the basin as the size of Lake Mead itself during the recent megadrought is a wakeup call to the climate change impacts we are living today.”

The Colorado River Basin, which is the area drained by the Colorado River and its tributaries, covers about 647,500 square kilometers (250,000 square miles) in seven states across the U.S. West and supplies water to about 40 million people, as well as supports agriculture and natural ecosystems. The regional drought that began in about 2000 is the driest period in 1,200 years and has reduced river flow and shrunk reservoirs, increasing concerns about water scarcity as the climate continues to change.

Previous analyses of changing water resources in this region have focused on the effects of climate processes alone, without considering the impact of plants’ complex responses to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. The new study improves on previous hydrologic modeling of this region by including changes in runoff as a result of carbon dioxide-driven shifts in vegetation. It is the first to calculate how much runoff changes per degree of warming based on historical warming in the Colorado River Basin’s snowpack regions as compared to non-snowpack regions, quantifying how anthropogenic climate change has dried out traditional snowpack regions and rapidly reduced the runoff that feeds the Colorado River.

To see how the basin’s hydrology changed between 1880 and 2021, the researchers used a land surface model capable of analyzing water, changes in vegetation and vegetation’s response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. They used standard data sets to represent atmospheric conditions, streamflow gauges and other records to capture the regional hydrology, and ground and satellite data to document actual changes in vegetation.

By including all these types of data, “we had all the major players in terms of runoff’s sensitivity to climate change,” according to Bass.

The model analyses showed that from 1880 to 2021, the temperature in the Colorado River Basin warmed about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) as a result of anthropogenic climate change. This warming has led to a 10.3% reduction in runoff in under present-day conditions. Without including the effects of plants, present-day water loss would be closer to 13%, pointing to the importance of including vegetation processes in water modeling, the authors said.

That 10.3% decrease in runoff culminated during the historic drought of 2000 to 2021, when the cumulative volume of lost runoff water was approximately equal to the full capacity of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River.

The researchers also discovered that the parts of the basin that are usually snow-covered in winter are now losing water about twice as fast as typically snowless regions. The transition is of immediate concern for water managers because snowpack makes an outsize contribution to the basin’s water supply: Only about one-third of the basin is covered with snow each year, but those snowy regions are the source of about two-thirds of the basin’s total runoff.

The rapid water loss in snowpack regions is a sign that the Rocky Mountain West is transitioning to a more arid climate rather than simply undergoing periodic droughts, according to Bass.

Bass pointed out that the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which governs the use of river water by the seven western U.S. states the Colorado flows through, was written with the assumption that the regional climate was stable.

When the representatives of these states signed the contract, “they expected 15 million acre-feet of water (about 18.5 trillion liters or 4.6 million gallons) would be provided from the basin, on average, each year,” Bass said. “If they were outlining the compact now, they would need to adjust that value due to the impact of warming. Going into the future, we may get some natural variability, wet or dry swings, but this study highlights that there’s been a decreasing trend in runoff. In the long run, that’s likely to continue if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.”

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This study is published in Water Resources Research with open access. View and download a pdf of the study here.

Paper title:

“Aridification of Colorado River Basin’s Snowpack Regions Has Driven Water Losses Despite Ameliorating Effects of Vegetation”

Authors:

• Benjamin Bass (corresponding author), Naomi Goldenson, Stefan Rahimi, Alex Hall, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Related research:

“The Compensatory CO2 Fertilization and Stomatal Closure Effects on Runoff Projection From 2016–2099 in the Western United States” in Water Resources Research

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JOURNAL

Water Resources Research

DOI

10.1029/2022WR033454 

 

Beyond protected areas: Novel method shows promise for monitoring biodiversity on working lands

Combo of bioacoustic recorders, satellite imagery shows how birds are faring on cropfields

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE COUNTY

 

IMAGE: ADAM DIXON, A CONSERVATION SCIENTIST AT WORLD WILDLIFE FUND, STANDS NEAR A LOW-COST BIOACOUSTIC RECORDER IN A FARM FIELD. HE USED THESE RECORDERS IN CONJUNCTION WITH A SATELLITE IMAGERY ANALYSIS TO DETERMINE HOW VARIOUS BIRD SPECIES WERE FARING IN POCKETS OF NON-CROP VEGETATION (SUCH AS AT THE EDGES OF FIELDS OR BETWEEN CROP ROWS) ON LANDS UNDER INTENSIVE AGRICULTURAL CULTIVATION. THE DEMONSTRATED THE POSSIBILITY OF WORKING WITH PRIVATE LANDOWNERS FOR RESEARCH AND FOUND THAT GRASSLAND BIRDS IN PARTICULAR WOULD BENEFIT FROM MORE AND BETTER HABITAT ON THESE LANDS. THE COMBINATION TECHNIQUE COULD BE USED FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING ON OTHER WORKING LANDS, SUCH AS CATTLE RANCHES. UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY ECOLOGISTS ERLE ELLIS AND MATTHEW BAKER ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO THE RESEARCH. view more 

CREDIT: COURTESY OF ADAM DIXON

New research led by Adam Dixon, a conservation scientist with the World Wildlife Fund, describes the successful pilot of a novel method to study how well grassland birds are faring on croplands. The study, published in Ecological Applications, looked at 44 pockets of non-crop vegetation in the gaps between crop rows and at the edges of fields on lands under intensive agricultural cultivation in Iowa. The study may serve as a model for monitoring wildlife on working lands more generally, which can include crop fields, cattle ranches, and logged forests.

The researchers analyzed satellite imagery data to determine each pocket's area and “texture,” referring to the variety in plant species, height, and density in the habitat. Simple, inexpensive on-site bioacoustic recorders—essentially circuit boards with a battery and mini cell phone microphone attached, all sealed in a plastic bag—helped the team identify which bird species were using the habitat. Both methods were low-cost and required very few visits to the lands under study, demonstrating the scalability of this approach.

The combination of techniques allowed the researchers to determine that larger habitat area and greater variety in texture were associated with more bird species overall. However, the results also revealed that species reliant on grassland habitat for their entire life cycle (mating, raising young, foraging, etc.) seemed to benefit less than birds who only used the habitat for certain activities, such as hunting.

“Using novel methods, we found that agricultural habitats are good for birds in general, but when you look at grassland birds specifically, either there’s not enough habitat or the habitat characteristics aren’t good,” Dixon says, who studies working lands biodiversity in the northern U.S. plains for the World Wildlife Fund.

The study’s relatively small sample size limited the researchers’ ability to determine whether habitat texture and area each had independent effects on the birds. Still, the study showed that their unique method combining satellite imagery and bioacoustic data can help researchers effectively measure habitat quality and bird biodiversity. The authors hope their work encourages future studies incorporating more study sites to strengthen the statistical power of the results.

Beyond protected areas

Dixon grew up surrounded by large wheat farms in the Midwest and observed their effects on the environment, which informed his career goals. His formative experiences, he says, led to an understanding that protected areas alone are not enough to solve the biodiversity, food, and health challenges the U.S. and the world are facing. “I saw a lot of research emphasis on protected areas,” Dixon says, whereas he wanted to focus on the intersection of intensive agriculture and ecology.

Dixon completed the new research as part of his Ph.D. with Erle Ellis, a landscape ecologist at University of Maryland, Baltimore County whose work has focused for decades on the longstanding relationships between humans and landscapes across the planet. Ellis is senior author on the new paper.

“Agriculture covers more of this planet than protected areas do, and Adam’s research on bird habitats in Iowa farmlands confirms that even some of the most intensively managed agricultural landscapes on Earth can sustain significant biodiversity,” Ellis shares. “More research like Adam’s is needed to conserve, restore, and monitor biodiversity in the working landscapes needed to sustain both people and wildlife across more than three quarters of Earth’s land.”

Community collaboration

The new study is also unusual in that it took place on privately held farmland. Dixon worked with landowners to get permission to conduct research on their property, and in some cases farmers placed the recorders themselves.

“It’s difficult but not impossible to work on private lands,” Dixon says. “You just need to build trust and relationships.” In the future, Dixon would like to deepen his collaboration with farmers. Gathering more information about their management practices would open up additional research questions. Plus, learning about any barriers farmers face to participating in research could make it more likely that other projects requiring farmer buy-in would get off the ground.

“What was impressive about Adam’s investigation was his willingness to employ novel technology and ideas to overcome what has historically been an absolute challenge in surveying working landscapes,” says Matthew Baker, a UMBC ecologist and a co-author on the paper. “His example has really shown the potential and the need for additional study.”

Supporting farmers and the environment

Farmers lead a challenging existence, frequently operating on extremely thin financial margins and relying on fickle weather, Dixon says, which incentivizes them to simplify and control the landscape as much as possible. Unfortunately, that can lead to environmental harm. Through his work, Dixon wants to help find a middle way that supports both farmers and the environment. Many questions remain.

“How do we move from the necessity to simplify the system to something that’s more balanced and takes into account the entire environment? To something that understands the unique ecology of a place and integrates that into management, and allows the farmer to prosper across generations? How can we find a better solution besides just hoping that we’re going to protect these small patches?” Dixon asks.

Those questions are why Dixon has pursued research into biodiversity on working lands, he says. While the new paper may be a small step to better understanding how wildlife is and is not flourishing on working lands, it is a step in the right direction and opens the door for future projects.

“We need to integrate conservation solutions into our most intensive places,” Dixon says. “So this research identifies that as an area of valid research and also shows how that research might be done.”

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JOURNAL

Ecological Applications

DOI

10.1002/eap.2860 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Passive monitoring of avian habitat on working lands

 

Curbing waste improves global food security but has limited environmental benefits

UC Irvine, CU Boulder researchers find that better efficiency leads to more consumption

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE

Irvine, Calif., July 24, 2023 – Reducing waste is one way to help combat hunger around the world, but stricter control over food loss and waste does not lead to better environmental outcomes, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Colorado Boulder.

In a paper published recently in Nature Food, the scientists stress that curbing food spoilage increases the amount of produce in markets, which leads to lower costs. Cheaper food encourages people to buy and eat more, offsetting the lowering of greenhouse gas emissions when more goods reach tables.

“Let’s say the price of cereals goes down because of improvements in food system efficiency; now you can afford to eat the same amount more often,” said lead author Margaret Hegwood, a Ph.D. candidate in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at CU Boulder. “Consumers respond to these price decreases, purchasing more than they had before, which offsets some of the benefits of reducing the food loss and waste.”

Co-author Steven Davis, UCI professor of Earth system science, said, “The elimination of food loss and food waste has been promoted by scientists and advocates as a way to reduce adverse environmental impacts of food production. There is a sound basis for this reasoning: Loss and waste along the supply chain accounts for as much as a quarter of global food system greenhouse gas emissions and 6 percent of total emissions worldwide.”

But Davis said he and his fellow researchers found in their modeling a “rebound effect” whereby efficiency improvements cause price decreases and consumption increases. They suggest that this outcome could offset up to 71 percent of the benefits of cutting down on food loss and waste.

“Our model basically formalized Econ 101: Reducing food loss and waste shifts the supply and demand curves, respectively. How sensitive supply and demand are to prices – which we get from previous research – then determines how much we project food prices and consumption will change,” said co-author Matt Burgess, assistant professor at the CU Boulder institute.

“There is a tension between the two objectives of eliminating food waste and increasing food security,” Davis said. “Improving supply chain efficiency and thereby lowering food costs could help make food more affordable in less-advantaged countries. But, especially in those places, we may need to adjust our expectations about the environmental benefits of avoiding waste and loss.”

This project was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at https://news.uci.edu/media-resources.

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JOURNAL

Nature Food

ARTICLE TITLE

Irvine, Calif., July 24, 2023 – Reducing waste is one way to help combat hunger around the world, but stricter control over food loss and waste does not lead to better environmental outcomes, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Colorado Boulder. In a paper published recently in Nature Food, the scientists stress that curbing food spoilage increases the amount of produce in markets, which leads to lower costs. Cheaper food encourages people to

 

Sahara dust can enhance removal of methane

New study improves our understanding of the global methane budget

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ROYAL NETHERLANDS INSTITUTE FOR SEA RESEARCH

 

IMAGE: DUSTY VISIBLE IN THE SUNSET, OFF THE COAST OF PERU. view more 

CREDIT: JAN-BEREND STUUT (NIOZ)

The study by Maarten van Herpen et al., entitled “Photocatalytic Chlorine Atom Production on Mineral Dust-Sea Spray Aerosols over North Atlantic,” was funded in part by the NGO Spark Climate Solutions. It incorporates a proposed new mechanism whereby blowing mineral dust mixes with sea-spray to form Mineral Dust-Sea Spray Aerosol (MDSA).

The results suggest that MDSA is activated by sunlight to produce an abundance of chlorine atoms, which oxidize atmospheric methane and tropospheric ozone via photocatalysis. Largely composed of blowing dust from the Sahara Desert combined with sea salt aerosol from the ocean, MDSA is the dominant source of atmospheric chlorine over the North Atlantic, the study finds. 

The study relies on a combination of global modeling and laboratory and field observations, including air samples from Barbados showing seasonal depletion of the stable isotope 13CO, an anomaly which puzzled scientists for 20 years. They knew observed changes in 13CO and C18O were evidence of chlorine atoms reacting with methane, and that carbon monoxide is the first stable product in atmospheric methane oxidation. But the known sources of atmospheric chlorine could not account for the degree of depletion in 13CO, until now.  

Using a global 3-D chemistry-climate model (CAM-Chem), van Herpen et al. found that when increased chlorine from the MDSA mechanism was incorporated into the model, the results agreed well with the Barbados data and explained the 13CO depletion.

If the MDSA effect observed in the North Atlantic is extrapolated globally, and if its efficiency is similar in other parts of the world —two areas that aren’t yet well understood and require further research— global atmospheric chlorine concentrations might be roughly 40% higher than previously estimated, the study finds. Factoring this into global methane modeling could potentially shift our understanding of the relative proportions of methane emissions sources.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 83 times higher than carbon dioxide over 20 years and 30 times higher over 100 years, accounting for about a third of modern warming.  Atmospheric methane concentrations, now nearly 2.6 times higher than in pre-industrial times, are rising at an accelerating rate, with the largest annual increases on record occurring in 2020 and 2021. Anthropogenic methane emissions are known to be the cause of the majority of the overall rise, with elevated natural emissions and atmospheric chemistry changes resulting from anthropogenic emissions of various gases also playing a part.

While the reason for the recent acceleration is not well understood, the van Herpen et al. study may have found an important clue. Its conclusion that there is greater active chlorine than previously thought, impacting 13C, indicates a possible increase in methane from biological sources such as agriculture and wetlands. This suggests biological methane may have played a slightly larger role than previously estimated. 

“Methane emissions from biological sources such as wetlands and agriculture may be growing as global temperatures rise,” said Maarten van Herpen, lead author of the PNAS study.  “But recent increases in dust from North Africa have probably increased methane oxidation in the atmosphere, partly masking the growth in biological methane emissions. Adjusting atmospheric modeling to take this into account may show that methane emissions from biological sources are rising even faster than we thought.”

“When these findings are incorporated into methane budgets it is likely to increase our assessment of how much methane comes from biological sources,” said University of Copenhagen professor Matthew Johnson, who co-authored the study. “While methane oxidation from MDSA is relatively small in terms of global methane, our data shows it is causing large changes in the abundance of 13C in methane, which is used to determine source contributions.  The past few years have seen atmospheric methane increase at an increasing rate, more than ever before, and it is important to understand the cause. Models need to take the revised chlorine isotope shift into account to get a clear picture of the increase in biological methane, which has been identified as a critical tipping point.”

How the MDSA mechanism may operate in other parts of the world is not well understood and requires further research, the study argues. Follow-on research is underway.

“Our current research is focused on getting a better understanding of what exactly influences how much methane MDSA particles are removing from the atmosphere,” said van Herpen, “To do that, we are analyzing air samples from across the North Atlantic, provided by atmospheric observatories and commercial ships. Seafarers are helping advance our research by filling flasks with air as they cross through the African dust cloud. We have collected 500 flasks so far. Early results are looking very encouraging, but we need a full year of data before we can draw conclusions.”

Satellite image of Sahara dust storm moving over the Atlantic Ocean.

CREDIT

NASA.org

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Photocatalytic Chlorine Atom Production on Mineral Dust-Sea Spray Aerosols over North Atlantic

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Jul-2023

 

Often, consumers inadvertently give too much credit to products’ ‘scientifically studied’ claims

UCLA psychologists find people tend to remember vague assertions in more definitive terms

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

Key takeaways

• A new study finds that consumers often misremember if a product is labeled “scientifically studied” or “scientifically proven” — despite the significant difference in meaning between the two phrases.
• UCLA psychologists conducted an experiment with one group of college students and another group of older adults to determine whether they would accurately recall which claim was made in an advertisement for a dietary supplement. 
• Only 26% of subjects correctly remembered which phrase was used, and the percentage who recalled the information accurately was roughly the same among both groups.

Being scientifically studied and being scientifically proven are two completely different things.

But a study led by UCLA psychologists has found that consumers often incorrectly remember marketing claims about just how lab-tested — or -proven — products actually are. The research discovered that even when products are labeled “clinically studied,” people frequently recall them as being “clinically proven.”

“‘Clinically studied’ can mean lots of things,” said Alan Castel, the paper’s senior author and a UCLA psychology professor. “Maybe the product was studied only in animals, or in people but found to be ineffective or not effective enough. ‘Clinically studied’ only shows that someone was interested enough in the product to study it, not that the study was well designed or showed conclusively that the supplement works.”

The findings, published in Applied Cognitive Psychology, suggest that the popularity of products like dietary supplements — a $21 billion industry in the U.S. alone — is due in part to consumers’ unwarranted confidence in product claims. And the study highlights anew the importance of carefully reading product labels or consulting medical professionals.

Castel studies aging, memory and brain health, and he often reads about “science-backed” brain-training products or Alzheimer’s drugs. The new study was spurred when he came across a magazine ad for a cognitive enhancement supplement with a “clinically studied” claim; Castel wondered how consumers would interpret that phrase.

With his colleagues, Castel recruited two groups of subjects to find out: one cohort of 150 college students, a demographic in which people tend to have stronger memories, and another of 166 adults at least 65 years old, representing the typical target consumer for memory supplements.

Participants were shown three versions of the ad: The original, with the “clinically studied” phrasing, one in which the scientific claim was replaced with “clinically proven,” and another that omitted the reference altogether. After being given an unrelated task meant to distract them temporarily, the subjects were asked whether they believed the claim in the ad was “scientifically studied,” “scientifically proven,” “clinically studied,” “clinically proven” or none of these.

Remarkably, only 26% of the subjects in the overall study correctly remembered which phrase was used — even though subjects were generally able to accurately remember other aspects of the advertisement, including the layout and a photo of a doctor. No matter which ad they viewed, participants tended to recall the word “proven” being present much more often than “studied.”

The younger participants remembered a few more details about the ads than the older adults, but both groups misremembered the crucial phrase about equally.

“The findings fit models of memory suggesting that we remember the gist of things better than details,” Castel said. “When people see or hear scientific claims made in vague terms, they later misremember them in more definitive terms.”

The problem, Castel said, is that even if marketers are truthful in their claims that a product has been scientifically studied, they may be taking advantage of the fact that human memory is malleable, which can easily lead consumers to trust the product without solid reasons. In particular, he said, older adults who are worried about memory loss could be susceptible to wasting money on supplements that ultimately are useless.

“How do you evaluate these claims if your memory is already slipping, or you are distracted?” Castel said.

His advice? “Don’t rely on memory before spending money or choosing a course of action. Consult others and look into it before you buy. Take time, pay attention and don’t make decisions too quickly.”

Other researchers who contributed to the study are current and former UCLA graduate students Dillon Murphy, Shawn Schwartz, Kylie Alberts and Alexander Siegel; UCLA undergraduate student Brandon Carone; and Aimee Drolet, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

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JOURNAL

Applied Cognitive Psychology

Experts call for independent inquiry into Canada’s COVID-19 response

New series from The BMJ points to failures in Canada’s pandemic response; Experts call for a probing review to learn lessons and ensure accountability

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

At first glance, Canada appears to have responded adequately to the covid-19 emergency, but beneath the surface lie major pandemic failures, warns a series of articles published by The BMJ today.

The BMJ Canada Covid Series provides a critical analysis of what worked and what didn’t in Canada’s covid-19 response and calls for a national independent  review to learn lessons and ensure accountability for the past and future preparedness.

The articles, written by leading clinicians and researchers representing 13 institutions across Canada, highlight long-standing weaknesses in Canada’s public health and healthcare systems, including fragmented health leadership and poor data-sharing across the federal and provincial and territorial governments, that hampered a coordinated response.

For example, despite a universal healthcare system, communities experiencing social and economic marginalisation in Canada were hardest hit in each wave of the pandemic, and those living and working in long-term care homes were particularly affected, which led to a national shame.

Lessons from a previous outbreak, due to SARS-CoV-1, which in 2003 impacted more Canadians than anywhere else outside of Asia, also went unheeded and made the country’s governments and health authorities ill-prepared for covid-19. 

And while Canada achieved high vaccination coverage domestically, it hoarded covid vaccine, failed to support measures intended to increase global supply, and contributed to profound global vaccine inequity.

“The picture that emerges from the Series is an ill-prepared country with out-dated data systems, poor coordination and cohesion, and blindness about its citizens’ diverse needs,” write Jocalyn Clark, International Editor, The BMJ and colleagues in an editorial to launch the series.

Were lives lost as a result of the broken systems, they ask? Were decisions by governments taken appropriately and equitably? Will Canada be better prepared for the next public health emergency?

They outline several reasons why an independent, national inquiry is needed, including learning from decisions and actions that failed or faltered, providing an actionable framework for reforming Canada’s healthcare and public health systems, and delivering on Canada’s ambition to be a global leader.

But they say most important is accountability for losses. They point out that 53,000 direct covid deaths occurred in Canada and close to 5 million cases leave families affected and a legacy of long covid in their wake. “A million lives in 2021 alone might have been saved in poorer countries had rich nations like Canada shared more covid vaccine,” they add. “Are such losses not worth preventing in the future?”

The editors say they hope this work “informs and advances an independent, comprehensive, and probing review of Canada’s covid-19 response to ensure transparency and accountability from governments and health authorities, and commits leaders to actions that support and sustain preparedness for current and future needs." 

[Ends]

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JOURNAL

The BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj.p1634 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The world expected more of Canada

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Jul-2023

ACP says the US needs immediate action to prepare for future pandemics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS

Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet    

@Annalsofim   

Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.     

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1. ACP Says the U.S. Needs Immediate Action to Prepare for Future Pandemics

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0768   

Editorial: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-1894

URL goes live when the embargo lifts 

The United States has significant gaps in its pandemic and public health emergency response system leaving it unprepared for future emergencies, says the American College of Physicians (ACP) in a new policy paper. In the paper, ACP makes recommendations about what needs to be done to ensure the U.S. is in a strong position to mitigate the consequences of future pandemics. The paper is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

ACP calls for a federal pandemic preparedness plan that is adequately funded and prioritizes health equity. They also ask that federal and state agencies provide consistent and timely communications about risk and strategies to combat risk in order to build trust and combat misinformation. They call for a national public health data infrastructure capable of real-time bidirectional data sharing among public and private public health stakeholders. The paper recommends securing and bolstering the health care supply chain. They also call for improved support for a health care workforce that is sufficient to provide surge capacity in emergencies, including the development of a reserve of physicians and other health care professionals. ACP affirms the importance of safety and well-being during emergencies, this must include safety for the public, patients and physicians and other professionals. The paper also calls attention to the need for support for medical practices during emergencies, measures to reduce infections in workplaces, and universal sick leave policies.  Finally, ACP calls for expedited and equitable vaccine development and distribution, vaccine use in accordance with scientific recommendations, and ACP calls on physicians to promote vaccine uptake among their patients.

The recommendations need to be built on a strong public health sector, as outlined in an ACP paper recently published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Modernizing the United States’ Public Health Infrastructure: A Position Paper from the American College of Physicians, updates recommendations ACP made in 2012 for the U.S. public health infrastructure with new policies on establishing federal public health leadership, protecting public health workers, reversing workforce shortages, and the need to integrate primary care and public health.

An accompanying editorial by Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH, former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, suggests that there are significant gaps to address in the American public health response to COVID-19 and future pandemics, but there are several key areas where there were successes to be improved upon for the future. Dr. Jha highlights the success of scaled and sustained pandemic-era innovations, including rapid testing and treatment mobile units and Operation Warp Speed. He also emphasizes the role of physicians and healthcare professionals as trusted sources of information to patients and the importance of professional organizations like ACP to lead physicians in speaking to patients exposed to medical misinformation. Finally, he argues for greater partnership between healthcare institutions and public health agencies, particularly focusing on greater data integration and the use of healthcare workers as a reserve for public health crises.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Addison Dunlap at adunlap@acponline.org. To speak with someone from ACP, please contact Andrew Hachadorian at ahachadorian@acponline.org.

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2. Statins underused for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in racial, ethnic minorities and women

Findings suggest that factors within the health care setting may contribute to unequal treatment

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0720    

URL goes live when the embargo lifts 

An analysis of persons eligible for statin use to prevent atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) found disparities in the prevalence of statin use for primary or secondary prevention of ASCVD among racial and ethnic minorities and women. According to the authors, these disparities were not explained by measurable differences in disease severity or access to resources, and instead suggest that factors within the health care setting, including bias, stereotyping, and mistrust, contribute to unequal treatment. The analysis is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Although statins are a class I recommendation for prevention of ASCVD and its complications, their use is suboptimal. The consequences of underutilization of statins may contribute to disparities in cardiovascular health outcomes. Understanding racial, ethnic, and gender-based differences in statin use could inform strategies to improve population-level ASCVD outcomes. However, the current literature presents estimates of statin-use disparities derived from heterogeneous populations.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine and School of Public Health and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System conducted a cross-sectional analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) of persons eligible for statin therapy based on 2013 and 2018 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association blood cholesterol guidelines. The authors used the Institute of Medicine framework for examining unequal treatment and calculated adjusted prevalence ratios (aPRs) to estimate disparities in statin use adjusted for age, disease severity, access to health care, and socioeconomic status relative to non-Hispanic White men. The authors found a lower prevalence of statin use for primary prevention among non-Hispanic Black men and non-Mexican Hispanic women compared with non-Hispanic White men. They also found a lower prevalence of statin use for secondary prevention for non-Hispanic Black men, Other/Multiracial men, Mexican American women, non-Mexican Hispanic women, non-Hispanic White women, and non- Hispanic Black women compared with non-Hispanic White men.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Addison Dunlap at adunlap@acponline.org. To speak with the corresponding author Ravy K. Vajravelu, MD, MSCE, please contact Wendy Zellner at zellnerwl@upmc.edu.

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3. Patients with diabetes and gout may benefit from treatment with SGLT2is

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-0724    

URL goes live when the embargo lifts 

A study of persons with gout and type 2 diabetes found that the use of sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2is) may reduce recurrent flares and gout-primary emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations compared to treatment with dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors (DPP-4is). SGLT2is may also provide greater cardiovascular benefits in this population. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Gout is an increasingly common metabolic inflammatory disease. Suboptimal care of the disease is associated with recurrent flares, increasing ED visits, and hospitalizations. Gout flares have also been associated with an increased cardiovascular risk and many cardiometabolic comorbidities accompany gout, including type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, chronic kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease. Interventions that can address both gout flares and cardiometabolic risk may be beneficial for many patients.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital conducted a propensity score–matched, new-user cohort study of 8150 persons with both gout and type 2 diabetes. They found that the use of SGLT2is was associated with a 34 percent lower rate of recurrent gout flare compared to DPP-4is, and a 48 percent lower rate of flares requiring an ED visit or hospitalization. The authors also found that SGLT2i use was associated with a relative risk reduction of 31 percent for myocardial infarction. According to the authors, these findings suggest that SGLT2is could have a much-needed ability to simultaneously reduce the burden of recurrent gout flares and coronary sequelae in patients with gout and type 2 diabetes.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Addison Dunlap at adunlap@acponline.org. To speak with the corresponding author, Hyon K. Choi, MD, DrPH, please contact HCHOI@mgh.harvard.edu

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4. Researchers describe case of tecovirimat-resistant mpox variant in patient with prolonged infection

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/L23-0131

Authors from the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nationalestraat, Antwerp, Belgium describe a case of tecovirimat-resistant mpox virus (MPXV) identified at the autopsy of a severely immunocompromised patient with prolonged disease. Tecovirimat, an antiviral used to treat severe mpox virus, has a low barrier to resistance, which makes this case particularly unusual. The case report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

 

A 53-year-old patient presented with severe symptoms of MPXV that had been present for several weeks. The patient had several co-infections including active HIV infection, chronic hepatitis B virus infection, latent syphilis, and anal Chlamydia. Oral tecovirimat was started 1 day after the confirmation of MPXV and the initial 2-week course was successful. However, the anorectal viral load remained high up to day 48 and detectable up to the end of follow-up. Retrospective MPXV sequencing of the anorectal samples revealed a dominant variant population. This mutation was associated with a 350-fold increase in the half maximal effective concentration of tecovirimat compared with typical virus.

 

According to the authors, this case confirms the potential rapid selection of resistant mutant virus during tecovirimat monotherapy and could be the first to study this phenomenon longitudinally. The rapid selection of resistance in this patient highlights the risk of tecovirimat monotherapy, especially in the context of prolonged disease and immunosuppression. In such cases, the authors advocate for surveillance for resistant variants, emphasis on immune reconstitution, monitoring of viral clearance, and strict adherence to infection prevention measures.

 

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Addison Dunlap at adunlap@acponline.org. To speak with the corresponding author, Koen Vercauteren, please email kvercauteren@itg.be.

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JOURNAL

Annals of Internal Medicine

DOI

10.7326/M23-0768 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Preparing for Future Pandemics and Public Health Emergencies: An American College of Physicians Policy Position Paper

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Jul-2023