Ag tech can cut billions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. - As the Earth’s human population grows, greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s food system are on track to expand. A new study demonstrates that state-of-the-art agricultural technology and management can not only reduce that growth, but eliminate it altogether by generating net negative emissions – reducing more greenhouse gas than food systems add.

In fact, employing additional agricultural technology could result in more than 13 billion tons of net negative greenhouse gas emissions each year, as the world seeks to avoid dangerous climate extremes, according to research published Sept. 6 in PLOS Climate.

The work was led by Benjamin Z. Houlton, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, and Maya Almaraz, associate research scholar at Princeton University.

“Our study recognizes the food system as one of the most powerful weapons in the battle against global climate change,” said Houlton. “We need to move beyond silver-bullet thinking and rapidly test, verify and scale local solutions by leveraging market-based incentives.”

The world’s food system network generates between 21% and 37% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions each year. With the global population approaching 10 billion by mid-century, greenhouse gas emissions of the global food system – if left unchecked – could grow to 50% and 80% by 2050, according to the paper.

Previous research has indicated that changing diets around the world is a key to reducing greenhouse gas in the food-system sector. But Houlton and Almaraz believe the emission reduction could be much greater.

If the entire human population adopted a so-called “flexitarian” diet by 2050 – which is promoted by the EAT-Lancet Commission (a group of world experts who established a nutritious, healthy and sustainable diet) – the scientists estimated a gross reduction of 8.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which falls far short of the net negative emissions goal.

“Our study examines both dietary change and agricultural technologies, as various options for slashing emissions,” Almaraz said. “This included an analysis of carbon sequestration.”

In contrast to the marked benefit of agricultural technology in realizing massive sector-wide negative emissions, dietary changes had little effect on carbon sequestration, according to the study. “We only looked at about a dozen technologies,” Almaraz said. “But there are even more under development, which hold a lot of promise for the food system.”

The new model showed that the most effective way to reduce emissions is to boost soil modifications for crops (biochar, compost and rock amendments), develop agroforestry, advance sustainable seafood harvesting practices and promote hydrogen-powered fertilizer production.

In a process called “enhanced weathering,” for example, silicate rock dust can be added to crop soils every five years to accelerate the formation of carbonates. This process devours carbon dioxide, which can sequester several billion metric tons of carbon per year, according to the paper.

Through agroforestry, planting trees on unused farmland can impound up to 10.3 billion metric tons of carbon annually, while seaweed can be farmed at the ocean surface and then buried in the deep sea, removing up to 10.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Supplementing livestock feed with additives could reduce methane emissions by 1.7 billion metric tons and applying biochar to croplands may reduce nitrous oxide emissions by 2.3 billion metric tons.

Food-system environmental action needs to start regionally. Houlton said that anaerobic digesters have been converting manure from New York’s dairy farms into electricity since the mid-1970s, reducing emissions, supporting energy self-sufficiency, and assisting in water quality improvements. The biogas resulting from the waste becomes energy that local electric companies can easily use, but this approach must avoid gas leaks and financial incentives are still necessary. “We need a portfolio of solutions that are effective locally but have global impact,” he said.

“If people choose to switch to healthier diets, as suggested by EAT-Lancet – and if they can afford it – great,” Houlton said. “But to get the world to net negative greenhouse gas emission – a global imperative to avoid the most dangerous climate impacts – we need to rely heavily on agricultural technology and management techniques.”

Early work on this research was conducted by Houlton when he was the director of the University of California, Davis Institute of the Environment while Almaraz was a postdoctoral researcher at the World Wildlife Fund/ National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at University of California, Santa Barbara.

In addition to Houlton and Almaraz, co-authors on the research, “Model-Based Scenarios For Achieving Net Negative Emissions in the Food System,” are Xingen Lei, professor of animal science and associate dean of research and innovation (CALS); doctoral student Yanqiu Zhou; Michael Clark, University of Oxford; Iris Holzer, Erin Manaigo, Benjamin S. Halpern, Courtney Scarborough all from the University of California, Davis; Laura Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen,; Emily Moberg and Melissa Ho, World Wildlife Fund; Edward Allison, WorldFish, Penang, Malayasia; Lindiwe Sibanda, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Nairobi; and Andrew Salter, University of Nottingham.  

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JOURNAL

PLOS Climate

DOI

10.1371/journal.pclm.0000181 

ARTICLE TITLE

Model-Based Scenarios For Achieving Net Negative Emissions in the Food System

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Sep-202

 

Footballers wearing jerseys featuring small numbers are rated as more slender than those wearing big numbers, in experiments indicating how visual perception may be influenced by cognition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: TWO FOOTBALL PLAYERS, ONE (LEFT) WITH A LOW JERSEY NUMBER, AND ONE (RIGHT) WITH A LARGE JERSEY NUMBER. view more 

CREDIT: SHAMS ET AL., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

Footballers wearing jerseys featuring small numbers are rated as more slender than those wearing big numbers, in experiments indicating how visual perception may be influenced by cognition

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Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287474

Article Title: Big number, big body: Jersey numbers alter body size perception

Author Countries: USA

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0287474 

ARTICLE TITLE

Big number, big body: Jersey numbers alter body size perception

Does this number make me look fat?

UCLA psychologists confirm that lower jersey numbers make football players look thinner

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

 

IMAGE: RESEARCH SUBJECTS CONSISTENTLY SAID THAT IMAGES OF PLAYERS IN JERSEYS NUMBERED FROM 10 TO 19 LOOKED THINNER THAN THOSE IN JERSEYS NUMBERED FROM 80 TO 89. view more 

CREDIT: MULTISENSORY PROCESSING LAB/UCLA, PLOS ONE

In 2019, an ESPN report explored the reasons so many football wide receivers prefer to wear jersey numbers between 10 and 19. The story found that many of the athletes simply believed the lower numbers made them look faster and slimmer than the higher numbers traditionally assigned to their position.

Ladan Shams, a UCLA professor of psychology and neuroscience, was quoted in the story and offered a psychological explanation for the phenomenon. But she emphasized that there was no scientific research on the topic.

Now there is.

A new UCLA study published in the journal PLOS ONE reveals that those wide receivers were onto something.

In two experiments, subjects consistently said that images of players in jerseys numbered from 10 to 19 looked thinner than those in jerseys numbered from 80 to 89, even when the body sizes were the same. The finding suggests that previously learned statistical associations between numbers and sizes influence the perception of body size.

“How we perceive the world is highly influenced by our prior knowledge,” said Shams, the paper’s senior author. “In our daily lives, numbers written on objects — on a bag of sugar in the supermarket or weights in the gym — usually represent the magnitude of the objects. The higher the number, the bigger or more massive the object generally is.

“Previous research has established that our brains are very good at detecting and storing statistical associations and regularities, unbeknownst to us, and those associations can shape future perception.”

A longtime NFL rule required wide receivers to wear uniform numbers between 80 and 89, but the league changed the restriction in 2004, opening the door for pass-catchers who preferred lower numbers on their uniforms. By 2019, when ESPN published its story, nearly 80% of wide receivers wore a jersey number between 10 and 19.

Shams is a specialist in the science of perception, and when her other work ground to a halt during the COVID-19 pandemic, she returned to the question about jersey numbers. With her research group, she devised an online study to test her suppositions about the popularity of lower numbers.

Respondents were shown computer-generated images of players in identical poses — but with different body sizes and skin and jersey colors — and were asked to judge their slenderness. Subjects saw each player twice — once each in jerseys with high and low numbers. In general, the players in jerseys numbered from 10 to 19 were perceived as thinner than players in jerseys numbered 80 to 89, regardless of their body size and their skin or jersey colors.

After pandemic restrictions eased, the researchers repeated the experiment in person.

This time, they addressed concerns that because the numeral 8 is wider than 1, simply the amount of jersey space occupied by numbers from 80 to 89 could make players look larger. So they chose number combinations that used the same numerals but varied only in which digit came first: 17 and 71, 18 and 81, 19 and 91.

In this second experiment, subjects still perceived the players with higher numbers to be huskier than players with lower numbers, although the effect was somewhat smaller than in the first iteration.

Shams said the results strongly support the hypothesis that when processing perception of body size, the brain leans on learned associations between numbers and objects’ size attributes. That finding is consistent with previous research showing that statistical learning is a fundamental and universal learning mechanism.

Those learned associations, Shams said, generally help the brain interpret sensory input — the pattern of light receptor responses in the eye, for example — because sensory input can be noisy, unreliable and ambiguous. The ability to perceive the world faster and more correctly is critical for survival, she said.

How viewers perceive football players’ body size likely has little effect on the athletes’ performance. But in other areas of life, such perceptual and cognitive biases can be more harmful — for example, when they influence judgment, decisions and behavior toward people or social groups, a phenomenon often referred to as implicit bias. If a group is frequently associated with negative qualities, others are much more likely to treat people in that group accordingly, whether they realize it or not.

“Our work highlights the importance of representation,” Shams said. “We need to see all kinds of people doing the full diversity of things people can do. We can use the statistical learning power of our brains to reduce implicit bias.”

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

 

Subscriptions drive views of alternative and extremist videos on YouTube

Study shows viewership of harmful content concentrated among a small group of users

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE

As the second most popular social media platform in the world, YouTube frequently attracts criticism. In particular, critics argue that its algorithmic recommendations facilitates radicalization and extremism by sending users down "rabbit holes" of harmful content.

According to a new study published in Science Advances, however, exposure to alternative and extremist video channels on YouTube is not driven by recommendations. Instead, most consumption of these channels on the platform can be attributed to a small group of users high in gender and racial resentment who subscribe to these channels and follow links to their videos.

The authors caution that these findings do not exonerate the platform. "YouTube's algorithms may not be recommending alternative and extremist content to nonsubscribers very often, but they are nonetheless hosting it for free and funneling it to subscribers in ways that are of great concern," says co-author Brendan Nyhan, the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor at Dartmouth.

“The problem of potentially harmful content on YouTube is real,” Nyhan adds. “The challenge is understanding the nature of the problems, so we can think about how best to address it.”

In 2019, YouTube announced that changes to its algorithms had reduced watch time of harmful content by 50%, with a 70% decline in watch time by nonsubscribers. These reports had not been independently verified, so the research team set out to determine who is watching this type of content and evaluate what recommendations are offered by YouTube’s algorithm.

The research team analyzed more than 1,100 participants' web browsing data. Participants were recruited from a general population sample of 2,000 people; a group of 1,000 people who had previously expressed high levels of racism and hostile sexism in another survey; and a sample of 1,000 people with high levels of self-reported YouTube use.

All participants who opted in provided informed consent to allow anonymized tracking of their web browsing behavior in Chrome or Firefox from July to December 2020, with various security protocols in place. The browser extension was automatically uninstalled from their computers at the conclusion of the study period.

Given the challenges of trying to characterize the content of every single video viewed, the researchers focused on the type of YouTube channels people watched. They compiled lists of channels that were had been identified as alternative or extreme by journalists and academics and then examined how often a participant visited videos from those channels.

Alternative channels included men's rights activists, anti-social justice warriors, and intellectual dark web channels, and extreme channels included white supremacist, alt-right, and extremist channels.

The results showed that exposure to alternative and extremist channels was quite rare among the study groups. Only 15% of people who opted to provide daily browser activity data visited an alternative channel video and only 6% viewed an extremist channel video.

A majority of viewers of the potentially harmful channels were subscribers to the type of channel in question: 61% subscribers for alternative channels and 55% for extremist channels. Almost all subscribed either to the channel in question or another one like it (e.g., another alternative or extremist channel): 93% for alternative channels and 85% for extremist channels.

Viewing time data showed that a tiny percentage of people were responsible for most of the time participants spent watching potentially harmful channels. Specifically, 1.7% of participants were responsible for 80% of time spent on alternative channels while only 0.6% of participants were responsible for 80% of the time spent on extremist channels.

The researchers also found that people who scored high in hostile sexism and racial resentment were more likely to visit videos from alternative and extremist channels.

"What really stands out is the correlation between content subscribers' prior levels of hostile sexism and more time spent watching videos from alternative and extremist channels," says Nyhan. "We interpret that relationship as suggesting that people are seeking this content out."

By contrast, the researchers found that recommendations to alternative and extremist channel videos were very rare and that “rabbit hole”-type events were only observed a handful of times during the study period.

The researchers explain that their findings do not speak to what was happening on YouTube prior to the changes made to the website's algorithm in 2019; recommendations and viewing patterns during that period may have differed substantially from what the researchers observed in 2020.

Prior to publication in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, this work was initially published in an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report. It gained national attention when U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., cited the report in March 2021 during a virtual joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, "Disinformation Nation: Social Media's Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation.” The CEOs of Facebook, Google (which owns YouTube), and Twitter (now X) testified at the hearing, which was widely covered by the media.

Co-authors of the research paper include: Annie Chen at CUNY Institute State & Local Governance; Jason Reifler at University of Exeter, a long-time collaborator with Nyhan; Ronald Robertson at Stanford University; and Christo Wilson at Northeastern University. The team conducted the research with the support of the Belfer Fellowship at the ADL's Center for Technology and Society and a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation.

Nyhan is available for comment at: nyhan@dartmouth.edu.

 

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Subscriptions and external links help drive resentful users to alternative and extremist YouTube channels

 

Most non-English speakers in the U.S. are turned away before their first cancer visit according to new research in JNCCN

New study from the University of Michigan found English speakers who call a hospital general information line were able to get information on next steps to access cancer care 94% of the time, compared to 38% for Spanish speakers and just 28% for Mandarin

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE CANCER NETWORK

 

IMAGE: DEBBIE W. CHEN, MD, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN view more 

CREDIT: NCCN

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [September 6, 2023] — New research in the September 2023 issue of JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network reveals an alarming lack of access for non-English speakers who called hospitals across the United States looking for information on cancer care services. The researchers from University of Michigan set up a series of simulated patient calls to various hospital general information lines, speaking in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Nearly all of the English-speaking callers were provided with next steps to access cancer care—such as a telephone number for presumed clinic or transfer to the department that was presumed to provide the requested care—while just over a third of the Spanish speakers had the same experience, and even fewer for Mandarin-speaking callers.

“Our study found significant language-based disparities in patients’ access to cancer care well before they are seen by a physician,” said lead researcher Debbie W. Chen, MD, University of Michigan. “If patients with cancer cannot access information on where to obtain the appropriate cancer care, what other critical information and services are they not able to access in our healthcare system?”

Dr. Chen continued, referencing a 2005 audit study in which simulated Spanish-speaking callers contacted the hospital general information line of New York City hospitals and requested the telephone number for one of the hospital’s out-patient clinics[1]: “Even though our study takes place 16 years later, during a time when more than 25 million individuals with limited English proficiency live in the United States, our study found even lower success rates for non-English-speaking persons seeking to access cancer care services. Most of the barriers that the simulated non-English-speaking callers encountered were systems-level issues, including being told ‘no’ or being hung up on by hospital staff, or being disconnected because the hospital’s automated message required input but did not provide language-concordant instructions, plus issues at the level of Interpreter Services.”

The simulated calls were made to a random selection of 144 hospitals evenly distributed across 12 demographically diverse U.S. states, including California, Florida, New York, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. The calls were made Monday through Friday between 8:00am and 5:00pm local time, between November 8, 2021 and June 23, 2022. A total of 1,296 calls were completed; 432 in each language. Overall, 53% resulted in callers being provided with next steps to access cancer care. However, the Mandarin-speaking callers received that information only 28% of the time; Spanish-speakers were slightly higher at 38%, while English-speakers were connected to next steps 94% of the time. The researchers anticipate that patients who speak other, less commonly spoken, non-English languages may face even greater barriers to care.

Dr. Chen, et. al., proposed several potential interventions based on the different reasons for incomplete calls. They suggest that automatic messaging should be sure to include instructions for accessing the message in different languages and should default to a live person instead of disconnecting in instances where no input is made. They also recommend that general information personnel remain on the line when connecting callers to a language interpreter in order to help provide the sought-after information through the translator, who may not be able to answer questions about care on their own.

“The results of this important study highlight what we see every day on the ground level,” commented Darcie Green, Executive Director, Latinas Contra Cancer, who was not involved in this research. “Spanish-speaking patients, as well as others who are not English-proficient, face preventable barriers in access to care starting at one of the most basic expectations we have when calling our health care provider—the ability to call in for an appointment or advice. This health inequity from the very start can lead to late detection, erosion of trust, disengagement from the healthcare system, and many other adverse health outcomes that serve to only deepen cancer care disparities.”

Green will be among the speakers at an upcoming NCCN Oncology Policy Summit taking place in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, September 12 on Measuring and Addressing Health-Related Social Needs in Cancer. She continued: “Additionally, as we lean into greater investment in community health workers and patient navigation to reduce disparities in detection, treatment, and survivorship, it is crucial that the patients who need these services the most do not face unnecessary barriers to accessing them. This study should serve as an affirming but urgent call to action for accountability and to support and invest in the strategies and infrastructure needed to eliminate language-based health inequity in access to care.”

To read the entire study, visit JNCCN.org. Complimentary access to “Hidden Disparities: How Language Influences Patients’ Access to Cancer Care” is available until December 10, 2023.

# # #

About JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network
More than 25,000 oncologists and other cancer care professionals across the United States read JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. This peer-reviewed, indexed medical journal provides the latest information about innovation in translational medicine, and scientific studies related to oncology health services research, including quality care and value, bioethics, comparative and cost effectiveness, public policy, and interventional research on supportive care and survivorship. JNCCN features updates on the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®), review articles elaborating on guidelines recommendations, health services research, and case reports highlighting molecular insights in patient care. JNCCN is published by Harborside/BroadcastMed. Visit JNCCN.org. To inquire if you are eligible for a FREE subscription to JNCCN, visit NCCN.org/jnccn/subscribe. Follow JNCCN on Twitter @JNCCN.

About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) is a not-for-profit alliance of leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education. NCCN is dedicated to improving and facilitating quality, effective, equitable, and accessible cancer care so all patients can live better lives. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) provide transparent, evidence-based, expert consensus recommendations for cancer treatment, prevention, and supportive services; they are the recognized standard for clinical direction and policy in cancer management and the most thorough and frequently-updated clinical practice guidelines available in any area of medicine. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients® provide expert cancer treatment information to inform and empower patients and caregivers, through support from the NCCN Foundation®. NCCN also advances continuing education, global initiatives, policy, and research collaboration and publication in oncology. Visit NCCN.org for more information.

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[1] Getting in the Door: Language Barriers to Health Services at New York City’s Hospitals. Available at: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/jan10-05_geting-in-the-door.pdf

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JOURNAL

Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

DOI

10.6004/jnccn.2023.7037 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Hidden Disparities: How Language Influences Patients’ Access to Cancer Care

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Sep-2023

 

Concussions early in life tied to late life cognitive decline

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY

MINNEAPOLIS – A study of twins shows that having a concussion early in life is tied to having lower scores on tests of thinking and memory skills decades later as well as having more rapid decline in those scores than twins who did not have a concussion, or traumatic brain injury (TBI). The study is published in the September 6, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“These findings indicate that even people with traumatic brain injuries in earlier life who appear to have fully recovered from them may still be at increased risk of cognitive problems and dementia later in life,” said study author Marianne Chanti-Ketterl, PhD, MSPH, of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “Among identical twins, who share the same genes and many of the same exposures early in life, we found that the twin who had a concussion had lower test scores and faster decline than their twin who had never had a concussion.”

The study involved 8,662 men who were World War II veterans. The participants took a test of thinking skills at the start of the study when they were an average age of 67 and then again up to three more times over 12 years. Scores for the test can range from zero to 50. The average score for all participants at the beginning of the study was 32.5 points.

A total of 25% of the participants had experienced a concussion in their life.

Twins who had experienced a concussion were more likely to have lower test scores at age 70, especially if they had a concussion where they lost consciousness or were older than 24 when they had their concussion. Those twins with traumatic brain injury with loss of consciousness, more than one traumatic brain injury and who had their injuries after age 24 were more likely to have faster cognitive decline than those with no history of traumatic brain injury.

For example, a twin who experienced a traumatic brain injury after age 24 scored 0.59 points lower at age 70 than his twin with no traumatic brain injury, and his thinking skills declined faster, by 0.05 points per year.  

These results took into account other factors that could affect thinking skills, such as high blood pressure, alcohol use, smoking status and education.

“Although these effect sizes are modest, the contribution of TBI on late life cognition, in addition to numerous other factors with a detrimental effect on cognition, may be enough to trigger an evaluation for cognitive impairment,” Chanti-Ketterl said. “With the trend we are seeing with increased emergency room visits due to sports or recreation activity injuries, combined with the estimated half million members of the military who suffered a TBI between 2000 and 2020, the potential long-term impact of TBI cannot be overlooked. These results may help us identify people who may benefit from early interventions that may slow cognitive decline or potentially delay or prevent dementia.”  

A limitation of the study was that traumatic brain injuries were reported by the participants, so not all injuries may have been remembered or reported accurately.  

The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Learn more about traumatic brain injury at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology’s free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the hashtags #Neurology and #AANscience.

The American Academy of Neurology is the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 40,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

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JOURNAL

Neurology

 

Still work to do on making mental health services accessible for LGBTIQA+ people in distress

Barriers to accessing potentially life-saving support persist, according to new research into suicidality in the LGBTIQA+ community.

Reports and Proceedings

RMIT UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: AN ILLUSTRATION OF TWO PEOPLE WITH A HAND HOLDING THE PRIDE FLAG IN THE BACKGROUND. THE TORRES STRAIT ISLAND, ABORIGINAL AND PRIDE FLAGS ARE ALSO ON THE LEFT SIDE. view more 

CREDIT: JACQ MOON

Barriers to accessing potentially life-saving support persist, according to new research into suicidality in the LGBTIQA+ community. 

An RMIT-led study with Switchboard, Roses in the Ocean and University of Sydney interviewed members of the LGBTQA+SB community to understand their lived experiences of suicidal thoughts and behaviours, and uncover factors that protect people at these times of distress. 

The acronym SB in LGBTIQA+SB stands for sistergirl and brotherboy, acknowledging the trans women and trans men of First Nations gender-diverse people within some, but not all, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. 

Project lead and Dean of RMIT’s School of Global, Urban Social Studies, Professor Katherine Johnson, said despite LGBTIQA+ Australians being 20 times more likely to have considered suicide, there remained a lack of research into the types of support needed, especially for people with intersecting identities, including First Nations people, people of colour, and people with disabilities. 

Many participants in the study said their suicidal distress started at an early age with fluctuating levels of intensity.  

Alarmingly, it also found concealing this distress, or not accessing support, was common among younger people.  

It echoes a previous study revealing almost 2/3 of LGBTIQA+ people in Australia aged 14 to 21 did not access professional support after experiencing some form of suicidal distress. 

Barriers to accessing support 

Johnson said people in LGBTIQA+ communities often embodied several marginalised identities, which can create unique and complex systems of disadvantage and discrimination. 

“Understanding the context in which LGBTIQA+ people attempt to live affirmatively must be the starting point for effective policy and services,” she said. 

As well as fear of discrimination in terms of sexuality, gender and racism, barriers to accessing support included a lack of knowledge of where to find it, cost and distrust of the health system due to negative medical experiences.  

Concerns around confidentiality were also complex, especially for First Nations people, people of colour and religious participants in remote and rural communities.  

Some participants were uncomfortable seeking support services where they were too easily identifiable.  

Understanding help-seeking behaviour  

Johnson said seeking support was a challenge overall, but her research found help-seeking behaviour often changed over time, with people becoming more adept at finding ways to manage their suicidal distress. 

While gender identity and sexuality played a part, participants said it was fears of social and cultural isolation and rejection associated with homophobia, transphobia and racism that were the main contributing factors in their distress. 

“Living with suicidal distress is exhausting. It can limit people’s ability to form and maintain social connections and significantly disrupt daily life, which may lead to other psychosocial factors like homelessness and unemployment,” said Johnson.  

“That’s why we need targeted early interventions in order to reduce suicidality over an LGBTIQA+SB person’s lifetime.” 

Johnson said the lack of support services in remote and rural areas can also be isolating as it forced people to travel to more urban areas to access support.  

“Developing referral pathways, reducing out-of-pocket expenses and ensuring LGBTIQA+SB affirming services are available, particularly in regional areas, will facilitate access to safer and more effective supports,” she said. 

Family relationships, friendships and supportive social spaces were significant sources of acceptance and affirmation for LGBTIQA+ people. However, Johnson said they could also be drivers of distress and shame, shaping how people reach out for help.  

“We found family support was vital, but it was not always available or positive,” she said.  

“Meanwhile, participants of colour often sought support from friends due to family being overseas.” 

Johnson said employing a diverse representation of LGBTIQA+SB peer workers, including First Nations, people of colour and people with disabilities, within mainstream and queer-friendly services can help improve perceptions of safety and confidentiality.  

“Rainbows are nice, but people like to connect with others who understand the nuances of their identity, circumstances, background and culture,” she said. 

“With appropriate and effective support, LGBTIQA+SB people can, and do, find ways of living with suicidal distress.” 

More work needs to be done 

Johnson said this research is just the beginning of a bigger call for more attention to the lived experiences of suicidality in diverse LGBTIQA+SB communities. 

RMIT’s Social Change Enabling Impact Platform has funded the translation of Johnson’s research into training materials. Switchboard will help fund the roll-out of the training across Victoria.  

Switchboard CEO Joe Ball said he would like to see national investment to introduce the training around the country.  

“The potential impact of our suicide prevention training cannot be overstated — this has the power to change lives, and we welcome strong partnerships to do this work together,” Ball said. 

“LGBTIQA+SB people, no matter who they are or where they live, deserve tailored support. 

“The time is well overdue for more sophisticated approaches to supporting our communities. We are not one-dimensional people — we live intersectional lives and deserve support from services that acknowledge and strengthen this.” 

Co-author and University of Sydney and University of New South Wales Adjunct Professor Vanessa Lee-Ah Mat said the research is laying the foundations in understanding queer First Nations suicidal behaviours from their lived experiences.  

“Putting culture first has been a guiding hand,” said Lee-Ah Mat, a Yupungathi and Meriam woman.  

“The insight drawn from this research has enabled us to begin to understand the many experiences that lead to depression, anxiety and suicidal behaviours in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQA+SB people.” 

Co-author and Switchboard Suicide Prevention Manager Anna Bernasochi said the training to be rolled out was the first of its kind to use insights from lived experiences of LGBTQA+SB people.  

“By integrating insights from these lived experiences, services will be more equipped to help LGBTIQA+SB people live through suicidal distress. Completing our training is an excellent first step,” said Bernasochi.  

“Understanding LGBTQA+SB suicidal behaviour and improving support: insight from intersectional lived experience” was prepared for and funded by Suicide Prevention Australia (DOI: https://doi.org/10.25439/rmt.23640978.v1).  

Katherine Johnson, Nicholas Hill, Vanessa Lee-Ah Mat, Anna Bernasochi and Martina McGrath are co-authors. 

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DOI

10.25439/rmt.23640978.v1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Understanding LGBTQA+SB suicidal behaviour and improving support: insight from intersectional lived experience. Report PEER REVIEWED Understanding LGBTQA+SB suicidal behaviour and improving support: insight from intersectional lived experience.

COI STATEMENT

This research was funded by a Suicide Prevention Australia Innovation Grant.