BACKGROUNDER

Cuba is poor, but who is to blame – 

Castro or 50 years of US blockade?

RECENTLY THE TRUMP EMBARGO HAS CAUSED DESPERATE CUBANS TO TRY TO GET TO AMERICA UNLIKE THE BARCADI FAMILY 

THEY GET NO SPECIAL TREATMENT AND GET SENT BACK HOME

Alongside his depiction as a “brutal dictator”, negative reflections on Fidel Castro since his death on November 25 (2016) have focused on his “mismanagement” of the Cuban economy and the consequent “extremes of poverty” suffered by ordinary Cubans.

This caricature is problematic – not only because it ignores the devastating economic impact of the United States embargo over 55 years, but also because it is premised on neoclassical economic assumptions. This means that by stressing economic policy over economic restraints, critics can shift responsibility for Cuba’s alleged poverty on to Castro without implicating successive US administrations that have imposed the suffocating embargo.

This approach also ignores key questions about Cuba after the revolution. Where can medium and low-income countries get the capital to invest in infrastructure and welfare provision? How can foreign capital be obtained under conditions which do not obstruct such development, and how can a late-developing country such as Cuba use international trade to produce a surplus in a global economy which – many claim – tends to “unequal terms of trade”?

It was the search for solutions to the challenge of development that led Cuba’s revolutionary government to adopt a socialist system. They adopted a centrally planned economy in which state ownership predominated because they perceived this system as offering the best answer to those historical challenges.

But the commitment to operate within a socialist framework implied additional restraints and complications, particularly in the context of a bipolar world. My book, Che Guevara: the economics of revolution, examines the contradictions and challenges faced by the nascent revolutionary government from the perspective of Guevara’s role as president of the National Bank and minister of industries.

Literature on Cuba is dominated by “Cubanology”, an academic school central to the political and ideological opposition to Cuban socialism. Its emergence and links to the US government are well documented. Its arguments are that the revolution changed everything in Cuba – and Fidel (and then Raul) Castro have personally dominated domestic and foreign policy since, denying Cuban democracy and repressing civil society. Thanks to their mismanagement of the economy, growth since 1959 has been negligible. They simply replaced dependency on the US with dependency on the USSR until its collapse in 1990.

These ideas have also shaped political and media discourse on Cuba. But the problem with this analysis is that it obstructs our ability to see clearly what goes on in Cuba or explain the revolution’s endurance and Cuban society’s vitality.

What did Castro inherit?

Arguments about the success or failure of the post-1959 economy often hang on the state of the Cuban economy in the 1950s. The post-1959 government inherited a sugar-dominated economy with the deep socio-economic and racial scars of slavery. Cubanologist Jaime Suchlicki argues that Batista’s Cuba was “well into what Walter Rostow has characterised as the take-off stage”, while Fred Judson points to structural weaknesses in the Cuban economy: “Long-term crises characterised the economy, which had a surface and transient prosperity.” So while one side insists that the revolution interrupted healthy capitalist growth, the other believes it was a precondition to resolving the contradictions obstructing development by ending Cuba’s subjugation to the needs of US capitalism.

Following the revolution, Castro set out to bring social welfare and land reform to the Cuban people and to confiscate the ill-gotten gains of the Cuban elite. But when the defeated Fulgencio Batista and his associates fled Cuba, they stole millions of pesos from the National Bank and the Treasury. The country was decapitalised, severely limiting the capacity for public spending and private investments. Wealthy Cubans were leaving the island, taking their deposits and taxes with them. How was the new government going to carry out the ambitious socio-economic reforms without financial resources?

We have to consider these real circumstances at every juncture. For example, when the US embargo was first implemented, 95% of Cuba’s capital goods and 100% of its spare parts were imported from the US – and the US was overwhelmingly the main recipient of Cuban exports. When the Soviet bloc disintegrated, Cuba lost 85% of its trade and investment, leading GDP to plummet 35%. These events produced serious economic constraints on Cuba’s room for manoeuvre.

Putting a price on poverty

Moving on, we should also ask: how are we to measure Cuba’s poverty? Is it GDP per capita? Is it money-income per day? Should we apply the yardsticks of capitalist economics, focusing on growth and productivity statistics to measure “success” or “failure”, while paying little attention to social and political priorities?

Ration cards symbolise poverty and shortages in Cuba. EPA/Alejandro Ernesto

Even factoring in its low GDP per capita, the Human Development Index (HDI) lists Cuba in the “high human development” category; it excels not just in health and education, but also in women’s participation and political inclusion. Cuba has eliminated child malnutrition. No children sleep on the streets. In fact, there is no homelessness. Even during the hungry years of economic crisis of the 1990s, Cubans did not starve. Cuba stuck with the planned economy and it enabled them to ration their scarce resources.

Yes, salaries are extremely low (as both Fidel and Raul have lamented) – but Cubans’ salaries do not determine their standard of living. About 85% of Cubans own their own homes and rent cannot exceed 4% of a tenant’s income. The state provides a (very) basic food basket while utility bills, transport and medicine costs are kept low. The opera, cinema, ballet and so on are cheap for all. High-quality education and healthcare are free. They are part of the material wealth of Cuba and should not be dismissed – as if individual consumption of consumer goods were the only measure of economic success.

Operation miracle

The specific and real challenges Cuban development has faced has generated unique contradictions. In a planned economy, with an extremely tight budget, they have had to prioritise: the infrastructure is crumbling and yet they have first-world human development indicators. Infant mortality rates reveal a lot about the standard of living, being influenced by multiple socioeconomic and medical factors. Cuba’s infant mortality rate is 4.5 per 1,000 live births, which sits it among first-world countries – and above the US on the CIA’s own ranking.

It is not just Cubans who have benefited from these investments. Tens of thousands of Cuban doctors, educators and other development aid workers have served around the world. At present some 37,000 Cuban doctors and nurses work in 77 countries. They generate foreign exchange of some US$8 billion a year – Cuba’s biggest export.

In addition, Cuba provides both free medical treatment and free medical training to thousands of foreigners every year. As a direct initiative of Fidel, in 1999, the Latin American School of Medicine was inaugurated in Havana to provide foreign students from poor countries with six years of training and accommodation completely free. In 2004, Cuba teamed up with Venezuela to provide free eye surgery to people in three dozen countries under Operation Miracle. In the first ten years more than 3m people had their sight restored.

Prohibiting even trade in medicines, the US embargo led Castro to prioritise investments in medical sciences. Cuba now owns around 900 patents and markets pharmaceutical products and vaccines in 40 countries, generating yearly revenues of US$300m, with the potential for massive expansion. The sector produces more than 70% of the medicines consumed by its 11m people. The entire industry is state owned, research programmes respond to the needs of the population, and all surpluses are reinvested into the sector. Without state planning and investment it is unlikely that this could have been achieved in a poor country

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Cuban researchers developed the first synthetic vaccine against a bacteria that causes pneumonia and meningitis. EPA/Alejandro Ernesto

In the mid-1980s Cuba developed the world’s first Meningitis B vaccine. Today, it leads in oncology drugs. In 2012 Cuba patented the first therapeutic cancer vaccine. The US embargo forces Cuba to source medicines, medical devices and radiology products outside the United States, incurring additional transportation costs.

Sharing economy

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, told me in 2009:

A great example provided by Cuba is that in its poverty it has known how to share, with all its international programmes. Cuba is the country with the greatest cooperation in relation to its gross domestic product and it is an example for all of us. This doesn’t mean that Cuba doesn’t have big problems, but it is also certain that it is impossible to judge the success or failure of the Cuban model without considering the US blockade, a blockade that has lasted for 50 years. Ecuador wouldn’t survive for five months with that blockade.

Let’s consider the embargo: the Cuban government estimates that it has cost the island US$753.69 billion. Their annual report to the United Nations provides a detailed account of that calculation. That’s a lot for a country whose average GDP between 1970 and 2014 has been calculated at US$31.7 billion.

Yes, Castro presided over mistakes and errors in Cuba’s planned economy. Yes, there is bureaucracy, low productivity, liquidity crisis, debt and numerous other problems – but where aren’t there? Castro pointed to these weaknesses in his own speeches to the Cuban people. But President Correa is right – to objectively judge Castro’s legacy, Cuban development and contemporary reforms today, we cannot pretend that the US blockade – which remains today despite rapprochement – has not shaped the Cuban economy.

Castro almost saw out 11 US presidents since 1959, but he never lived to see the end of the US embargo. New challenges face Cuba, with economic reforms underway and the restoration of relations with the United States. Next week, I will begin new research in Cuba to assess the revolution’s resilience in this post-Castro, Donald Trump era.

December 2, 2016

Author

Helen Yaffe
LSE Fellow, Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science
Disclosure statement
Helen Yaffe has received research funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
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The scene from Cuba: 

How it's getting so much right on COVID-19

Jennifer Ruth Hosek, 

Professor, Transnational Studies,

 Queen's University, Ontario 
3/17/2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately harms underprivileged people globally, Cuba’s “people over profit” approach has been saving many lives — both on the island and abroad. From the onset, Cuba’s approach has been holistic and integrated.

© (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) A doctor shows an empty vial of the experimental Soberana 02 vaccine for COVID-19 being developed at the Molecular Immunity Center during a media tour of the facility's vaccine production in Havana on Feb. 25, 2021.

Its response is among the most respected in the world. Widespread confidence in the Cuban government’s science-based policies, public service media messaging and volunteerism are key reasons as to why Cuba has been able to control the viral reproduction rate until mass vaccination begins.

The cash-strapped Caribbean island risked opening to holiday visitors at the end of 2020 and is currently managing higher COVID-19 caseloads than ever before. Its health experts are combining international clinical trials of its vaccine candidates with mass production. Cuba is the only Latin American country with the capacity to manufacture a vaccine domestically other than Brazil, which is not doing so. Cuba aims to protect its populace, then give away or sell its vaccines abroad

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© (Yamil Lage) A technician works with the Soberana 02 COVID-19 vaccine at the packaging processing plant of the Finlay Vaccine Institute in Havana, Cuba, in January 2021.

Before the virus’s arrival in Cuba, the country prepared for mitigation based on best practices from Asia and its own expertise with contagious disease.

Beyond Cuba’s borders, its medical diplomacy took over. Cuba’s Henry Reeve Medical Brigade has been fighting the pandemic in at least 37 countries and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. When COVID-19 stranded the cruise ship MS Braemar, only Cuba allowed it to dock.

In contrast, many countries’ pandemic responses have been haphazard, with well-funded lobby groups representing restaurants and pharmaceutical companies, to name just two sectors, wielding excessive influence. Oscillating virus reproduction rates have required disruptive and costly mitigation measures and resulted in illness and death. The media, academics who include Helen Yaffe, Emily Morris and John Kirk and non-governmental organizations like Havana and Oakland-based Medicc have long documented Cuba’s emulation-worthy health system.

Read more: Coronavirus response: why Cuba is such an interesting case

Hard work, hard science

Care in Cuba is universal, research and training is robust and disease and disaster mitigation is well-organized. The public health-care system is co-ordinated across research institutes and centres of disease control, through to dispersed local neighbourhood clinics. Cuba also has a near 100 per cent literacy rate, with much attention paid to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

Cuba’s achievements are the result of hard work and hard science in a not-for-profit system. The populace’s confidence has been earned through science-based campaigns against the likes of HIV, Ebola, dengue fever and the Zika virus.

Nations that have responded well to the pandemic have communicated clearly and factually with their people. Cuba has a tradition of multi-pronged public-service messaging.

The country’s epidemiology director has become a trusted household expert through his daily news reports. Every day at 9 a.m., a seated and masked Dr. Francisco Durán speaks directly to the public, noting and lamenting every fatality, detailing disease spread and treatments, answering viewer questions and sternly advising continued adherence to preventative measures.

The well-known psychologist Manuel Calviño discusses topics such as self-discipline and positive thinking. Cheerier spots feature famous actors urging fortitude and depict groups of people following health protocols.

In cartoons, angry “red meanie” viruses are drowned by hand-washing and blocked by face masks, animation heroes celebrate International Workers’ Day from their balconies, youngsters stay home to protect their grandparents and families play inside together. The socially distanced 42nd International Festival of New Latin American Cinema featured animated doctor’s orders in its promotional video. Ubiquitously stated, sung and danced slogans include “Cuba for life, with a new (masked) smile.”

Mask-wearing is popular

I surveyed residents of Havana online and later in-person while in Cuba in December and January. Most reported wearing masks to “protect others and myself.”

While masking has been broadly politicized elsewhere, Cuba mandated masks in March 2020, immediately sharing instructions on how to make them at home.

While in many countries volunteers struggled to find ways to help, in Cuba, existing organizations such as neighbourhood watches and universities quickly moved into action.

Medical students have gone door-to-door checking for symptoms. Computer science students have developed helpful apps and supported medical staff in their dorms-turned-quarantine centres. Necessary work got done while public buy-in solidified the mitigation efforts. The initial growth curve was inverted early on.

Banking on individual responsibility among its well-educated citizens, Cuba shifted to a “new normal” at the year-end holiday season. Tourists headed to isolated beach resorts and expats to their relatives’ homes. The hotels follow health protocols meticulously — speedy PCR testing, masking, sanitation and social distancing

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© (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) A tourist, wearing a protective face mask, walks along the beach in Havana, Cuba, on March 2, 2021.

But family visits led to outbreaks, as they have globally. Some visitors, many of them arriving from areas with high rates of infection and science denial such as Miami, breached the requisite protocols: one PCR test with a negative result upon arrival, a five-day home quarantine and another negative PCR test before mingling.

Pandemic has been costly

All indicators show Cuba has put its limited resources to efficient use for the public good. But especially coupled with former U.S. president Donald Trump’s tightening of the American blockade against Cuba, the pandemic and the resulting plunge in tourism are costly. Scarcity of affordable food and consumer goods, along with an increased cost of living accelerated by a long-overdue monetary unification, have increased stress levels.

Read more: U.S.-Cuba relations: Will Joe Biden pick up where Barack Obama left off?

Sensing an opportunity, foreign interest groups are supporting small, lively social media and in-person protests, most characterized by vociferous yet vague demands for artistic freedom.

Daily cases are also now hovering around 850 compared to 42 on Nov. 15, 2020 — just before Havana’s airport reopened. Although the curve is again flat — exponential growth has been halted for the second time — medical personnel and supplies are strained. Against this backdrop, however, there are Cuba’s advances on the vaccination front.

In this breakneck race, Cuba is simultaneously running Phase 3 international clinical trials of Soberana (Sovereignty) 2 and, planned for late March, Abdala, with robust production of these vaccine candidates. Work is also continuing on Soberana 1 and Mambisa.

Looking ahead to COVID-19 variants and reinfections, a booster Soberana Plus is now being developed.

If Cuba’s vaccination program is successful, the country will have once again provided for its people against enormous odds as it produces and distributes a vaccine domestically, then shares it with the world.

Many market-driven, rich nations of the Global North, including Canada, are not so well-positioned. Cuba’s access to internationally produced vaccines was highly improbable due to the U.S. blockade. Its ensuing decision to make its own vaccines stands to pay off handsomely.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jennifer Hosek receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

New analysis shows potential for 'solar canals' in California

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA CRUZ

Research News

 

UC Santa Cruz researchers published a new study--in collaboration with UC Water and the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced--that suggests covering California's 6,350 km network of public water delivery canals with solar panels could be an economically feasible means of advancing both renewable energy and water conservation.

The concept of "solar canals" has been gaining momentum around the world as climate change increases the risk of drought in many regions. Solar panels can shade canals to help prevent water loss through evaporation, and some types of solar panels also work better over canals, because the cooler environment keeps them from overheating.

Pilot projects in India have demonstrated the technical feasibility of several designs, but none have yet been deployed at scale. California's canal network is the world's largest water conveyance system, and the state faces both a drought-prone future and a rapid timeline for transitioning to renewable energy. Solar canals could target both challenges, but making the case for their implementation in California requires first quantifying the potential benefits. So that's exactly what researchers set out to do in their paper published by Nature Sustainability.

"While it makes sense to cover canals with solar panels because renewable energy and water conservation is a win-win, the devil is in the details," said Brandi McKuin, lead author of the new study and a UC Santa Cruz postdoctoral researcher in environmental studies. "A critical question was whether the infrastructure to span the canals would be cost-prohibitive."

Canal-spanning solar panels are often supported either by steel trusses or suspension cables, both of which are more expensive to build than traditional support structures for ground-mounted solar panels. But McKuin led a techno-economic analysis that showed how the benefits of solar canals combine to outweigh the added costs for cable-supported installations. In fact, cable-supported solar canals showed a 20-50 percent higher net present value, indicating greater financial return on investment.

In addition to benefits like increased solar panel performance and evaporation savings, shade from solar panels could help control the growth of aquatic weeds, which are a costly canal maintenance issue. Placing solar panels over existing canal sites could also avoid costs associated with land use. Now that the new paper has provided a more concrete assessment of these benefits, members of the research team hope this could lead to future field experiments with solar canals in California.

"This study is a very important step toward encouraging investments to produce renewable energy while also saving water," said Roger Bales, a coauthor on the paper who is a distinguished professor of engineering at UC Merced, the former director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, and a director at UC Water.

Bales was part of the original group that got the project started in 2016, when San Francisco-based social impact agency Citizen Group approached UC Solar and UC Water with the concept. From there, the research grew into a collaboration between UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz, and Citizen Group, with funding support from NRG Energy and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Lead author Brandi McKuin started working on the project while completing her Ph.D. at Merced, then continued with help from senior author and UCSC professor Elliott Campbell, the Stephen R. Gliessman Presidential Chair in Water Resources and Food Systems and a fellow Merced transplant. UC Merced professor Joshua Viers and researcher Tapan Pathak advised on the project, and graduate students Andrew Zumkehr and Jenny Ta contributed to analysis.

Zumkehr led a complex hydrological analysis using data from satellites, climate models, and automated weather stations to model and compare evaporation rates at canal sites across the state, with and without shade from solar panels. McKuin then used this information in her assessment to calculate the financial benefits of reduced evaporation.

Ultimately, it was the cost savings of many combined benefits that made solar canals financially viable, rather than benefits from reduced evaporation alone. But the study also notes that benefits from deploying solar canals could extend beyond immediate financial impacts. For example, every megawatt of solar energy produced by solar canals in California's Central Valley has the potential to replace 15-20 diesel-powered irrigation pumps, helping to reduce pollution in a region with some of the nation's worst air quality.

And senior author Elliott Campbell says the wide range of benefits identified by the paper is, in itself, an important lesson to carry forward. He sees the findings as not only an assessment of solar canals, but also a clear illustration of the interconnections between urgent global issues like air quality, energy, and water conservation.

"What we're seeing here is actually some surprising benefits when you bring water and energy together," Campbell said. "Sometimes it leads to a smoother landing in how we transition to better ways of making energy and saving water."

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Text me about cervical cancer

Digital communication is a way to bridge the racial disparity gap in cervical cancer information and follow up

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: FORD LEARNED THAT WOMEN WANT TO RECEIVE TEXT MESSAGES ABOUT THEIR HEALTH CARE, BUT PRESENTLY CAN'T BECAUSE OF FEDERAL MEDICAL PRIVACY AND TELECOMMUNICATION LAWS. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE ON UNSPLASH

An estimated 14,480 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year, according to the American Cancer Society. Cases that could be prevented or cured with better education from screening to treatment based on improved provider-patient communication, says a Michigan State University researcher.

The issue is particularly acute for Black women, said Sabrina Ford, an associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology within MSU's College of Human Medicine. Ford's research was published online Feb. 1 in the journal Gynecologic Oncology.

"More Black women were being screened for cervical cancer (compared to white women) but they were still dying from cervical cancer at twice the rate," she said. "It didn't make sense."

When Black women were told they had an abnormal cervical cancer finding on their Pap test screening, they often failed to follow up with their medical provider. The reason for this is complicated and two-pronged. One prong is about education and information. Providing clear clinical information in an easily accessible form is key to patient engagement.

"Culture does come into play because Black women do get their information from family, friends and personal experience," she said. "Sometimes there is medical mistrust, shame or fear and so, some women delay or don't follow up."

The other prong is about communication, specifically how medical providers are communicating with their patients. A doctor trying not to unnecessarily alarm a patient might not be telling their patients enough information, for instance that the Pap test screens for cancer. Handing a patient a one-page flyer about cervical cancer may easily get lost, never read or understood depending on a patient's health literacy.

Ford learned that there needs to be improvements on both prongs in order to bridge the disparity gap. Women want to receive text messages about their health care, Ford said, but presently can't because of federal medical privacy and telecommunication laws. With regulatory changes, patients could consent to receive provider text messages, when they fill out initial office paperwork.

Also, Black women reported using their online patient portal, which also provides an opportunity to educate and advise patients so they can make informed decisions.

Another gap is communicating consistent messages. Medical providers should provide uniform information to patients on all fronts: in the office, on the patient portal, flyers and pamphlets or text messages.

"We can't blame the patient. We can't blame the doctor either when the communication isn't clear," she said. "I want to move the needle forward on cervical cancer and HPV. They are highly preventable, curable and could be eradicated."

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Public health expert Shattuck studies impact of social distancing on spread of infection

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

Research News

(March 17, 2021) -- Eric Shattuck, assistant professor of research in the UTSA Institute for Health Disparities Research (IHDR) at The University of Texas at San Antonio, is studying the phenomenon of social distancing in response to infectious disease and its effects on pathogen transmission and the health of individuals and communities.

Many animals, including humans, exhibit behavioral changes during the early stages of an infection, including reduced social contacts, called sickness behavior. His findings suggest innate social distancing might help prevent the infection from spreading within social groups.

"The similarities between public health directives and what we see operating on a biological level in nature is remarkable, Shattuck said.

"For instance, we've been advised to keep 6 feet apart from others to prevent COVID transmission in case they're asymptomatic carriers of the virus. We know that some ants have a similar strategy, where individual ants increase their physical distance to others after they recognize that there is a possible infection in the colony" Shattuck added. "This shows us that some of the most basic interventions, like social distancing, can be highly effective at preventing outbreaks, whether of COVID-19, flu, or other pathogens."

This research has been at the center of a study titled "Infectious Diseases and Social Distancing in Nature," the manuscript for which has been published in the journal Science. Shattuck collaborated with researchers from universities and research centers across the country and in the United Kingdom.

While the other authors have research interests in vampire bats, rodents, insects and more, Shattuck is the only author who studies humans.

"Because humans are highly social creatures with complex and varied cultures -- and because culture can affect both our biology and the way that we interpret physical and emotional sensations -- I use an anthropological framework that focuses on human biological and cultural variation," Shattuck said about his research on sickness behavior.

He added that this study can start important conversations across scientific fields about integrating these normal biological responses into our thinking about disease transmission and public health. "People should listen to their bodies if they think they might be sick but we also need to work to ensure that rest, recuperation and isolation aren't stigmatized or otherwise prevented. Shattuck said"

In his role with IHDR, Shattuck explores various research projects to further the mission of the Institute: to reduce and eliminate health disparities in South Texas through integration of biomedical and socio-behavioral science approaches.

Another project he's working on investigating the beneficial effects of hospital arts programs on mood, pain and nausea in adult cancer patients. Along with members of the UTSA music faculty, Drs. Tracy Cowden and John Nix, Shattuck is working with a San Antonio non-profit, Hearts Need Art, to collect data.

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COVID-19 denial depends on a population's trust in social institutions

Meanwhile, in Western Europe, people trust their governments more than in other EU countries

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Research News

 

An international team of scholars studied how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Europeans' stress levels and their trust in their national governments and the healthcare systems. They found that respondents were most stressed by the state of the national economy, and only after that, by the risk of catching COVID-19 and possibly being hospitalized. The results of the study were published in Royal Society Open Science.

The authors of the study represent over 50 universities. Among them is Dmitrii Dubrov, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE Center for Sociocultural Research, who developed and organized the global survey, COVIDiSTRESS. The researchers studied the psychological consequences of the current pandemic-related crisis, as reflected in stress levels. Over 150,000 respondents from over 50 countries participated in the study. The results (below) include answers from 75,570 respondents in 27 countries of the European Union (EU), who were surveyed from March 30 to April 20, 2020.

The general level of respondents' stress was measured on a 10-grade scale developed by psychologists Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermelstein (1983). This scale illustrates people's stress levels over the course of a recent week. The study participants were asked, for example, whether they experienced a lack of control over events, felt pressure due to growing difficulties, or disappointment due to unexpected change. Scores over 2.4 points were considered moderate, while those over 3.7 were considered high.

'Stress is a natural human reaction to negative change. We wanted to find out how humans would behave under stress, during the pandemic, whether they would follow recommendations by the WHO and authorities on how to protect oneself and others from COVID-19,' explains Dmitrii Dubrov, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE Centre for Sociocultural Research.

In many EU countries, levels of stress were moderate or even low. Poland and Portugal demonstrated the highest levels of stress in Europe, while the lowest rates were registered in Denmark and the Netherlands. Women worried more about the pandemic's consequences than men. The respondents were 74.18% female and 24.63% male.

The study participants also talked about the reasons of stress. The results showed that Europeans are most of all concerned about the state of the national economy, with the risk of catching COVID-19 and being hospitalized coming in second place. A total of 24 factors were indicated, including concerns about family and friends, work, or feeling isolated.

The respondents were also asked about their trust in the six key institutions, such as the healthcare system, the WHO, the police, social services, and national governments. Europeans demonstrate the highest levels of trust in their national healthcare systems and the WHO. Trust in national governments was lower than in other institutions. Finland and Denmark demonstrated the highest levels of trust in their governments. On the contrary, people in Bulgaria and Poland were much less inclined to trust their respective national governments.

The participants also evaluated the adequacy of anti-COVID measures implemented by their governments. Citizens of Slovenia and Slovakia believed the national measures to be excessive, while people in Hungary and France thought they were insufficient. Populations in countries were people trust their governments' efforts better, also better comply with social distancing guidelines.

'We have learned that COVID-19 denial depends on people's trust in social institutions, a belief that the government won't leave them on their own with their problems. Institutional trust in impacted by many factors, such as the level of corruption in the country. The results of our study can be used to prepare recommendations on how governments should communicate with people in situations of uncertainty. As we discovered here, the problem is global, which means that systematic work with citizen's demands is needed,' Dmitrii Dubrov said.

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Parental burnout hits individualist Western countries hardest

UCLouvain international research

UNIVERSITÉ CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN

Research News

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IMAGE: WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE THE MOST AFFECTED BY THE PHENOMENON OF PARENTAL BURNOUT view more 

CREDIT: ISABELLE ROSKAM

IN BRIEF:

• It's a first: approximately 100 scientists in 42 countries joined forces to learn about the incidence of parental burnout.
• They found that Western countries are the most affected by parental burnout.
• The cause? The often individualistic culture of Western countries. This international study, published in Affective Science, shows how culture, rather than socio-economic factors, plays a predominant role in parental burnout.
• The individualism is more pronounced during health crises.

Does the incidence of parental burnout depend on a country's culture? This question was at the heart of the first international study on the subject for which hundreds of scientists in 42 countries mobilised. In other words, the global scientific community is worried about family stress-induced parental burnout. A high level of stress in the family can lead to parental exhaustion. Such suffering has serious consequences for both parents and children.

'We worked in close collaboration with scientists from all the cultures involved,' UCLouvain researchers and study initiators and coordinators Isabelle Roskam and Moïra Mikolajczak explained in a statement. 'They were the only ones capable of collecting data in their countries, guaranteeing their validity and interpreting them correctly. Such exceptional collaboration deserves to be highlighted.'

The study's findings are categorical: rich, individualistic Western countries, which on average have few children, are the most affected by the phenomenon. Culture, rather than socio-economic and demographic differences between countries, plays a predominant role in parental burnout. 'Prevalence varies greatly from one culture and country to another,' Prof. Roskam explains. 'We could have hypothesised that it would be the same everywhere but that the reasons for exhaustion would be different.' This is not the case.

CAPTION

Western countries are the most affected by the phenomenon of parental burnout

CREDIT

UCLouvain

Published in Affective Science, the study shows that the values of individualism in Western countries can subject parents to higher levels of stress. The results force us to question ourselves in a context where the mantra of "every one for oneself" is spreading all over the world.

'Our individualistic countries cultivate a cult of performance and perfectionism,' says Prof. Roskam, a parental burnout specialist. 'Parenthood in these countries is a very solitary activity, unlike in African countries, for example, where the entire village is involved in raising children.' These poorer countries, which often have many children, are more collectivist. This dimension seems to protect against parental burnout. In addition, Western individualism is exacerbated by the current health crisis: families find themselves isolated and cut off from their social relations.

What measures can be taken to prevent stress in parenting? 'The first would be to revive in our cultures the dimension of sharing and mutual aid among parents within a community,' Prof. Roskam says. 'And abandon the cult of the perfect parent and gain some perspective on all the parenting advice out there in order to choose what works for you.'

Thanks to the study consortium's collective dynamics, their work opens up many avenues for future intercultural investigations. Until now, all studies on parental burnout focused on personal factors. However, parents affected by this syndrome exercise their parenting in a particular cultural context. It is important to take this into account when treating symptoms.

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Women in cities less likely to have children

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA

Research News

 

A new study in Behavioral Ecology, published by Oxford University Press, finds that women are less likely to procreate in urban areas that have a higher percentage of females than males in the population.

Although the majority modern cities have more women than men and thus suffer from lower fertility rates, the effects of female-biased sex ratios - having more women than men in a population - is less studied than male-biased ratios. Researchers here analyzed how female-biased sex ratios are linked to marriages, reproductive histories, dispersal, and the effects of urbanization on society.

The research team from University of Turku, University of Helsinki and Pennsylvania State University used a massive internal migration event that occurred in Finland during WWII, when 10% of Finnish territory was ceded to the Soviet Union and over 400,000 citizens were evacuated. The Finnish government implemented a settlement act to provide land for farmers to replace the territory they lost. Each village in the ceded territory was assigned to a specific location in western Finland to keep communities together, though evacuees were not required to move to their assigned location. Researchers consulted a database of the evacuees, which was compiled of interviews of evacuees between 1968 and 1970. The database entries list the name, sex, date of birth, birthplace, occupation, year of marriage, reproductive records, and the years and names of all places the evacuee lived from birth until the time of the interview.

Researchers followed the annual reproductive and dispersal decisions of 8,296 evacuee women from 1945 to 1955 who were between the ages of 19 and 42 during this time, were unmarried when the war ended in 1945, and whose reproductive status and annual place of residence were known. Researchers measured the sex ratios in the locations these women lived throughout this period and estimated women's probability to start a family or disperse.

The study found that the likelihood of reproducing was strongly influenced by local sex ratio but that this relationship differed between rural and urban environments. While female biased population sex ratio lowered women's probability to reproduce for the first time in urban environments this was not the case in rural areas. However, women did not move into areas with more men, instead they were more likely to relocate to urban areas, despite the sex ratio being strongly female-biased in these locations. The researchers concluded that women probably moved to urban areas for work and education opportunities, but then experienced a competitive market for finding a spouse and thus were less likely to have children than women who lived outside of urban areas. Overall, women were 15% less likely to reproduce in urban areas compared to rural areas. In towns, every percentage of increase of men in the population increased women's probability to have first child by 2.7% whereas in rural areas increase was only 0.4%.

Researchers also noted that while the population they studied is historical, the findings can be applicable to present day urban environments. Women outnumber men in many cities across the developing and developed world, and they may be finding themselves in the same predicament experienced by Finnish women many decades ago.

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What is the probability of ships becoming beset in ice in Arctic waters?

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE POLAR SHIP CATEGORY OF A SHIP HAS A CRUCIAL IMPACT ON THE PROBABILITY OF BESETTING. SHIPS OF A LOWER CATEGORY ARE MOST AT RISK, AND MANY OF THEM BECOME... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO: ARCTIA LTD

Statisticians have calculated the probability of ships of different Polar Ship Categories becoming beset in ice along the Northern Sea Route. Their data will help assess the risks of maritime traffic in the Arctic.

The results of the new study, published recently in the Cold Regions Science and Technology journal, will support safer maritime transport planning and the prevention of oil spills. The results will also benefit authorities that regulate maritime traffic by providing a foundation for statutes and legislation. A comprehensive approach to computing helps shipping companies plan transport routes.

Tankers more common on the Northern Sea Route

The Northern Sea Route is attracting more tankers and cargo ships travelling from Russia and Asia to Europe, and traffic is expected to increase along the route in tandem with global warming (Figure 1).

In the winter, the sea is frozen over, making it inaccessible to ships of a lower Polar Ship Category without the assistance of an icebreaker. Ships can also become beset in ice in the spring and summer, leading to transport delays. At its worst, ice may force a vessel off its course so that it runs aground, with disastrous consequences.

"This is the first time a comprehensive risk assessment of a besetting event was performed using open data only," says Assistant Professor of Statistics Jarno Vanhatalo, head of the Environmental and Ecological Statistics group and director of the Master's Programme in Life Science Informatics at the University of Helsinki.

The researchers used satellite data on ice conditions in Arctic marine areas as well as open data sources on shipping.

"One of the biggest tasks required the merger of open datasets so that analyses could be conducted. This task was performed by Aalto University. The statistical analyses were carried out at the University of Helsinki, using a traditional generalised linear model, to which a Bayesian approach was applied," Vanhatalo explains.

Ice conditions on northern maritime routes

"If we know the ice conditions prevailing in a specific area, which can usually be ascertained from satellite images, we can make a prediction for, say, today and for each point along the Northern Sea Route," states Vanhatalo. The prediction indicates the probability of a ship of a particular type becoming beset in ice in a particular area (Figure 2).

The Polar Ship Category of a ship has a crucial impact on the probability of besetting. Ships of a lower category are most at risk, and many of them become beset in ice each year.

The researchers also analysed the effect of ice concentration on the probability of besetting. Ice concentration indicates the share of the sea covered by ice. In the winter, ice concentration is 100%, whereas in the spring and summer it varies from 0% to 100%, which means that the marine area is a mosaic of ice floes and open water.

The probability of a ship becoming beset in ice increases the longer the distance it travels in ice-covered waters and also increases significantly with higher ice concentrations. There are also considerable differences between ships of different Polar Ship Categories. For the best vessels, i.e., Category A ships, the probability of besetting on a journey of 3,000 nautical miles (NM) in 90%-100% ice concentration is just 0.04. Correspondingly, the probability for Category B ships is 7.5 times higher, or 0.3, whereas the probability for Category C ships is 22.5 times higher, or 0.9.

The newly published study is part of an international long-term research project funded by the Lloyd's Register Foundation and aimed at improving maritime safety. Launched in 2003, the project will conclude at the end of 2021. Participants in the CEARCTIC and CEPOLAR projects, headed by Aalto University, include not only the University of Helsinki, but also the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, and the Hamburg University of Technology in Germany.

The University of Helsinki researchers have been responsible for assessing the impact of a potential oil spill on the Arctic environment and biotic communities. Previous publications have focused on species of organisms in the Kara Sea and the effects of an oil spill in the area. [link: https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/environmental-and-ecological-statistics/oil-spill-risk-analysis-in-the-arctic]

Although the research project is coming to a close, before the end of this year it will publish more statistical analyses of uncertainties associated with the modelling.

"Due to the limited measurement data available from Arctic marine areas, there are major uncertainties concerning shipping, living organisms and the behaviour of oil. Another major uncertainty relates to the natural stochasticity of highly unstable environmental conditions," Vanhatalo adds.

Another article currently being written explores the relative significances of factors affecting the overall risk as well as how risk analyses should be carried out and how the conclusions drawn differ depending on what is examined. Does the examination focus solely on the accident risk of vessels or also on the risk they pose to marine biotic communities? The results depend on whether both are examined separately or at the same time.

Other upcoming publications include summarising reports on the project as a whole and recommendations based on the research conducted

CAPTION

Figure 1. Development of shipping on the Northern Sea Route, 2013-2017, as indicated in the research data, distributed by Polar Ship Category (A = highest, C = lowest) as well as by distance travelled in open water and in ice.

CREDIT

Jari vanhatalo et al.

CAPTION

Figure 2. Probability of Category A ships becoming beset in ice on five shipping routes in the Kara Sea during different seasons. The figures indicate the probability of besetting when travelling a distance of five kilometres.

CREDIT

Credit: Vanhatalo et al. 2021

Reference:

Probability of a ship becoming beset in ice along the Northern Sea Route - A Bayesian analysis of real-life data. Jarno Vanhatalo, Juri Huuhtanen, Martin Bergström, Inari Helle, Jussi Mäkinen, Pentti Kujala https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2021.103238

Cold regions science and technology, Volume 184, April 2021, 103238

Further information:

https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/environmental-and-ecological-statistics

https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/environmental-and-ecological-statistics/oil-spill-risk-analysis-in-the-arctic

Assistant Professor Jarno Vanhatalo, University of Helsinki
Email: jarno.vanhatalo@helsinki.fi
Phone: +358 503175494
https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/people/people-finder/jarno-vanhatalo-9118861