POST MODERN ALCHEMY

Novel glass materials made from organic and inorganic components

Researchers from Jena and Cambridge develop glass materials with novel combinations of properties

FRIEDRICH-SCHILLER-UNIVERSITAET JENA

Research News

 

IMAGE: DR COURTNEY CALAHOO FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF JENA PRESENTS ORGANIC GLASS (L.) AND INORGANIC GLASS (R.) - TWO STARTING MATERIALS FOR THE NEW COMPOSITE GLASS. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE: JENS MEYER/UNIVERSITY OF JENA

Cambridge/Jena (16.11.2020) Linkages between organic and inorganic materials are a common phenomenon in nature, e.g., in the construction of bones and skeletal structures. They often enable combinations of properties that could not be achieved with just one type of material. In technological material development, however, these so-called hybrid materials still represent a major challenge today.

A new class of hybrid glass materials

Researchers from the Universities of Jena (Germany) and Cambridge (GB) have now succeeded in creating a new class of hybrid glass materials that combine organic and inorganic components. To do this, the scientists use special material combinations in which chemical bonds between organometallic and inorganic glasses can be generated. They included materials composed of organometallic networks - so-called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) - which have recently been experiencing rapidly increasing research interest. This is primarily because their framework structures can be created in a targeted manner, from the length scale of individual molecules up to a few nanometers. This achieves a control of porosity which can be adapted to a large number of applications, both in terms of the size of the pores and their permeability, and in terms of the chemical properties prevailing on the pore surfaces. For example, separating membranes or storage devices for gases and liquids, supports for catalysts or new types of components for electrical energy storage devices can be designed.

"The chemical design of MOF materials follows a modular principle, according to which inorganic nodes are connected to one another via organic molecules to form a three-dimensional network. This results in an almost infinite variety of possible structures. A few of these structures can be converted into a glassy state by heat treatment. While crystalline MOF materials are typically synthesized in powder form, the liquid and glass states open up a wide range of processing options and potential shapes", explains Louis Longley from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Best of both worlds combined

"The combination of such MOF-derived glasses with classic inorganic glass materials could make it possible to combine the best of both worlds," says Courtney Calahoo, a senior scientist at the Chair of Glass Chemistry at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. For example, composite glasses of this kind could lead to significantly improved mechanical properties by combining the impact and fracture toughness of plastics with the high hardness and rigidity of inorganic glasses. The decisive factor in ensuring that the materials involved are not simply mixed with one another is the creation of a contact area within which chemical bonds can form between the organometallic network and conventional glass. "Only in this way can really new properties be obtained, for example in electrical conductivity or mechanical resistance," explains Lothar Wondraczek, Professor of Glass Chemistry in Jena.

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Peel-off coating keeps desalination cleaner and greener

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KAUST)

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE REMOVABLE POLYELECTROLYTE COATING PREVENTS BIOFOULING ON DESALINATION MEMBRANES AND AVOIDS THE NEED FOR HARMFUL CHEMICALS TO CLEAN SEAWATER DESALINATION SYSTEMS. view more 

CREDIT: © 2020 KAUST; XAVIER PITA

A removable coating that can be used to clean desalination membranes has been developed by KAUST researchers. The nontoxic coating could provide a safer and more efficient alternative to harmful chemicals used to clean reverse osmosis systems for seawater desalination.

The reverse osmosis desalination process uses pressure to filter seawater through a semipermeable membrane to produce fresh drinking water. While the technique is more energy efficient than other desalination approaches, its performance can be hindered by the growth of bacteria and other microorganisms on the membrane surface.

"This biofilm creates a layer that does not allow water to pass as easily," says Maria Fernanda Nava-Ocampo, a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Johannes Vrouwenvelder. "One of the biggest problems of all the current methods to control biofouling is that they do not completely remove the biofilm from the membrane system, resulting in permanent fouling. This causes elevated energy consumption and disposal of control chemicals into the sea."

While other coatings are often made from harmful chemicals, the new polyelectrolyte coating avoids the need for toxic linkers to attach to the membrane. It can also be safely flushed out of the system with brine and increased flow, leaving the membrane surface clear of biofilm.

"The advantage of our coating is that it attaches to the surface by electrostatic interactions, so we don't have to use chemicals," says Nava-Ocampo. "We also don't have to pretreat the membrane in order to coat it. The membrane stays in the system and we just pass the coating through the same current flow used for desalination."

The team tested the coating they created using a membrane fouling simulator, a small device that mimics the conditions in reverse osmosis desalination plants. They circulated the coating through the system five times to establish layers on the surface of the membrane and added biodegradable nutrients to encourage the growth of biofilm.

After eight days, the researchers flushed the system with a strong flow of high-saline solution for 24 hours to remove the coating. The team compared the performance of the coated membrane with a noncoated control.

Using transmission electron microscopy, the researchers found that the coating remained stable in salty water, making it suitable for seawater desalination. By increasing the strength of the water flow and water salinity, the team was able to successfully remove the coating and the attached biofilm from the membrane.

After this cleaning process, the flow of liquid through the coated membrane was two-fold higher than the noncoated control.

"This showed that our technique has better cleaning potential," says Nava-Ocampo. "The next step is making it more efficient and durable at larger scales."

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A sweeping climate model of the Red Sea

KING ABDULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KAUST)

Research News

 

IMAGE: KAUST RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A CLIMATE MODEL TO PREDICT FUTURE CHANGES THAT WILL AFFECT THE RED SEA. view more 

CREDIT: © 2020 MORGAN BENNETT SMITH

Projections of atmospheric and oceanic processes in the Red Sea are informing the design of sustainable megacities being planned and built along its shores.

The Red Sea is a vital natural and economic resource both for the region and the world. Rapid population and industrial growth along the coast, along with the rising threats of global warming, have highlighted the need to build sustainable cities and maintain a healthy marine ecosystem. Saudi Arabia generates nearly one-fifth of its income from tourism, shipping, agriculture and fishing in the Red Sea, and gets 90 percent of its freshwater from desalinated seawater. These industries all rely upon atmospheric and oceanic conditions, which form part of a complex climate system about which very little was previously known.

An international team led by Ibrahim Hoteit, Professor of Earth Sciences and Engineering at KAUST, has combined expertise in weather, oceans, waves, air pollution, marine ecosystems and data visualization to create an all-in-one climate modeling system for the Red Sea region, using satellite and surface observations to refine the output. "By building expertise in a region instead of a discipline, we can understand circulation, ecosystems and climate in the Red Sea like never before," says Hoteit.

The system, which was built on a supercomputer at KAUST, has generated the first high-resolution oceanic and atmospheric analyses of the region for the past 40 years, which revealed how natural processes in the Red Sea connect with the earth's climate. "We were surprised to see the Indian monsoon's role in seasonally reversing the overturning circulation in the Red Sea," says Hoteit. "It has helped explain unusual summer chlorophyll blooms in the southern Red Sea."

The modeling system can predict numerous processes, including ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, marine ecosystem behavior, the spread of air pollution and the potential path of an oil spill. This is already providing essential information to academia, government and industry in Saudi Arabia, supporting research into Red Sea biodiversity hotspots, environmental policymaking, renewable energy projects and flood protection. For example, their reconstruction of extreme wave heights along the shoreline guided the design of the sea wall that will protect the newly built King Abdullah Economic City.

Hoteit's team continue to enhance the system's performance and expand its capabilities, with a particular focus on forecasting at the seasonal timescale and high spatial resolution simulations of urban environments. "We want to turn this into an easy-to-use, online visualization tool to support local authorities and industry in solving environmental problems in the region," he says.

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Orbits of ancient stars prompt rethink on Milky Way evolution

Australian telescopes and European satellite combine to reveal unexpected motions among the Galaxy's rarest objects

ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR ALL SKY ASTROPHYSICS IN 3D (ASTRO 3D)

Research News

 

IMAGE: REPRESENTATION OF THE ORBIT OF THE STAR 232121.57-160505.4 IN THE GALACTOCENTRIC CARTESIAN FRAME, COLOUR CODED ACCORDING TO THE TIME. THE WHITE DOT REPRESENTS THE CURRENT POSITION OF THE STAR. THE... view more 

CREDIT: CORDONI ET AL

Theories on how the Milky Way formed are set to be rewritten following discoveries about the behaviour of some of its oldest stars.

An investigation into the orbits of the Galaxy's metal-poor stars - assumed to be among the most ancient in existence - has found that some of them travel in previously unpredicted patterns.

"Metal-poor stars - containing less than one-thousandth the amount of iron found in the Sun - are some of the rarest objects in the galaxy," said Professor Gary Da Costa from Australia's ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) and the Australian National University.

"We've studied 475 of them and found that about 11 per cent orbit in the almost flat plane that is the Milky Way's disc.

"They follow an almost circular path - very much like the Sun. That was unexpected, so astronomers are going to have to rethink some of our basic ideas."

Previous studies had shown that metal-poor stars were almost exclusively confined to the Galaxy's halo and bulge, but this study revealed a significant number orbiting the disk itself.

The Sun also orbits within the disk, which is why it manifests as the comparatively thin, ribbon-like structure easily visible from Earth in the night sky. In effect, we are seeing it edge-on.

"In the last year our view of the Milky Way has dramatically changed," said lead author Giacomo Cordoni from the University of Padova in Italy, who performed the bulk of the study while on a recent study placement at the ANU, funded by the European Research Council's GALFOR Project.

"This discovery is not consistent with the previous Galaxy formation scenario and adds a new piece to the puzzle that is the Milky Way. Their orbits are very much like that of the Sun, even though they contain just a tiny fraction of its iron. Understanding why they move in the way that they do will likely prompt a significant reassessment of how the Milky Way developed over many billions of years."

The ancient stars were identified using three very high-tech pieces of kit: ANU's SkyMapper and 2.3-metre telescopes, and the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite.

The low metal content was identified by the telescopes, and the satellite was then used to determine their orbits.

The results - crunched by researchers from Australia, Italy, Sweden, the United States and Germany - found that the orbits of ancient stars fell into a number of different patterns, all but one of which matched previous predictions and observations.

As expected, many of the stars had largely spherical orbits, clustering around the Galaxy's "stellar halo" - a structure thought to be at least 10 billion years old.

Others had uneven and "wobbly" paths assumed to be the result of two cataclysmic collisions with smaller galaxies that occurred in the distant past - creating structures known as the Gaia Sausage and the Gaia Sequoia.

Some stars were orbiting retrograde - effectively going the wrong way around the Galaxy - and a few, about five per cent, appeared to be in the process of leaving the Milky Way altogether.

And then there were the remaining 50 or so, with orbits that aligned with the Galaxy's disk.

"I think this work is full of important and new results, but if I had to choose one that would be the discovery of this population of extremely metal-poor disk stars," said Cordoni.

"Future scenarios for the formation of our Galaxy will have to account for this finding - which will change our ideas quite dramatically."

Cordoni's team included scientists from Italy's Centre of Studies and Activities for Space, the Max Planck Institutes for Astrophysics and Astronomy in Germany, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, Sweden's Uppsala and Stockholm universities, and Australia's Monash University, University of New South Wales and ANU.

The team included Australia's Brian Schmidt, winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

An advance version of the study is now available in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Recent climate extremes have driven unprecedented changes in the deep ocean

 

New measurements reveal a surprising increase in the amount of dense water sinking near Antarctica, following 50 years of decline.

Dense water formed near Antarctica, known as Antarctic Bottom Water, supplies oxygen to the deep ocean. Bottom water also forms part of the global network of ocean currents that influences climate by storing heat and carbon dioxide in the ocean. Changes in bottom water formation can therefore impact global climate and deep ocean ecosystems.

The study, led by Dr Alessandro Silvano from the University of Southampton and CSIRO and published in the journal Nature Geoscience, documents an increase in the supply of bottom water to the deep Indian and Pacific Oceans. "Over the past 50 years of oceanographic campaigns we have seen a reduction in the amount of dense water reaching the deep ocean' Dr Silvano said. "This trend was mysteriously interrupted in 2018."

The research found that unusual wind patterns near Antarctica changed ocean currents in the Ross Sea where bottom water is formed. The changes in wind and currents increased the amount of ocean cooling and freezing. The extra cooling and freezing, in turn, increased the density of water that sinks into the deep ocean, producing additional dense bottom water.

"We found that an unusual combination of two climate phenomena drove the renewal of bottom water formation: an extreme El Niño event occurring at the same time as stronger and southward-shifted westerly winds," said Dr Silvano. "These results show how remote forcing can influence Antarctic processes and climate."

Co-author Annie Foppert, from the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and CSIRO's Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research, said, "Evidence suggests the gradual decline in bottom water formation over the past five decades probably resulted from increased melt of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The surprising rebound in recent years shows how extreme climate events can temporarily reverse long-term trends in Antarctic climate."

"In the future, we expect the accelerating melt of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to reduce the formation of bottom water" said Dr Silvano. "But climate extremes like those that drove the recent rebound in bottom water formation are also projected to become more common if greenhouse gas emission by human activities continue at current rates."

"Further work is needed to understand how these competing factors will affect bottom water formation in a warming climate."

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The international study involved scientists from Australia (CSIRO, the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research, the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership), U.K. (University of Southampton and British Antarctic Survey), Italy (Parthenope University), Japan (National Institute of Polar Research and the University of Tokyo) and the U.S.A. (Princeton University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).

Measles outbreaks likely in wake of COVID-19 pandemic

MURDOCH CHILDRENS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Research News

 

Major measles outbreaks will likely occur during 2021 as an unexpected consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new academic article.

The Lancet article has called for urgent international action to prevent potentially devastating measles epidemics in the coming years.

Lead author Professor Kim Mulholland, from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Chair of the World Health Organization's SAGE Working Group on measles and rubella vaccines, said that many children have missed out on measles vaccination this year, making future measles outbreaks inevitable.

Professor Mulholland said while 2020 had been a quiet year for measles, in part due to travel reductions and national COVID-19 control measures, the economic impacts would lead to many cases of childhood malnutrition.

Malnutrition worsens the severity of measles, leading to poorer outcomes and more deaths, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

"Children who die from measles are often malnourished, but acute measles pushes many surviving children into malnutrition," he said. "Malnutrition, along with measles-associated immune suppression, leads to delayed mortality, while co-existing vitamin A deficiency can also lead to measles-associated blindness.

"The coming months are likely to see increasing numbers of unimmunised children who are susceptible to measles. Many live in poor, remote communities where health systems are less resilient, and malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency are already increasing."

Professor Mulholland said the COVID-19 pandemic had also had a profound effect on the control of vaccine preventable diseases, with vaccination campaigns paused in the early months of 2020 and routine immunisation services greatly disrupted in many countries.

The WHO estimates that by the end of October, 2020, delayed vaccination campaigns in 26 countries have led to 94 million children missing scheduled measles vaccine doses.

"All these factors create the environment for severe measles outbreaks in 2021, accompanied by increased death rates and the serious consequences of measles that were common decades ago," Professor Mulholland said.

"This is despite the fact that we have a highly cost effective way to prevent this disease through measles vaccination."

In 2019, before the pandemic started, the world experienced a dramatic return of measles, more than at any time in the past 20 years. WHO data indicates that there were 9.8 million measles cases and 207,000 deaths in 2019, 50 per cent more than in 2016.

Most measles deaths in 2019 have been in Africa, many associated with major outbreaks in Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Measles also re-emerged in South America, especially among Indigenous communities.

"The inadequate vaccination that led to the 2019 measles outbreaks has still not been adequately addressed, and the situation is now exacerbated by service disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic so that high-risk, unimmunised children are clustered together in unreached communities," Professor Mulholland said.

The article has identified three pillars for immediate action:

• Help countries reach unimmunised children through catch-up immunisation and campaigns
• Better prepare countries for expected outbreaks. WHO and partners have developed a Strategic Response Plan to assist with measles outbreak prevention, preparedness and response
• Maintain measles and rubella elimination targets. WHO's new Measles Rubella Strategic Framework 2021?2030, aligned with the Immunization Agenda 2030 provides a plan for strengthening routine immunisation and surveillance.

Professor Mulholland said the solutions would help end the cycle of inadequate immunisation and outbreaks of the past decade.

"Without concerted efforts now, it is likely that the coming years will see an increase in measles and its severe, frequently fatal, complications," he said.

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Publication: Kim Mulholland, Katrina Kretsinger, Liya Wondwossen and Natasha Crowcroft. 'Action needed now to prevent further increases in measles and measles deaths in the coming years,' The Lancet. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32394-1

Available for interview:

Professor Kim Mulholland, MCRI New Vaccines Group Leader

 CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Corporate fraud may lead to neighborhood financial crimes

Spillover effects may include more local robberies, theft

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - After a major corporate fraud case hits a city, financially motivated neighborhood crimes like robbery and theft increase in the area, a new study suggests.

Researchers from The Ohio State University and Indiana University found that the revelation of corporate accounting misconduct is linked to about a 2.3 percent increase in local financially motivated crimes in the following year.

Corporate fraud had the strongest effect on local crimes in smaller cities with fewer job opportunities and higher income inequality.

The researchers confirmed the finding using several different methods and showed the link applied only to financial crimes and not violent offenses like murder or rape.

"Our results suggest that big corporate fraud scandals can have community implications well beyond the firm itself," said Eric Holzman, co-author of the study and assistant professor of accounting at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business.

"The effect is strongest in smaller cities where the economic impact of the fraud is most severe."

Holzman conducted the study with Brian Miller and Brian Williams at Indiana University. It was published yesterday (Nov. 14, 2020) in the journal Contemporary Accounting Research.

The researchers analyzed FBI data on 255 cases of corporate accounting misconduct between 1996 and 2013. They then examined crime rates in the cities where the firms were headquartered.

The 2.3 percent increase in financially motivated crimes was found even after accounting for a variety of other factors, including local unemployment rates at the time of the fraud, poverty rates, and crime rates before the accounting fraud was revealed. The link between the accounting fraud and local crime lasted about three years before it faded.

The findings were strongest when the fraud was associated with a larger drop in the company's stock price and when it received more media attention.

Several of the results suggest crime increased the most in cities where the fraud had the biggest economic impact on the community.

For example, larger impacts occurred when the corporation had to lay off a higher number of employees, when it occurred in smaller cities with fewer job opportunities, and where there were larger income gaps between the rich and poor.

These results didn't surprise Holzman, who spent nine years as a forensic accountant in Washington, D.C., investigating corporate fraud cases.

"I would go to some of these smaller towns and you could see the economic devastation that happened when the big local employer got involved in accounting misconduct and had to close or lay off a lot of employees," he said.

The researchers did several other analyses to confirm their findings. In one, they matched 88 of the cities where fraud occurred to similar cities where there was no corporate malfeasance. They found no similar increases in financially motivated crimes in the cities that had not experienced fraud.

In another analysis, they looked at what would happen if they imagined corporate fraud scandals happening at random times in random cities. Would they still find many cities experiencing increases in financially related crimes the following year?

After running this scenario 10,000 times, they found increases in crime similar to their real findings only 1.7 percent of the time - suggesting their results were unlikely to be random chance.

While the findings are intriguing, Holzman cautioned against drawing too firm a conclusion about why this is happening.

"It doesn't necessarily mean that people who lose their jobs are turning to a life of crime, or that they see this fraud and think it is now OK to steal. It may be something else, like an increase in teen delinquency due to added stress at home linked to the adverse economic conditions brought by the fraud," he said.

"We found a strong association in our study using multiple research designs, but we need different kinds of studies to determine a causal mechanism."

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Center for Justice Research Police Reform Action Brief: Ban chokeholds

CENTER FOR JUSTICE RESEARCH AT TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: A CHOKEHOLD BAN WILL HELP MOVE THIS COUNTRY FURTHER TOWARD THE ELIMINATION OF RACIALLY-MOTIVATED POLICE VIOLENCE AND THE LONGSTANDING TENSIONS/DISTRUST BETWEEN MINORITY COMMUNITIES AND THE POLICE. view more 

CREDIT: CENTER FOR JUSTICE RESEARCH

November 16, 2020 - The Center for Justice Research (CJR) at Texas Southern University supports innovative, data-driven solutions for the creation of an equitable criminal justice system. CJR is the premier criminal justice research center located on the campus of a historically Black college or university. Our researchers offer an important voice at this crucial time. A Police Reform Action Brief released today focuses on the chokehold crisis. This is the first in a series of action briefs on police reform that will assist in the reimagination of policing.

Key Observation: National standards are necessary to ensure protection against excessive use of force, including chokeholds. However, states and local jurisdictions cannot wait on Congress to implement reforms that protect their citizens and hold police accountable. Police reform will require support at all levels of government.

The first in the series, Reimagination of Policing Action Brief: Banning Chokeholds, highlights the extensive history of police officer use of chokeholds and similar tactics that often result in unconsciousness, and even death. The May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has shaken the nation's conscience. Americans are demanding change. The brief's authors, the Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern University, provides support for a zero-tolerance approach to police chokeholds. A chokehold ban will help move this country further toward the elimination of racially-motivated police violence and the longstanding tensions/distrust between minority communities and the police.

George Floyd's murder was egregious but not unique. Many police agencies hold the position that they don't train officers to use chokeholds, but they are continuously used by officers to regain compliance. In fact, when a New York City police officer applied a chokehold that ultimately killed Eric Garner in 2014, they had already been banned some 21 years earlier. In Minneapolis, it is estimated that between 2015 and 2020, some form of a neck restraint was administered 237 times by police officers, with almost 20% of them resulting in unconsciousness.

The Justice Act, put forth by Senator Tim Scott, seeks to discourage chokeholds by way of withholding federal funds to those departments that continue their use or refuse to provide accurate data on their department's use. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, passed by the U.S. House, sets federal standards that prohibit the use of deadly force --including chokeholds -- by federal officers except as a last resort to prevent imminent and serious bodily injury following de-escalation techniques. If passed, officers who use chokeholds will be subject to prosecution under federal statute.

The brief concludes with comprehensive recommendations for key stakeholders, at all levels, to consider in the advancement of police reform in their respective jurisdictions.

Find out more here: Reimagination of Policing Action Brief: Banning Chokeholds

Director Dr. Howard Henderson and other criminal justice reform experts at Texas Southern University's Center for Justice Research are available to discuss how they can advise on evidence-supported, police reform policies and practices on the local, state and national levels - concrete steps that law enforcement can take to bridge the racial divide. They can be reached at justice.research@tsu.edu or 713-313-6843.

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ABOUT THE CENTER FOR JUSTICE RESEARCH

The Center for Justice Research is committed to creating justice reform-oriented solutions for the reduction of mass incarceration by connecting and applying academic thought to practical challenges. As a university-level research center, the Center for Justice Research provides a culturally responsive approach to mass incarceration and to criminal justice reform. Our targeted research advances data-driven solutions by supporting innovation, collecting committed reformers, compelling policy arguments and engendering broad consensus amongst community stakeholders.

Pharmacy dropboxes can help improve proper drug disposal, PSU study finds

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Proper disposal of leftover medications can prevent overdoses and protect waterways from becoming polluted by pharmaceuticals. Drug take-back boxes are a safe and secure way to dispose of unwanted medications, but a new Portland State University study shows awareness of these dropboxes as well as knowledge about risks of improper disposal remain low.

Amy Ehrhart, a doctoral student in PSU's Earth, Environment and Society program and the study's lead author, said the findings suggest efforts to reduce improper disposal should focus on legislation that mandates dropboxes at pharmacies and pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to fund proper disposal of unused drugs.

Federal legislation in 2014 allowed retail pharmacies to establish dropboxes within stores to collect leftover medications year round. The drugs are then collected and typically incinerated or disposed of as hazardous waste, which is the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended approach. Flushing medications down the toilet and throwing them in the trash are discouraged because they pollute groundwater, rivers and oceans.

The study examined customer disposal behavior, pharmacist recommendations and attitudes regarding disposal of leftover drugs, and proper disposal implementation challenges.

Among the study's findings:

• Over a third of customers in the sample store their unused medications at home, and the most common disposal methods reported were throwing them in the trash (27.5%), flushing (15.8%) and using a dropbox (8.3%).
• The presence of a dropbox at a pharmacy was associated with greater customer awareness of proper drug disposal and safer pharmacist recommendations to customers.

"The focus group brought up that consumer education wouldn't be successful until we have more dropbox availability," Ehrhart said. "From their anecdotal experience, those dropboxes fill up quickly and then can't be used until they are emptied."

The focus group also pointed to cost as a major hindrance to dropbox adoption, with participants heavily emphasizing that the pharmaceutical industry should be responsible for fronting the costs.

In 2019, Oregon joined five other states in approving a new law that requires drug manufacturers to pay for and run a statewide drug take-back program. The program is expected to be operational by July 2021. At the request of those pushing for the legislation, data collected from this and other PSU studies about the environmental effects of pharmaceutical pollution was shared with law and policymakers.

"Legislation that requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to pay for disposal or at least provide some kind of funding to have options for disposal is really important," Ehrhart said.

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The study was funded by PSU's Institute for Sustainable Solutions. Co-authors include Elise Granek and Max Nielsen-Pincus, professors of Environmental Science and Management; and Dorothy Horn, another doctoral student.

Minorities benefit less from regionalizing heart attack care

Gap in response times, outcomes, grows for Blacks, Hispanics in California

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

Research News 

California's Black and Hispanic communities may be falling further behind whites in the quality of care they receive for heart attacks, despite recent medical efforts aimed at improving the standards of care for these populations, according to a new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco.

In response to ongoing health disparities, emergency management services nationwide have implemented protocols to better coordinate care and get patients directly to hospitals that are equipped and staffed to quickly unblock coronary arteries and restore blood circulation to the heart.

Under the new guidelines, which were encouraged by the American Heart Association, California now is organized to deliver treatment to severe heart attack patients through 33 regional emergency response systems for the state's 58 counties. However, the study has found that patients living in minority communities received less benefit from these protocols than patients in non-minority communities.

"Regionalization was an attempt to equalize access to the gold standard of care for severe heart attack patients, but our research shows that inequalities have been exacerbated, not alleviated," said Renee Hsia, MD, MSc, professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UCSF and lead author of the study, which was published November 16, 2020, in JAMA Network Open.

The standard of care for a heart attack with complete coronary artery blockage is angioplasty, or "percutaneous coronary intervention" (PCI). A long thin tube called a catheter is threaded through an artery leading from the groin toward the heart, guiding instrumentation used to re-open the artery.

Studies have shown that faster reopening of the artery, especially if it occurs within 90 minutes of seeking care for a heart attack, offers better survival odds, but not every hospital is equipped with a cardiac catheterization lab and staffed at all hours with interventional cardiologists and other trained personnel.

Aside from the established link between speed and survival, previous studies of the regionalized system have failed to detect a mortality benefit at the population level, Hsia said. By further breaking down their analysis by minority and non-minority zip codes and using California vital statistics data, Hsia and colleagues found that one group did have greater survival after regionalization -- whites living in non-minority communities. There were no mortality benefits for whites living in minority communities, or for Blacks or Hispanics in either non-minority or minority communities.

With regionalization, access to PCI-capable hospitals improved 6.3 percent for all patients in non-minority communities, but only 4.5 percent for patients in minority communities, the study found. Same-day PCI increased by 5.1 percent for patients in non-minority communities, but only by 1.7 percent for individuals in minority communities; receipt of PCI any time during hospitalization increased by 5.0 percent for patients in non-minority communities, but only by 0.7 percent for those in minority communities.

The JAMA Network Open study compared changes over time in outcomes during the study period beginning in 2006, when only eight California counties were regionalized for heart attack care, to 2015, when all counties were participating. The researchers analyzed data from139,494 patients who suffered the most severe type of heart attack, as determined by a distinctive electrocardiogram signal. Minority communities were defined as the top third of ZIP codes with the highest percentages of Black and Hispanic residents.

Previous studies have shown that advances in heart attack care have improved care between white and minority patients receiving care within a single hospital, according to Hsia. However, the new study findings, focused on communities rather than on individual hospitals, raise the question as to whether Blacks and Hispanics, depending on their neighborhoods, are more likely to be directed to hospitals where patients do not receive optimal care, even with the new guidelines.

"Given that both emergency care in general and PCI specifically are less available in underserved communities, PCI hospitals in minority communities could already be burdened by a high volume of patients as the result of regionalization, and less able to provide guideline-directed care," according to the study.

In addition, other studies have shown that minority populations use ambulances less often due to concerns about costs and insurance, and individuals who are not taken to hospital by ambulance may not benefit from the newer guidelines as much, Hsia said. The study was not designed to measure ambulance use over time.

"Medical advances do not necessarily benefit all groups equally, and the structure of our health care system may affect how benefits accrue," Hsia said.

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Harlan Krumholz, MD, a professor in the Department of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, and Yu-Chu Shen, PhD, Professor of Economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., are study co-authors.

Funding:
The study was funded by grants R01HL114822 and R01HL134182 from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

About UCSF:
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. Learn more at ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

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