Greasing the wheels of the energy transition to address climate change and fossil fuels phase out

University of South Australia

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The global energy system may be faced with an inescapable trade-off between urgently addressing climate change versus avoiding an energy shortfall, according to a new energy scenario tool developed by University of South Australia researchers and published in the open access journal Energies.

The Global Renewable Energy and Sectoral Electrification model, dubbed ‘GREaSE’, has been developed by UniSA Associate Professor James Hopeward with three civil engineering graduates.

‘In essence, it’s an exploratory tool, designed to be simple and easy for anyone to use, to test what-if scenarios that aren’t covered by conventional energy and climate models,’ Assoc Prof Hopeward says.

Three Honours students – Shannon O’Connor, Richard Davis and Peter Akiki – started working on the model in 2023, hoping to answer a critical gap in the energy and climate debate.

‘When we hear about climate change, we’re typically presented with two opposing scenario archetypes,’ Assoc Prof Hopeward says.

“On the one hand, there are scenarios of unchecked growth in fossil fuels, leading to climate disaster, while on the other hand there are utopian scenarios of renewable energy abundance.”

The students posed the question: what if the more likely reality is somewhere in between the two extremes? And if it is, what might we be missing in terms of risks to people and the planet?

After graduating, the team continued to work with Assoc Prof Hopeward to develop and refine the model, culminating in the publication of ‘GREaSE’ in Energies.

Using the model, the researchers have simulated a range of plausible future scenarios including rapid curtailment of fossil fuels, high and low per-capita demand, and different scenarios of electrification.

According to Richard Davis, “a striking similarity across scenarios is the inevitable transition to renewable energy – whether it’s proactive to address carbon emissions, or reactive because fossil fuels start running short.”

But achieving the rapid cuts necessary to meet the 1.5°C targets set out in the Paris Agreement presents a serious challenge.

As Ms O’Connor points out, “even with today’s rapid expansion of renewable energy, the modelling suggests it can’t expand fast enough to fill the gap left by the phase-out of fossil fuels, creating a 20 to 30-year gap between demand and supply.

“By 2050 or so, we could potentially expect renewable supply to catch up, meaning future demand could largely be met by renewables, but while we’re building that new system, we might need to rebalance our expectations around how much energy we’re going to have to power our economies.”

The modelling does not show that emissions targets should be abandoned in favour of scaling up fossil fuels. The researchers say this would “push the transition a few more years down the road”.

Assoc Prof Hopeward says it is also unlikely that nuclear power could fill the gap, due to its small global potential.

“Even if the world’s recoverable uranium resources were much larger, it would scale up even more slowly than renewables like solar and wind,” he says.

“We have to face facts: our long-term energy future is dominated by renewables. We could transition now and take the hit in terms of energy supply, or we could transition later, once we’ve burned the last of the fossil fuel. We would still have to deal with essentially the same transformation, just in the midst of potentially catastrophic climate change.

“It’s a bit like being told by your doctor to eat healthier and start exercising. You’ve got the choice to avoid making the tough changes now, and just take your chances with surviving the heart attack later, or you get on with what you know you need to do. We would argue that we really need to put our global energy consumption on a diet, ASAP.”

The researchers have designed the model to be simple, free and open source, in the hope that it sparks a wider conversation around energy and climate futures.

 

Full paper details:

Hopeward, J., Davis, R., O'Connor, S. and Akiki, P. (2025) The Global Renewable Energy and Sectoral Electrification (GREaSE) Model for Rapid Energy Transition Scenarios, Energies 18(9). https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/9/2205  

 

 

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Journal

Energies

DOI

10.3390/en18092205 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Article Title

The Global Renewable Energy and Sectoral Electrification (GREaSE) Model for Rapid Energy Transition Scenarios

Article Publication Date

26-Apr-2025

 

Deepfakes now come with a realistic heartbeat, making them harder to unmask

Deepfakes could soon be able to evade a detection technique that monitors a person’s on-screen for a pulse

Frontiers

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Imagine a world where deepfakes have become so good that no detection mechanism can unmask them as imposters. This would be a bonanza for criminals and malignant state actors: for example, these might use deepfakes to slander rival political candidates or frame inconvenient defenders of human rights.

This nightmare scenario isn’t real yet, but for years, methods for creating deepfakes have been locked in a ‘technological arms race’ against detection algorithms. And now, scientists have shown that deepfakes have gained a significant advantage: the lack of a pulse no longer gives them away.

“Here we show for the first time that recent high-quality deepfake videos can feature a realistic heartbeat and minute changes in the color of the face, which makes them much harder to detect," said Dr Peter Eisert, a professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the corresponding author of a new study in Frontiers in Imaging.

Deepfake creators use deep learning to manipulate videos and audio files. They alter facial expressions and gestures, for example swapping these between different people. Their purpose isn’t necessarily malign: for example, apps that can turn you into a cat or digitally age you are immensely popular and harmless fun.

The analysis of the transmission of light through the skin and underlying blood vessels has long been indispensable in medicine, for example in pulse oximeters. Its digital cousin, so-called remote photoplethysmography (rPPP), is an emerging method in telehealthcare, which uses webcams to estimate vital signs. But rPPP can, in theory, also be used in deepfake detectors.

In recent years, such experimental rPPP-based deepfake detectors have proven good at distinguishing between real and deepfaked videos. These successes led some experts to judge that current deepfakes couldn’t yet mimic a realistic heart rate. But now, it appears that this complacent view is outdated.

Fake it till you make it

Eisert and colleagues first coded a state-of-the-art deepfake detector which automatically extracts and analyzes the pulse rate from videos. It uses novel methods to compensate for movement and remove noise, and needs an input video of the face of a single person of just 10 seconds to work.

The authors also created their own dataset of driving videos, used to create deepfakes of different target identities with the facial motion of the captured videos. During filming, an ECG tracked the heartbeat of the protagonists, which then allowed the researchers to confirm that rPPP measurements made by their new detector were highly accurate. There was a difference of only two to three beats per minute between estimates and the true pulse rate. For good measure, the authors also let their detector loose on two older, widely used collections of videos of real persons. Here, too, they were able to extract heartbeat signals from all genuine videos.

But what would happen if they used the same detector to analyze known deepfakes?

To test this, Eisert and colleagues used recent deepfake methods to swap faces between genuine videos in their collection. To their surprise, their detector perceived a pulse in the deepfakes as well – even though they hadn’t consciously put one in. This nonexistent pulse typically appeared highly realistic.

Taking heart

“Our results show that a realistic heartbeat may be added by an attacker on purpose, but can also be ‘inherited’ inadvertently from the driving genuine video. Small variations in skin tone of the real person get transferred to the deepfake together with facial motion, so that the original pulse is replicated in the fake video,” said Eisert.

Fortunately, there is reason for optimism, concluded the authors. Deepfake detectors might catch up with deepfakes again if they were to focus on local blood flow within the face, rather than on the global pulse rate.

“Our experiments have shown that current deepfakes may show a realistic heartbeat, but do not show physiologically realistic variations in blood flow across space and time within the face,” said Eisert.

“We suggest that this weakness of state-of-the-art deepfakes should be exploited by the next generation of deep fake detectors.”

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Journal

Frontiers in Imaging

DOI

10.3389/fimag.2025.1504551 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

High-quality deepfakes have a heart!

Article Publication Date

30-Apr-2025

 

Sugar signalling applications could boost wheat yields by up to 12%

University of Oxford

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image: 

Applying the T6P biostimuant at a field trial at Rothamsted. Credit: Rothamsted Research.

view more 

Credit: Rothamsted Research.

Long term field study confirms effectiveness of new technology

Oxford & Harpenden, UK. 29 April 2025. Enhancing wheat plants’ sugar signalling ability could deliver increased yields of up to 12%, according to researchers from Rothamsted, Oxford University and the Rosalind Franklin Institute in a study published today in the journal Nature Biotechnology. That is an order of magnitude greater than annual yield increases currently being achieved through breeding.  

The effect was achieved by applying a Trehalose 6-phosphate (T6P) pre-signalling molecule to the plants. T6P is a signalling molecule that regulates the plant equivalent of “blood sugar.”  It is a major regulator of metabolism, growth and development including activating the pathway for the synthesis of starch, the world’s most significant food carbohydrate.

The link was discovered during research started at Rothamsted in 2006. Now a four year-long field study using plots at CIMMYT, Mexico and INTA, Argentina has confirmed that the new technology could deliver major yield improvements.

Wheat has complex genetics and targeting genetic bottlenecks in germplasm makes improvement through breeding far from straightforward. A chemical application of T6P acts as a switch for starch biosynthesis in grain, which forms the basis of wheat yields. This in turn this stimulates photosynthesis in the flag leaf, due to greater demand for carbon building blocks for grain filling.

Experiments in controlled environments looked promising, but this new study shows the application can deliver in field conditions. Not only did T6P increase wheat yields in each of the 4 years in the trials in Argentina and in an additional year at CIMMYT in Mexico, but it did so irrespective of rainfall, the major uncontrolled abiotic factor that limits crop yields globally.

It may even be possible to reduce fertiliser applications as T6P treatment activates genes for amino acid and protein synthesis in grain as well as the pathway for starch synthesis. This is important because a major issue in new higher-yielding wheat varieties is dilution of protein content requiring increased fertiliser to maintain quality for bread making.

“The path from discovery to translation has taken 25 years,” says Rothamsted’s Dr Matthew Paul who led the research with Professor Ben Davis at The Rosalind Franklin Institute and Oxford University. “Such timeframes are not untypical in blue-skies plant research, but we do hope new technologies, such as AI and faster analytical techniques, can accelerate this process. We will need many more innovations like this to create sustainable and resilient agriculture in the coming decades. I am so grateful to my excellent people, co-workers and teams and for grants from UKRI-BBSRC which made this work possible. Getting this far has been hard work but extremely rewarding”.

Rothamsted and Oxford have created SugaROx, a spinout company, to deliver this research to farmers. Dr Cara Griffiths, lead author of the research paper and CEO of SugaROx, said, “It’s exciting to be able to take cutting-edge technology from the bench to the field. Getting this kind of impact is often difficult to translate to the field, and this work demonstrated that novel crop inputs have huge promise to enhance yield and resilience in our cropping systems, something that is particularly important in a rapidly changing climate”.

“This work provides an excellent example of a case where direct selective manipulation of key molecular structures, rather than genetics or gene editing, inside a living system is a game changer," said Professor Davis. "It has been very inspiring to design and discover this new class of ‘drug for plants’ together.”

NOTES FOR EDITORS

Contacts for interviews and queries:

Rothamsted Research: James Clarke james.clarke@rothamsted.ac.uk, Mob: 07964 832719

Oxford University: Caroline Wood caroline.wood@admin.ox.ac.uk

Rosalind Franklin Institute: Caitlin Higgot  Caitlin.Higgott@rfi.ac.uk

The study ‘Membrane-permeable trehalose 6-phosphate precursor spray increases wheat yields in field trials’ will be published in Nature Biotechnology at 10:00 BST / 05:00 ET Tuesday 29 April at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02611-1.

Professor Ben Davis leads the Molecular Perturbations Challenge at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, which aims to be able to use chemistry to engineer biology by modifying specific functional biomolecules in specific locations inside living organisms. This research could have additional real-world applications for human health in the creation of new diagnostics and therapeutics. 

Rothamsted Research is the longest-running agricultural research institute in the world with a proud history of ground-breaking discoveries. Our founders, in 1843, were the pioneers of modern agriculture and, through independent science and innovation, we continue to make significant contributions to improving the sustainability of agri-food systems in the UK and internationally. Our strength lies in our gene to field approach, which combines science and strategic research, interdisciplinary teams and partnerships. Rothamsted is also home to three unique resources, open to researchers from all over the world: The Long-Term Experiments, Rothamsted Insect Survey and the North Wyke Farm Platform. We are strategically funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), with additional support from other national and international funding streams, and from industry. We are also supported by the Lawes Agricultural Trust (LAT).  https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk  @Rothamsted

About the University of Oxford

Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the ninth year running, and ​number 3 in the QS World Rankings 2024. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer.

Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.

Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 300 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past five years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing £15.7 billion to the UK economy in 2018/19, and supports more than 28,000 full time jobs.

The Rosalind Franklin Institute

The Rosalind Franklin Institute is a technology institute for life science, creating innovative technologies that transform our understanding of life. Our technologies, borne out of innovation in physical sciences, create collaborations and new avenues in life science which will lead to new therapeutics and advance our understanding of human biology.

The Franklin is an independent organisation funded through the UK Research and Innovation’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Follow us on LinkedIn or bluesky @RosFrankInst or find out more at www.rfi.ac.uk.

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Journal

Nature Biotechnology

DOI

10.1038/s41587-025-02611-1 

Article Title

Membrane-permeable trehalose 6-phosphate precursor spray increases wheat yields in field trials

Article Publication Date

29-Apr-2025

Dr Cara Giffiths inpsects a T6P crop trial at Rothamsted. Credit: Rothamsted Research.




Wheat and sorghum treated with T6P precursor showing effects on yield. Credit: Rothamsted Research.


Dr Cara Griffiths and Dr Matthew Paul. Credit: Rothamsted Research.

 

Study suggests dance and lullabies aren’t universal human behaviors

University of California - Davis

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Social singing and dance are often assumed to be hard-wired into the human condition; studies have supported the conclusion that these are common across cultures. But new research from a University of California, Davis, anthropologist challenges the idea that dance and lullabies are universal among humans. The study, published April 29 in Current Biology, draws on 43 years of research with the Northern Aché, an Indigenous population in Paraguay.

“Aside from church singing introduced by missionaries, Northern Aché adults sing alone and in a limited number of contexts,” said study author Manvir Singh, an assistant professor of anthropology at UC Davis. “As far as we can tell, anthropologists have never observed dancing or infant-directed song among the Northern Aché.”

The research — stemming from detailed and longstanding ethnographic fieldwork by anthropologist, Arizona State University (ASU) professor and study second author Kim Hill — helps clarify the separate roles biology and cultural transmission play in producing and sustaining dance and lullabies in human societies.

“Dance and infant-related song are widely considered universal, a view that has been supported by cross-cultural research, including my own,” said Singh. “And this conclusion, in turn, informs evolutionary theorizing about music’s origins.”

The research supports the idea that dance and lullabies are learned behaviors that don’t arise spontaneously. Individuals must invent, tweak and culturally transmit them.

An extensive ethnographic record

Between 1977 and 2020, Hill, an associate director at the Institute of Human Origins at ASU,  spent more than 120 months living among Northern Aché communities. He thoroughly documented various aspects of Aché life and behavior, including their relationship to music.

Hill recorded that singing among the Northern Aché was limited and a solo pursuit, performed by one individual rather than with a group. Men, who sing more than women, sing songs primarily about hunting but sometimes sing about current events and social conflict. Women sing primarily about dead loved ones. Northern Aché children sometimes mimic adult songs.

Over this time, Hill and other researchers witnessed neither infant-directed song nor dancing among the Northern Aché community.

“It’s not that the Northern Aché don’t have any need for lullabies,” Singh said. “Aché parents still calm fussy infants. They use playful speech, funny faces, smiling and giggling. Given that lullabies have been shown to soothe infants, Aché parents would presumably find them useful.”

Singh’s previous ethnomusicological research suggested that practices like dance and lullabies were universal human behaviors. Eventually, Hill contacted Singh and his co-authors and notified them that the Northern Aché appeared to be an exception.

“I found his observations totally fascinating and hugely important and urged him to publish them,” Singh said. “He wasn’t sure how to report them, so we ended up writing the manuscript together.”

A lost practice

According to the researchers, evidence suggests that the Northern Aché lost dance and infant-related song — along with other cultural practices such as shamanism, horticulture and the ability to make fire — during periods when their population dropped significantly.

But it’s also possible that the practices were lost when the Northern Aché were settled on reservations. During that time, other traditional behaviors disappeared, including puberty ceremonies and hunting magic.

The researchers note that dance and lullabies may have been introduced to the Northern Aché in the years following the conclusion of Hill’s fieldwork in 2020, which coincided with the growing presence of Paraguayan missionaries.

The research supports the idea that infant-directed song and dance aren’t inherent human behaviors, like smiling. Rather, they’re more like fire-making, a behavior that must be invented and learned.

“This doesn’t refute the possibility that humans have genetically evolved adaptations for dancing and responding to lullabies,” Singh said. “It does mean, however, that cultural transmission matters much more for maintaining those behaviors than many researchers, including myself, have suspected.”

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Journal

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2025.04.018 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Loss of dance and infant-directed song among the Northern Aché

Article Publication Date

29-Apr-2025

 

Poll: Many Americans say they will lose trust in public health recommendations under federal leadership changes

Despite stark divisions over leadership changes and concerns about political influence, several health priorities have bipartisan support

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

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Key points:

• More than four in ten U.S. adults (44%) say changes in federal leadership will make them lose trust in public health agencies’ recommendations, compared with just 28% who say they will gain trust in such recommendations. Results are divided along partisan lines, with most Democrats saying they will lose trust (76%) and a majority of Republicans saying they will gain trust (57%).

• The public is divided on whether they believe the CDC will be able to function better (48%) or worse (52%) in the next four years than in recent years. Most Republicans (80%) believe the CDC will function better, while most Democrats (83%) believe it will function worse. 

• Despite these divisions, multiple health issues have strong bipartisan support as priorities for the next four years, including preventing chronic disease, protecting against pandemics, and reducing maternal and infant mortality.  

Boston, MA—One hundred days into the new federal administration, a new poll reports that major segments of the U.S. public anticipate they will lose trust in public health recommendations with the changes in health agency leadership. The poll, conducted among a national sample of U.S. adults, found that 44% of the public says having the new leaders in charge of federal public health agencies will make them trust health recommendations coming from these organizations less than they used to (including 14% who say “a little less” and 30% who say “a lot less”). A significantly smaller share (28%) say changes will make them trust recommendations more (including 18% who say “a little more” and just 10% who say “a lot more”).

The poll, A View from 100 Days: Public Expectations about the Changing Public Health Landscape, was conducted by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation from March 10 to March 31, 2025, among a probability-based, nationally representative sample of 3,343 U.S. adults ages 18+. The poll was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the de Beaumont Foundation.

Fault lines in the future of trust

Trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has remained relatively stable in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most U.S. adults (77%) say they have a great deal (38%) or some (39%) trust in the health recommendations of the CDC. However, when thinking about the next four years, a relatively small share (28%) say they will gain trust, while more than four in ten (44%) say the new leaders of federal public health agencies will make them trust health recommendations less than they used to. Approximately a quarter (27%) say they will trust health recommendations about the same as they used to.

Results are divided along partisan lines, with most Democrats saying they will lose trust (76%), including more than half saying they will lose “a lot” of trust (56%). A majority of Republicans say they will gain trust (57%), but fewer than one quarter say they will gain “a lot” of trust (23%). 

Divided views on the future of public health agencies

The poll also found divisions on whether the public believes the CDC will be able to function generally better (48%) or worse (52%) in the next four years than it has functioned in recent years. Most Republicans (80%) believe the CDC will function better, while most Democrats (83%) believe it will function worse. 

Overall, most adults who believe the CDC will function worse over the next four years say they are very concerned the agency will make health recommendations that are influenced by politics (76%), scale back or cut programs too much (75%), downplay important health problems, like infectious disease outbreaks (72%), and reduce public access to important health information, like about vaccines (70%). Majorities are also very concerned that the CDC will make health recommendations influenced by corporations and big businesses (68%), make health recommendations based on unproven or fringe science (63%), pay less attention to the health gaps between wealthy and poor people (64%), and pay less attention to health gaps between people who are white and people in racial minority groups (61%). 

By contrast, among those who believe the CDC will function better over the next four years, only one-third or fewer say they are very confident it will fulfill promises like reducing financial waste (33%), making health recommendations based on good research that has been ignored by prior leaders (28%), focusing more on the primary health problems facing people in the U.S., like chronic illnesses (27%), and improving the health of people across the U.S. (26%). Even smaller fractions are very confident that the CDC will reduce the influence of politics (21%) and corporations (20%) on their health recommendations, and reduce unnecessary involvement in people’s personal health decisions (19%).  

“New fault lines are emerging in trust for public health agencies,” said survey lead Gillian SteelFisher, director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program and principal research scientist at Harvard Chan School. “More people are very concerned than very hopeful about what agencies will be able to do in the next few years and more anticipate losing a lot of trust rather than gaining it. This suggests that if leaders want to grow trust, the American people will need to see more effort to sustain public health capacity than what they’ve seen so far.” 

Several bipartisan health priorities

Despite public divisions on the future of agencies in the next four years, the poll also found that there is bipartisan support about several issues for public health agencies to prioritize. Majorities of Democrats and Republicans say these public health issues should be top priority for the CDC and their state and local health departments in the next four years. Top priorities for the CDC include: 

• Preventing chronic diseases (Republicans 86%, Democrats 91%)
• Protecting against new viruses that could become pandemics (Republicans 75%, Democrats 92%)
• Reducing maternal and infant mortality (Republicans 81%, Democrats 86%)
• Ensuring the safety of tap water (Republicans 81%, Democrats 85%)
• Addressing mental illness (Republicans 74%, Democrats 82%)
• Addressing opioid and other substance addiction (Republicans 73%, Democrats 79%)
• Promoting healthier food and nutrition (Republicans 77%, Democrats 67%)
• Protecting people from common health risks like foodborne illness or heat stroke (Republicans 56%, Democrats 64%)

“Americans are more united than divided about the health issues they want the administration to prioritize,” said Brian C. Castrucci, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation. “These findings are a call to action to fund what works, fix what doesn’t, and find ways to work together to address these shared concerns.”

Methodology

Results are based on survey research conducted by the Harvard Opinion Research Program (HORP) based at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in partnership with the de Beaumont Foundation. The research was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the de Beaumont Foundation. Representatives from these organizations developed the survey questionnaire, while analyses were conducted by researchers from Harvard Chan School and the fielding team at SSRS of Glen Mills, Pennsylvania.  

The HORP project team included Gillian SteelFisher, director of HORP and principal research scientist at Harvard Chan School, and Mary Findling, managing director of HORP.

The de Beaumont Foundation project team included Brian C. Castrucci, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, Emma Prus, senior program and research associate, Mark Miller, vice president of communications, and Nalini Padmanabhan, communications director. 

Interviews were conducted with a representative sample of 3,343 U.S. adults ages 18 and older. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish online and by telephone. Respondents were reached online and by phone through the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative, probability-based panel. Panelists were randomly recruited via an Address Based Sampling frame and from random-digit dial samples on SSRS surveys. Most panelists completed the survey online with a small subset who do not access the internet completing by phone. The interview period was March 10 to 31, 2025. 

Findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the de Beaumont Foundation, RWJF, or Harvard Chan School. When interpreting findings, one should recognize that all surveys are subject to sampling error. Results may differ from what would be obtained if the whole U.S. adult population had been interviewed. The margins of error at the 95% confidence interval are +2.0 percentage points for the entire sample (n=3343), +3.1 for Republicans, including adults who lean Republican (n=1376), and +3.0 for Democrats, including adults who lean Democrat (n=1496).

Possible sources of non-sampling error include non-response bias, as well as question wording and ordering effects. Non-response in web and telephone surveys produces some known biases in survey-derived estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population. To compensate for these known biases and for variations in the probability of selection within and across households, sample data are weighted in a multi-step process by probability of selection and recruitment, response rates by survey type, and demographic variables (gender, age, education, race/ethnicity, region, the frequency of internet use, civic engagement, population density, registered voter, party ID, religious affiliation, number of adults in household, and home tenure) to reflect the true population of adults in the U.S. Other techniques, including random sampling, multiple contact attempts, replicate subsamples, and systematic respondent selection within households, are used to ensure that the sample is representative.

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Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is a community of innovative scientists, practitioners, educators, and students dedicated to improving health and advancing equity so all people can thrive. We research the many factors influencing health and collaborate widely to translate those insights into policies, programs, and practices that prevent disease and promote well-being for people around the world. We also educate thousands of public health leaders a year through our degree programs, postdoctoral training, fellowships, and continuing education courses. Founded in 1913 as America’s first professional training program in public health, the School continues to have an extraordinary impact in fields ranging from infectious disease to environmental justice to health systems and beyond.

The de Beaumont Foundation creates and invests in bold solutions that improve the health of communities across the country. Its mission is to advance policy, build partnerships, and strengthen public health to create communities where everyone can achieve their best possible health. For more information, visit www.debeaumont.org.

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Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

A View from 100 Days: Public Expectations about the Changing Public Health Landscape

Article Publication Date

29-Apr-2025

Disclaimer: AAAS