Supportive housing offers high-impact, cost-effective response to homelessness and opioid use

Stanford University

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Homelessness and opioid use disorder are two widespread public health problems in the United States. Providing housing and supportive services, without requiring drug treatment, is a surprisingly cost-effective approach to helping unhoused people with opioid use disorder, Stanford researchers found in a new study in JAMA Network Open. 

Worsened by the increasing prevalence of dangerous substances like fentanyl, overdoses are the leading cause of death among unhoused people. “If you’re living on the streets, you’re not going to be successfully treated for your opioid use disorder or for your other health conditions,” said senior author Margaret Brandeau, the Coleman F. Fung professor of engineering in the School of Engineering and a professor of health policy, by courtesy, in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studiesand the Stanford School of Medicine. Building on that fact, she wanted to study the impact of providing housing for this population.

Brandeau and her then-graduate student Isabelle Rao, now an assistant professor in industrial engineering at the University of Toronto, focused on the “housing first” approach in their study. This is one of the two general schools of thought in providing housing for people with substance use problems. The other, called “treatment first,” requires that individuals seek treatment before receiving housing. But that policy has faced challenges, said Brandeau. “It’s really, really hard for people on the street to get into treatment and to stay in treatment,” she said. “The treatment-first approach has not been particularly helpful in many populations.” 

Simulating supportive housing 

To study the impacts of a “housing first” intervention, Rao and Brandeau built a mathematical model simulating the treatment and health outcomes for 1,000 unhoused people with opioid use disorder. In the “status quo” model output, these individuals remained unhoused. In the “housing first” output, the same people were given housing, health care, and supportive services, with no requirement for sobriety or treatment. 

From previous research, the researchers already had a model of opioid treatment that reflected the dynamic process of recovery, complete with ups and downs as people go in and out of treatment. They built on that treatment model, adding in additional equations that estimated the health outcomes and treatment trajectory for unhoused people. 

Rao and Brandeau derived these equations from the research literature. Studies have found that people with stable housing are more likely to enter treatment for opioid use and have a higher likelihood of successful treatment. So, in the “housing first” model output, people were assigned a higher probability of recovery. 

The researchers also wanted to quantify the costs and benefits of the housing intervention compared to the status quo. Their analysis considered the costs of housing, supportive services such as a case worker, health care, and drug treatment. 

A cost-effective solution 

With all the variables inputted, Rao and Brandeau ran the model 25,000 times to capture a wide range of outcomes. The simulation found that, over five years, an average of 191 out of the 1,000 unhoused people with opioid use disorder died in the status quo scenario. In the supportive housing intervention, 140 people died over the same time period. 

The researchers also used the model to analyze lifetime outcomes for the 1,000 simulated individuals. First, they found out how many years people lived. Then they multiplied those years by a quality-of-life value between 0 and 1, where 1 means a person is in perfect health and 0 means they are dead. By multiplying the years they lived by the quality-of-life value, they calculated quality-adjusted life years. 

Compared to the status quo, the housing first intervention added 3.59 quality-adjusted life years. Essentially, that’s like giving each person an extra three and a half healthy years, on average. 

How much would these extra years cost? Adding up housing, treatment, and health care costs, the researchers found that the housing intervention would cost $96,000 per person over their lifetime. They divided this number by the quality-adjusted life years gained (3.59) to determine the increased cost for each of those years gained over the status quo: $26,200. 

In other words, each healthy year gained would cost those paying the bill an average of $26,200. By health economics standards, that extra cost is a great value for the health benefits it provides, said Brandeau. “These programs are highly cost-effective,” she said. “You’re investing money wisely to help improve outcomes for these marginalized individuals.” 

“Housed people have a higher likelihood of getting into treatment, which means that they have a higher likelihood of becoming abstinent, and that is going to save costs on the health care system,” said Rao. “You also save a bunch of lives, first from having fewer people who are addicted, and then also because people who are homeless have a much higher mortality rate.” Rao added that the model didn’t include the criminal justice costs associated with homelessness, which would have made the housing intervention even more cost-effective.

The researchers are planning to work with Santa Clara County officials to inform policies around homelessness. Rao is also planning to conduct outreach in Toronto, where homelessness and opioid use are also challenges. 

Brandeau adds that this research demonstrates how engineering know-how can be applied to solving societal problems. Sophisticated modelling is not just for designing efficient engines and sturdy structures. “Engineers are always trying to make things better,” she said. “We really want our work to make a difference. And homelessness is a significant humanitarian crisis in our country.”

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For more information

Funding for the research came from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.17103 

Article Title

Modeling Health and Economic Outcomes of Providing Stable Housing to Homeless Adults With OUD

Article Publication Date

27-Jun-2025

 

Environmental science is worth £3.3 billion to UK offshore wind

UK Public investment in environmental science has helped power the rise of the UK’s offshore wind energy sector, while protecting marine species and habitats.

UK Research and Innovation

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Public investment in environmental science has helped power the rise of the UK’s offshore wind energy sector, while protecting marine species and habitats.

Offshore wind is an engine of growth for coastal regions and a key growth sector in the government’s industrial strategy.

As of the end of 2024 the UK had 45 operational offshore wind farms. These farms provide 17% of total UK electricity and support 32,000 jobs across the UK, predicted to grow to 100,000 by 2030.

23-fold return

A new study has found that long-term Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funding delivered through our research centres has been an important factor in the development of the UK’s offshore wind industry.

It has delivered £3.3 billion in economic value (range: £1 billion to £5.5 billion) via research, data and modelling that is used by all of the sector’s main players. This represents a 23-fold return on NERC’s investment since 2000.

The study estimates that a further £3.6 billion in economic value could be attributed to the NERC funding in future (range: £1 billion to £6.1 billion). This is based on projected offshore wind farm development over the next 25 years.

Beyond economic gains, the investment also helps safeguard the UK’s £211 billion marine natural capital and supports national goals around growth, energy security and biodiversity.

Who benefits?

NERC’s investment delivers economic and environmental benefits to:

government departments: enhanced evidence base that informs policy, regulation and allocation of lease areas developers: reduced costs, delays and risks in securing consent, design, construction and operation investors: de-risking investment decisions statutory nature conservation bodies: enhanced evidence base for environmental impact assessment and identifying mitigation actions local communities: job creation, infrastructure investment UK public: enhanced energy security, lower carbon emissions, improved biodiversity protection Who was involved?

The study found that five NERC-funded research centres have become central to the offshore wind farm development process:

British Geological Survey: detailed mapping and understanding of seabed geology National Oceanography Centre: ocean and tidal models Plymouth Marine Laboratory: ocean front mapping from satellite data Sea Mammal Research Unit: long term seal data and models UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology: long term seabird data and models The study was commissioned by NERC and undertaken by Human Economics and Howell Marine Consulting.

Supporting future growth

NERC continues to work with partners to provide insights to support the sustainable expansion of the UK’s offshore wind industry.

Recent investments include:

ecological consequences of offshore wind (ECOWind), a £9 million research programme joint with The Crown Estate, Crown Estate Scotland and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs ecological effects of floating offshore wind (ECOFLOW), a £7 million research programme joint with The Crown Estate

The full report can be found here: https://www.ukri.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/NERC-230625-AssessingImpactNERCResearchFundingDevelopmentUKOffshoreWind-FinalSummaryReport.pdf

 

Brown University researchers discover how people gossip without getting caught

Researchers at the Carney Institute for Brain Science spill the tea about the complicated mental computations that allow people to gossip successfully.

Brown University

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image: 

In this graph of a social network created by Brown University Ph.D. student Alice Xia, the red dot represents the target of gossip, the green dot is the person who is sharing gossip, and the black lines represent how that piece of gossip can spread to multiple people at once.

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Credit: Alice Xia/Brown University

By Gretchen Schrafft, Science Communications Specialist, Robert J. & Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Cognitive neuroscientists at Brown University investigated one of humanity’s favorite pastimes and discovered how people can spread gossip without the subject of that gossip finding out — at least not right away.

In a study supported by a federal grant from the National Science Foundation, the researchers found that gossiping relies on a person’s ability to perform complex computational processes each time they decide to spread information, and that most people do this instinctively. 

The researchers defined gossiping as talking about third parties who are not present. They found that people tend to gossip less with those who are friends with the subject of the gossip — especially if the subject is considered popular — and gossip the most with those who are popular yet distantly connected to the subject. 

Their findings were published in Nature Human Behaviour.

“We draw on two important factors when calculating who to share a morsel of gossip with: how popular the person is and how distantly connected they are to whoever the gossip is about,” said study author Oriel FeldmanHall, an associate professor of cognitive and psychological sciences at Brown University who is affiliated with the Carney Institute for Brain Science. “This winning algorithm enables us to share information widely without the subject knowing that we’re talking about them.”

The power of these computations is evident in recent social phenomena, according to study author Alice Xia, a Ph.D. student in cognitive science at Brown. While humans rely on these calculations to predict where their gossip may end up, Xia said, the technology underpinning social media platforms likely capitalizes on similar computations to maximize user engagement.

“Social media platforms use functionally similar algorithms to predict sharing behavior based on information like number of likes or follower counts, which signal a user’s influence and potential ability to amplify content across the network,” Xia said. “This is essentially how we get viral content.”

Mapping the spread of gossip

The human ability to make these calculations hinges on a mental process called cognitive mapping. In a paper published in 2024, FeldmanHall and Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences (Research) Apoorva Bhandari established that humans replay memories of daily social interactions while sleeping to build a mental map of their social network. Even though people do not consciously recognize the relationship of every person in their social network to every other person, FeldmanHall said the maps they unconsciously create serve as reliable guides for whom to spread gossip to, whom not spread gossip to and how gossip will travel.

In the new study, FeldmanHall and Bhandari taught participants about a fictional nine-person network. Then they gave participants a target of gossip and asked them to determine how likely they were to share that gossip with others in the network. 

The initial results showed that participants were using social distance and popularity — measured by the number of direct friends a person had — to predict how information would spread.

Next, the researchers tested their theory on approximately 200 first-year Brown University students living in campus residence halls. 

The researchers mapped this social network by asking all of the study participants about their friendships. Then they asked a subset of 100 participants to judge the likelihood that someone in their network would hear news shared by someone else. Even in such an intricate social network comprising tens of thousands of possible connections, the researchers found that people were able to successfully use social distance and popularity to predict where gossip would flow.

Drawing on this data, the researchers teamed up with Matt Nassar, an assistant professor of neuroscience affiliated with the Carney Institute, to create a computational model of how a person’s brain simulates and predicts the movement of gossip through their social network.

“The brain compresses what a person observed — Mary getting coffee with James, then James hanging out with Adam, for example — into a simplified map of the network, which allows the person to make educated guesses about who will hear what, even when those people are several steps removed from each other,” Xia said.

According to FeldmanHall, the new study findings throw cold water on common conceptions of gossip as mere idle chatter.

“The fact that our brains invest this much mental math in keeping our gossip out of the wrong hands is testament to the power of gossip and the sophistication of the human brain,” FeldmanHall said. 

This study was funded by the National Science Foundation (2123469).

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Journal

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-025-02241-2 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Knowledge of information cascades through social networks facilitates strategic gossip

Article Publication Date

1-Jul-2025

 

U.S. preschoolers exposed to broad range of potentially harmful chemicals

Findings concern researchers because early childhood is a critical period for brain and body development

University of California - Davis Health

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(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A national study published in Environmental Science & Technology finds children aged 2 to 4 years in the United States are routinely exposed to a broad range of potentially harmful chemicals. Many of the chemicals the researchers identified are not routinely monitored and may pose health risks.

The research was conducted by multiple institutions across the United States in coordination with the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), a program supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The researchers analyzed urine samples from 201 children aged 2 to 4 years. They tested for 111 chemicals. Their study found:

• 96 chemicals were detected in at least five children.
• 48 chemicals were found in over half of the children.
• 34 chemicals were detected in more than 90% of children — including nine chemicals not currently tracked in national health surveys like the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

“Our study shows that childhood exposure to potentially harmful chemicals is widespread. This is alarming because we know early childhood is a critical window for brain and body development,” said Deborah H. Bennett, lead author and UC Davis professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. “Many of these chemicals are known or suspected to interfere with hormones, brain development and immune function.”

Children exposed to chemicals through everyday activities

The NIH-funded ECHO Cohort combines data from pregnancy and pediatric cohorts to examine the impacts of early environmental exposures on child health and development. This study looked at samples of 201 children from four states (California, Georgia, New York and Washington).

The researchers looked for childhood exposure to common environmental chemicals, including:

• Phthalates and phthalate alternatives used in plastics like toys and food packaging, as well as personal care products and household items.
• Parabens commonly used in cosmetics, lotions, shampoos and pharmaceuticals.
• Bisphenols found in plastic containers, food can linings and thermal paper receipts.
• Benzophenones found in sunscreens, cosmetics and plastics.
• Pesticides used in agricultural and residential pest control.
• Organophosphate esters (OPEs) used as flame retardants in furniture and building materials and as plasticizers in food packaging.
• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), byproducts of combustion found in vehicle exhaust, grilled foods and tobacco smoke.
• Bactericides found in antibacterial soaps and personal care products.

Children are exposed to these environmental chemicals through everyday activities, such as eating, drinking, breathing indoor and outdoor air and touching contaminated surfaces.

Frequent hand-to-mouth contact, playing close to the ground, and higher intake rates relative to their smaller body weight make kids especially vulnerable to chemical exposure.

Trends and disparities

In addition to the widespread exposure, the researchers noted some trends.

• Levels of triclosan, parabens, PAHs and most phthalates decreased over the years the samples were collected (from 2010 to 2021).
• An alternative plasticizer, DINCH (di-iso-nonyl-cyclohexane-1,2-dicarboxylic acid), and emerging pesticides, such as the neonicotinoid acetamiprid, pyrethroid pesticides, and the herbicide 2,4-D, showed an upward trend.
• Firstborn children had significantly lower chemical levels than their younger siblings.
• Chemical levels were often higher in younger children (age 2) than in 3- or 4-year-olds.
• Children from racial and ethnic minority groups had higher levels of parabens, several phthalates and PAHs.

Most of the children’s mothers had provided urine samples during pregnancy. This allowed the researchers to analyze the chemicals in the mother’s urine with the chemicals in the children’s urine.

They found the children had higher levels of several chemicals than their mothers did during pregnancy. These included two phthalates, bisphenol S (often used as a BPA replacement) and the pesticide biomarkers 3-PBA and trans-DCCA.

Need for more monitoring and regulation

The researchers emphasize that further studies are necessary to comprehend the long-term health implications of these chemicals.

“Exposure to certain chemicals in early childhood — such as pesticides, plasticizers and flame retardants — has been linked to developmental delays, hormone disruption and other long-term health issues,” said Jiwon Oh, first author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences. “This new study highlights the urgent need for expanded biomonitoring and stronger regulations to protect children from harmful exposures.”

A complete list of authors and funders appears in the paper.

How to limit chemical exposure

It is impossible to eliminate all chemical exposures. Yet, there are many simple steps parents can take to help reduce their children’s contact with harmful chemicals.

1. Choose safer products: Look for “phthalate-free,” “paraben-free” and “fragrance-free” labels.
2. Avoid plastics labeled #3, #6, and #7: These may contain BPA or similar chemicals.
3. Wash hands frequently, especially before eating.
4. Ventilate your home and use HEPA filters, when possible.
5. Limit pesticide exposure: Wash produce thoroughly and consider organic options.
6. Clean regularly: Use a damp cloth to reduce dust that may contain chemical residues.

Resources

• Read the study
• Residents in San Joaquin Valley breathe chemical pesticides, according to new study
• Exposure to flame retardants linked to premature birth, higher birth weight
• How much is the dust in your home affecting your child?

 

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Journal

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.4c13605 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Exposures to Contemporary and Emerging Chemicals among Children Aged 2 to 4 Years in the United States Environmental Influences on the Child Health Outcome (ECHO) Cohort Click to copy a

Article Publication Date

30-Jun-2025

COI Statement

The authors declare the following competing financial interest(s): RJS consults for Beasley Law, Inc. RJS has received travel support to present at the 35th Annual Meeting of the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS). RJS and DHB consult for Linus Biotechnology, Inc. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

 

Pair of malaria parasite proteins could lead to targeted therapies

UC Riverside-led team identifies essential gene regulators in deadly malaria parasite

University of California - Riverside

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- A University of California, Riverside-led team has made an advance in the basic understanding of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for the deadliest form of human malaria, that could make novel, highly targeted anti-malarial therapies possible.

Led by Karine Le Roch, a professor of molecular, cell and systems biology, the team identified two key proteins inside the “apicoplast” — a unique, parasite-specific organelle found in P. falciparum — that control gene expression. These proteins belong to the RAP (RNA-binding domain Abundant in Apicomplexans) family of proteins. Far more numerous in parasites than in humans, RAP proteins play critical roles in regulating RNA molecules and translating them into proteins inside parasite organelles.

Using advanced genetic tools, the team created knockdown strains of P. falciparum to selectively deactivate the two RAP proteins, PfRAP03 and PfRAP08. The team found the loss of either protein led to parasite death, confirming their essential roles.

The researchers also discovered that PfRAP03 and PfRAP08 specifically bind to ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules, respectively. These non-coding RNAs are fundamental to protein synthesis within the apicoplast.

“This is the first time anyone has shown how RAP proteins in the apicoplast directly interact with rRNA and tRNA,” said Le Roch, who directs the UCR Center for Infectious Disease Vector Research. “We’ve now shown mechanistically how these proteins regulate translation in an organelle that’s completely foreign to the human body.”

Le Roch explained that humans have six RAP proteins, but parasites like Plasmodium have more than 20. 

“This evolutionary expansion suggests that RAP proteins may perform parasite-specific functions, making them exciting drug targets,” she said.

The study, published in Cell Reports, builds on the team’s previous research on RAP proteins in parasite mitochondria and represents the first detailed mechanistic analysis of their function in the apicoplast. 

Unlike any structure found in human cells, the apicoplast is unique to apicomplexan parasites — a large group of single-celled organisms that includes Plasmodium, Toxoplasma gondii, and Babesia. This uniqueness makes it an ideal target for therapies that can eliminate the parasite without harming the human host.

“While the focus of our paper is malaria, the implications extend to other apicomplexan diseases like toxoplasmosis — dangerous especially to pregnant women — and babesiosis, a growing tick-borne threat in the United States,” Le Roch said. “This work exposes vulnerabilities across an entire class of parasites, revealing the molecular machinery these parasites rely on. If we can take it apart, we can stop these diseases before they take hold.”

Though no drugs currently target RAP proteins, Le Roch’s lab is working toward solving the 3D structure of these RNA-protein complexes, a crucial step toward structure-guided drug design.

“Our research is a step toward future therapeutic strategies,” Le Roch said. “By targeting essential, parasite-specific proteins that have no human counterparts, we can develop drugs that are both effective and have minimal side effects.”

Le Roch was joined in the study by first author Thomas Hollin, Zeinab Chahine, Steven Abel, Todd Lenz, Jacques Prudhomme, Caitlyn Marie Ybanez, and Anahita S. Abbaszadeh of UCR; Charles Banks and Laurence Florens of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, Missouri; and Charisse Flerida A. Pasaje and Jacquin C. Niles of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health and UCR. 

The research paper is titled “RAP proteins regulate apicoplast noncoding RNA processing in Plasmodium falciparum.”

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.

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Journal

Cell Reports

DOI

10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115928 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

RAP proteins regulate apicoplast noncoding RNA processing in Plasmodium falciparum

Article Publication Date

22-Jul-2025