When 天美影视传媒 President Ana Mari Cauce launched the Population Health Initiative in 2016, she spoke in soaring, ambitious terms. 鈥淲e have an unprecedented opportunity to help people live longer, healthier, more productive lives 鈥� here and around the world,鈥� she said. UW researchers have leapt at that opportunity, forging connections across the university, working side by side with community partners and breaking down traditional barriers to improving public health. 听

In just eight years, the Initiative has funded 227 innovative, interdisciplinary projects. Many are focused right here in Western Washington, where projects have helped in South Seattle, identified soil contaminants in community gardens in the Duwamish Valley, and improved how community leaders along the Okanogan River . Other projects have reached across the globe, targeting health disparities in Somalia, Peru, Brazil and more.听听

鈥淚n this relatively short period of time, we鈥檝e demonstrated the power that accrues when faculty and staff across the various areas of our campuses are working together and also exposing students to the cutting-edge work of tackling grand challenges,鈥� Cauce said in her most recent .听

And they’re just getting started. Many PHI-funded projects are still in their earliest stages, leveraging initial funding to show proof-of-concept for their ideas and setting the stage for future work. Fourteen projects so far have received much larger grants to empower researchers and community partners to expand successful projects and scale up for greater impact.听

With the Initiative now a third of the way into its 25-year vision, UW News checked in with three projects that recently received funding to scale their efforts.听

Spotting potential memory health issues in rural Washington

Diagnosing memory health issues in the best of circumstances is extraordinarily difficult. Patients typically make multiple visits to their doctor and take a many of which can produce flawed results 鈥� people who take the same test more than once, for example, will often score higher, potentially masking memory loss. 听

It鈥檚 even harder in rural America, which has a Patients seeking memory care might have to make a long, expensive trip to a major city, which leads many people to wait until a problem becomes apparent. By then, it鈥檚 often too late 鈥� modern treatments can slow the progress of memory loss, but there鈥檚 no way to regain what鈥檚 been lost.听

鈥淪o, how do you catch it early?鈥� said , a UW associate professor of psychology. 鈥淲e give people an app to have them check for themselves.鈥澨�听

Stocco and , director of the UW Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease Research Center, together with Hedderik van Rijn of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, led the development of an online program that can measure a person鈥檚 memory and predict their risk of memory disorders. Like a flash-card app that helps students cram for a test, the program shows pictures and asks the user to recall what they saw a few minutes earlier. The app records how quickly and accurately the user responds to each question and makes the next one a little easier or more difficult.听听

Researchers have long understood that a person鈥檚 ability to recall a specific memory tends to fade over time. This is called the 鈥�.鈥� In听 Stocco and van Rijn found that they could measure individual differences in the slopes of such curves.听 The app works by comparing a person鈥檚 responses to an internal model of forgetting and adjusting the slope of the model until it matches the responses. The resulting slope can be used to estimate the likelihood that their memory is fading faster than normal.听听

By taking the test regularly, a person can track their memory鈥檚 decline over time. But preliminary tests, Stocco said, have shown that even a single use can spot a potential problem.听

鈥淛ust by looking at a single lesson, based on the result, there鈥檚 almost a perfect correspondence between the speed of forgetting and your probability of being diagnosed by a doctor,鈥� Stocco said. 鈥淚t can be as accurate as the best clinical tests but, instead of taking two or three hours, this can be done in eight minutes, and you don鈥檛 need a doctor.鈥�听

A Tier 3 grant from the Population Health Initiative and a collaboration with the will allow the researchers to share the app with up to 500 people in rural and counties. Participants can take the test on their own time, and the results will be shared with researchers. If a potential problem emerges, the researchers plan to invite participants to Seattle for an in-person evaluation.听听

鈥淚t鈥檚 a solution that seems to solve these problems of early access and diagnostic bottlenecks,鈥� Stocco said. 鈥淚f this works, there鈥檚 no problem giving it to everybody in the state. We鈥檙e really interested in expanding and adding people from underrepresented populations and underrepresented areas, and the grant will allow us to do that.鈥�听

Nancy Spurgeon of the Central Washington Area Health Education Center is also a collaborator on the project to test the prototype app, which is not yet available to the public.听

Revamping the Point-In-Time Count to better understand King County鈥檚 unhoused population听

For years, volunteers fanned across King County on a cold night each January, flashlights and clipboards in hand, searching for people sleeping outside. They鈥檇 also gather the shelter head counts for that night. Officially called the , this effort attempted to tally the number of people who lacked stable housing. This endeavor was replicated in cities across the country, and the results were combined to create a national count that influences how the federal government allocates funding.听

There鈥檚 just one problem 鈥� the count is Volunteers can鈥檛 possibly find everybody. It captures only a single moment in time, and collects only limited data on people鈥檚 circumstances or personal needs. A person sleeping in their car might need different services than a person who sleeps in a tent, and the count didn鈥檛 fully capture that distinction.听

So, a team of UW researchers designed a better way to count. Their method, detailed in a published Sept. 4 in in the American Journal of Epidemiology, taps into people鈥檚 social networks to generate a more representative sample, which the researchers then ran through a series of calculations to estimate the total unhoused population.听听听

Called 鈥渞espondent-driven sampling,鈥� the method stations volunteers in common 鈥渉ubs,鈥� like libraries or community centers, and offers cash gift cards for in-person interviews and peer referrals. Volunteers collect detailed information on people鈥檚 circumstances and needs, giving each person three tickets to share with their unhoused peers. When those peers come in for an interview and show the ticket, the person who referred them receives another small reward. The new person gets a gift card and another three tickets.听

鈥淭his method gives people a more active voice in being counted. It鈥檚 a more humane way to count people, and it鈥檚 also voluntary,鈥� said , a UW associate professor of sociology and co-lead on the project. 鈥淭he regular PIT (Point-In-Time) count just counted people. Now we can collect all sorts of information from people on their circumstances and their needs. Should policymakers want to, they could leverage that data to change service offerings.鈥�听

The researchers received a Tier 2 grant to develop the system. They launched it in partnership with King County in 2022 and 2024, and were recently awarded a Tier 3 grant to test out the feasibility of running it quarterly.听听

鈥淩unning the count quarterly allows us to estimate how many people move in and out of homelessness and whether there are seasonal changes, which are rarely measured,鈥� Almquist said. 鈥淎lso, people鈥檚 needs change depending on the time of year, and this method will help us better understand those rhythms.鈥澨�听

Other cities and counties have expressed interest, the researchers said. The team has also begun to expand the effort, aiming to improve data across the broad spectrum of housing and homelessness services.听听

鈥淎 very important byproduct of this work across schools and departments at UW is that we can create an ecosystem of people and projects,鈥� said , a UW professor emeritus of health systems and population health and co-lead on the project. 鈥淲e鈥檝e spun off projects on sleep assessments, relationships with organizations that collect data on homelessness, and we鈥檙e mapping the sweeps of encampments in relationship to where people choose to be located. We have a whole network of homelessness-related research now.听

鈥淭hese PHI grants gave us the fuel to ignite these projects.鈥�听

Other collaborators are of the UW Department of Health Systems and Population Health and of the VA Health Services Research and Development; of the UW Departments of Sociology and Statistics; of the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology and the eScience Institute; and Owen Kajfasz, Janelle Rothfolk and Cathea Carey of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.听

Engaging community to mitigate flood risk in the Duwamish Valley听

More than a century ago, Seattle leaders set out to control and redirect the Duwamish River. They dredged the riverbed and dug out its twists and turns. Wetlands were filled in, the valley was paved over and a system of hydrology was severed. What had been a wild, winding river valley with regular flooding became an angular straightaway built for industry. But when UW postdoctoral scholar looks out at the Duwamish, she sees the river fighting back.听听

鈥淭he water was always there,鈥� Jeranko said, 鈥渁nd now it鈥檚 fighting to come back up.鈥澨�听

The river returned with devastating effect in December 2022, when a king tide and heavy rainfall , submerging homes and shuttering local businesses. The underserved neighborhood faces a significant risk of future floods.听

To mitigate that risk, the City of Seattle has updated the neighborhood鈥檚 stormwater drainage system and launched a new flood-warning system. But the , a nonprofit focused on river pollution and environmental health, saw an opportunity for something greater. The DRCC asked a team of UW researchers to help develop flood adaptation plans that are community-based, culturally responsive and that enrich the local environment.听听

鈥淚n the community, people don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 been enough engagement. There鈥檚 all this talk about flood mitigation, but all they see are sandbags,鈥� Jeranko said. 鈥淪o DRCC was like, 鈥楲ook, we really need the people who live in the flood zone to understand the solutions.鈥� Because we have this long-lasting relationship with them, they see us as someone who鈥檚 able to provide a list of solutions, not favor one over the others, and do it in an informative way.鈥�听

Boosted by a Tier 3 grant from the PHI, Jeranko and a team representing five UW departments, the Burke Museum and the DRCC are engaging with the community. This fall, the team will present the neighborhood with an expansive list of flood mitigation options and encourage city leaders to consider people鈥檚 preferences. Early work shows the community would favor nature-based solutions, Jeranko said. Floodable parks, for example, would provide ecological, recreational and public health benefits to the entire community, while storing flood water during storms.听听

鈥淚t has been wonderful to collaborate with the UW team on this to make sure we are centering community voices in every single step of the planning for climate resilience,鈥� said Paulina L贸pez, executive director of the DRCC. 鈥淐ommunity leadership and representation is indispensable to bring climate justice to the Duwamish Valley.鈥�听

Jeranko hopes their community-based model will be replicated by communities across the country facing similar risks from climate change and sea level rise.听

鈥淓ven though UW and a lot of other universities really support and invest in community-engaged work, a lot of times it鈥檚 fundamentally hard to make that research happen,鈥� Jeranko said. 鈥淏ut the Population Health Initiative grant was about supporting all those things.鈥�听

Other collaborators on the project are , and of the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences; of the Department of Landscape Architecture; of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences; of the Quaternary Research Center and the Burke Museum; and L贸pez and Robin Schwartz of the DRCC.听

For more information on any of the projects mentioned, or to learn more about the UW Population Health Initiative, visit the Initiative’s website or contact Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.听听

Eight professors at the 天美影视传媒 have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences, the organization . The Academy said members are elected 鈥渋n recognition of their outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the Academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.鈥�听

The 2023 cohort includes 29 new members. Twenty-six were elected by current WSAS members, and the other three were selected because they recently joined one of the National Academies.听听

The UW faculty who will be formally inducted in September are:听听

• , Kirby & Kelly Cramer Endowed Professor of Nursing, for 鈥渃ontributions to improving public health systems and services. Foundational to Senator Murray鈥檚 , her research supports collection of standardized public health financial data assessing impact.鈥�听
• , associate professor of microbiology and of genome sciences at the UW School of Medicine and professor and investigator at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, for 鈥渃ontributions to our understanding of viral evolution and how mutations shape a pathogen鈥檚 ability to infect and spread. His discoveries have driven the scientific and public discourse on numerous viruses, including influenza, HIV, and most recently SARS-CoV-2.鈥�听
• , Washington Research Foundation Innovation Professor in Clean Energy and professor of mechanical engineering, for 鈥渙utstanding contributions to the fundamental understanding of battery electrode architectures and the development of advanced manufacturing methods to accelerate commercialization of materials processing technology.鈥�听
• , professor of sociology and of public policy and governance, director of the and associate vice provost for research, for 鈥済roundbreaking work in demography and the sociology of migration, taking a multi-faceted approach that illuminates the dynamic interplay between demographic conditions and factors such as gender, socio-economic context, and climate change.鈥�听
• , research professor of microbiology at the UW School of Medicine, professor at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and director of the Pathogen-Associated Malignancies Integrated Research Center, for “For contributions to advancing our understanding of the role that small DNA tumor viruses 鈥� human papillomaviruses (HPV) and human polyomavirus (HPyV) 鈥� play in cancer development.”
• , J. Ray Bowen Endowed Professor for Innovation in Engineering Education and professor of aeronautics and astronautics, for 鈥渆xtraordinary contributions to guidance and control of autonomous and distributed aerospace systems, for leadership in educational innovations, and for advancing aerospace technology transfers leading to industry research collaborations throughout his career.鈥�听
• , Michael G. Foster Endowed Professor of Information Systems and chair of the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management, for 鈥渙utstanding contributions to advance our understanding of how technologies impact the behaviors and decision-making of individuals, organizations, and society in the contexts of e-commerce, social media, fintech, healthcare, and sharing economy.鈥�听
• , Thomas and Marilyn Nielsen Endowed Professor in Engineering, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of PacTrans and STAR Lab, for 鈥減ioneering contributions to traffic sensing, transportation data science, edge AI, and smart infrastructure system theory and technologies, as well as the exceptional leadership in regional collaborations among academia, industry, and agencies for creating transformational mobility solutions.鈥�听

Correction: An earlier version of this release omitted the election of Denise Galloway to the Academy.

Sugar-sweetened beverages are a known contributor to several health issues, including poor diet quality, weight gain and diabetes. While several studies have shown that taxing sweetened beverages significantly reduces purchasing, questions have been raised about whether the taxes place a greater economic burden on lower-income households.

New research from the 天美影视传媒, , addressed the issue by examining the economic equity impacts of sweetened beverage taxes in three cities: Seattle, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

鈥淪ugar-sweetened beverages are the new tobacco,鈥� said , senior author and clinical professor of health systems and population health in the UW School of Public Health. 鈥淧ublic health researchers and others have been working for some time to reduce sales of these beverages. Taxes worked well to reduce tobacco purchases, and they鈥檝e been applied and appear to work equally well in sugary drinks.鈥�

The study showed the tax paid by households accounted for a larger proportion of income for lower-income households, but still only 0.01% to 0.05%. The annual per capita dollar amount that households paid toward the tax, between $5.50 and $31, didn鈥檛 differ by income level.

The researchers also found that sweetened beverage taxes redistributed dollars from higher- to lower-income households. More dollars went toward funding programs that benefit lower-income communities than those households paid in taxes. The annual net benefit to lower-income communities ranged from $5.3 to $16.4 million per year across the three U.S. cities.

鈥淐ities have prioritized funding programs that benefit lower-income populations, which makes sweetened beverage tax policies more economically equitable,鈥� Krieger said.

For example, revenue raised by has been used to fund programs and services that increase access to healthy food and support child health and learning in early childhood. In 2020, sweetened beverage tax revenue was also used to provide support to communities disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The researchers studied the volume of beverage purchases made in stores by 1,141 households in the three U.S. cities to estimate taxes paid by households during the first year after tax implementation. They then used city population data to calculate the per capita amount of sweetened beverage tax paid by income level.

The authors also reviewed public documents and contacted city representatives to find the dollar amount of annual tax revenue and the amount invested in programs serving lower-income communities.

鈥淭here aren鈥檛 a lot of studies right now that look at actual household purchases of these taxed beverages,鈥� said co-lead author , UW associate teaching professor of economics. 鈥淭hey mostly look at retail-level data. But you don鈥檛 know what people are doing at a household level. They could be going to another city to buy their sweetened beverages and bringing them back to Seattle. This study catches all of that. We鈥檙e just looking at households that live in these cities and the totality of everything they report having purchased.鈥�

The study shows that sweetened beverage taxes 鈥渃an be an economically progressive policy,鈥� Krieger said. Seven local jurisdictions in the United States, the Navajo Nation and at least 45 other nations have implemented sweetened beverage taxes.

鈥淭hese taxes selectively and specifically benefit people with lower incomes to a greater extent than people with higher incomes, because the money that鈥檚 raised by taxes goes toward programs serving lower-income communities,鈥� Krieger said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 from the economic point of view.

鈥淭he taxes also benefit people with lower incomes because they drive down consumption more and sales more for that population. People will consume less of an unhealthy product and they鈥檒l be healthier because of that. It鈥檚 a win for health, it鈥檚 a win for the pocketbook and it鈥檚 a win for their communities.鈥�

, UW associate professor of health systems and population health and of epidemiology, was a corresponding author and co-principal investigator.

Other co-authors from the UW were , clinical instructor of health systems and population health; , senior research scientist in the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, , affiliate associate professor of urban design and planning; and , who recently graduated with a master鈥檚 degree in epidemiology. , associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, was also a co-author.

The study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation鈥檚 with partial support from an NICHD grant to the at the 天美影视传媒.

For more information, contact James Krieger at jkrieger@hfamerica.org and Melissa Knox at knoxm@uw.edu.

Correction on 7/13: A previous version of this story said that the annual net benefit to lower-income communities ranged from $5.3 to $19.1 million per year across the three U.S. cities. The latter number is actually $16.4 million.

Social cohesion, normally associated with positive outcomes in physical and mental health, can be a liability during a pandemic, according to new research by the University of California, Irvine, and the 天美影视传媒.

That鈥檚 because social connections 鈥� which generally ensure access to support, information and resources 鈥� can also provide pathways to infection, especially for vulnerable individuals.

The study, published recently in the , points to a hidden driver of disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among marginalized communities living in densely populated urban areas.

鈥淲ith this study, we wanted to better understand factors that led to differences in who became infected early on in the pandemic,鈥� says lead author Loring Thomas, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at UC Irvine. 鈥淥ur computational models found that communities whose members belonged to groups that were, on average, slightly more cohesive, experienced a much higher infection hazard, especially before non-pharmaceutical interventions like masking were widespread.鈥�

The researchers focused on San Francisco, combining demographic and housing data from the U.S. Census with observed infection cases among Black, Latinx, Asian and white racial and ethnic groups. They then used computational modelling to understand 1,225 trajectories 鈥� or pandemic histories 鈥� of individual infections that occurred before March 24, 2020.

“This paper shows the power of computational models to further our understanding on how small racial/ethnic disparities can result in large real-world outcomes such as what we have seen in this pandemic’s timing and exposure to COVID-19,” said co-author , an assistant professor of sociology at the UW.

A previous paper from this research team, published during the first year of the pandemic, used Census tract demographics, simulation techniques and COVID-19 case data to examine where and how quickly the coronavirus could spread through Seattle and 18 other major cities. The team created a new model of virus diffusion, showing how infection could peak in some neighborhoods faster than others, based in part on social and geographic connections.

In drilling down on San Francisco for the latest study, researchers found that differences in social cohesion among demographic groups 鈥� the strength of relationships and the sense of solidarity among members of a community 鈥� as well as other factors such as housing arrangements, affected infection rates in the pandemic鈥檚 first months.

鈥淎听key risk factor of early infection during the beginning of the pandemic was not merely having numerous contacts, but being embedded in locally cohesive parts of the contact network 鈥� that is, having many contacts in a community who themselves have many contacts within that same community,鈥� said co-author Carter Butts, a UC Irvine professor of sociology.

When the data was broken down further by race and location, researchers discovered that Black and Latinx populations housed in the city鈥檚 center had the highest infection rates, followed by Asian and white population groups.

Butts added that these results can also help those preparing for future emergencies to prioritize warning messages or interventions for high-risk groups when outbreaks of a potentially serious disease are first detected.

Additional co-authors were Peng Huang, Fan Yin, Junlan Xu and John Hipp, all of UC Irvine. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and a UCI Council on Research, Computing and Libraries grant.

For more information, contact Almquist at zalmquist@uw.edu.

Adapted from a UC Irvine press release.

Christina Fiig: Gender Policies in a Context of (Quasi) Permanent Crisis

May 17, 12:00 PM |

Join the Center for West European Studies and the Jean Monnet EU Center to continue the Talking Gender in the EU Lecture Series, with Christina Fiig on “EU Gender Policies in a Context of (Quasi) Permanent Crisis,”

Free |

MFA Dance Concert

May 18 – May 22 |

Treat yourself to a live in-person performance with original choreography created by our world-class MFA in dance candidates and performed by our undergraduate students! The Department of Dance graduate students, all of whom have had no less than eight years of professional dance experience, work with selected undergraduate students to compose six conceptually and aesthetically diverse works. This year鈥檚 MFA candidates include artists who have worked with some of the world鈥檚 most distinguished dance groups, touring nationally and internationally, including but not limited to BANDALOOP, Dance Art Group (DAG), The L铆mon Dance Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Trust, Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, and 10 Hairy Legs.听

$10 |

Online Symposium 鈥� Dismantling the Body

May 18-19 |

Free |

Monica De La Torre’s, Feminista Frequencies, Book Talk & Celebration

May 18, 3:30 PM |

Resistance through Resilience:CCDE 7th听Annual Conference听

May 18-19 |

People don鈥檛 gain or lose weight because they live near a fast-food restaurant or supermarket, according to a new led by the 天美影视传媒. And, living in a more 鈥渨alkable,” dense neighborhood likely only has a small impact on weight.

These 鈥渂uilt-environment鈥� amenities have been seen in as essential contributors to losing weight or tending toward obesity. The idea appears obvious: If you live next to a fast-food restaurant, you鈥檒l eat there more and thus gain weight. Or, if you have a supermarket nearby, you鈥檒l shop there, eat healthier and thus lose weight. Live in a neighborhood that makes walking and biking easier and you鈥檒l get out, exercise more and burn more calories.

The new study based on anonymized medical records from more than 100,000 Kaiser Permanente Washington patients did not find that living near supermarkets or fast-food restaurant had any impact on weight. However, urban density, such as the number of houses in a given neighborhood, which is closely linked to neighborhood 鈥渨alkability鈥� appears to be the strongest element of the built environment linked to change in body weight over time.

鈥淭here’s a lot of prior work that has suggested that living close to a supermarket might lead to lower weight gain or more weight loss, while living close to lots of fast-food restaurants might lead to weight gain,鈥� said , lead author of the study and a research scientist in the UW School of Public Health. 鈥淥ur analyses of the food environment and density together suggests that the more people there are in an area 鈥� higher density 鈥� the more supermarkets and fast-food restaurants are located there. And we found that density matters to weight gain, but not proximity to fast food or supermarkets. So, that seems to suggest that those other studies were likely observing a false signal.鈥�

The UW-led study, published earlier this month in the International Journal of Obesity, found that people living in neighborhoods with higher residential and population density weigh less and have less obesity than people living in less-populated areas. And that didn鈥檛 change over a five-year period of study.

鈥淥n the whole, when thinking about ways to curb the obesity epidemic, our study suggests there鈥檚 likely no simple fix from the built environment, like putting in a playground or supermarket,鈥� said Buszkiewicz, who did his research for the study while a graduate student in the UW Department of Epidemiology.

Rather than 鈥渟omething magical about the built environment itself鈥� influencing the weight of those individuals, Buszkiewicz said, community-level differences in obesity are more likely driven by systematic factors other than the built environment 鈥� such as income inequality, which is often the determining factor of where people can afford to live and whether they can afford to move.

鈥淲hether you can afford to eat a healthy diet or to have the time to exercise, those factors probably outweigh the things we鈥檙e seeing in terms of the built environment effect,鈥� he said.

The researchers used the Kaiser Permanente Washington records to gather body weight measurements several times over a five-year period. They also used geocodable addresses to establish neighborhood details, including property values to help establish socioeconomic status, residential unit density, population density, road intersection density, and counts of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants accessible within a short walk or drive.

鈥淭his study really leverages the power of big data,鈥� said Dr. David Arterburn, co-author and senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute. 鈥淥ur use of anonymized health care records allows us to answer important questions about environmental contributions to obesity that would have been impossible in the past.鈥�

This study is part of a 12-year, joint听UW听and听Kaiser Permanente Washington听research project called Moving to Health. The goal of the study, according to the UW鈥檚 , is to provide population-based, comprehensive, rigorous evidence for policymakers, developers and consumers regarding the features of the built environment that are most strongly associated with risk of obesity and diabetes.

鈥淥ur next goal is to better understand what happens when people move their primary residence from one neighborhood to another,鈥� Arterburn said. 鈥淲hen our neighborhood characteristics change rapidly 鈥� such as moving to a much more walkable residential area 鈥� does that have an important effect on our body weight?鈥�

Co-authors include Jennifer Bobb, Andrea Cook, Maricela Cruz, Paula Lozano, Dori Rosenberg, Mary Kay Theis and Jane Anau at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute; , UW Urban Form Lab, College of Built Environments; , UW Department of Epidemiology; , UW Urban Form Lab and Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology; and , UW Center for Public Health Nutrition and Department of Epidemiology. This research manuscript was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health: 1 R01 DK 114196, 5 R01 DK076608, and 4 R00LM012868.

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For more information, contact Buszkiewicz at buszkiew@uw.edu听 and Caroline Liou Caroline.X.Liou@kp.org

When planning for the 2020 census was just getting underway, perhaps about the constitutionally mandated count were that it was to be the first in the era of social media, and the first to be conducted mostly online.

Every decade since 1930, April 1 has been designated Census Day, by which all people are expected to receive a notice to participate. Respondents also use that date to answer questions on the once-a-decade count of who lives in their home as of April 1.

Under normal circumstances, initial counting efforts would have wrapped up by July, and enumerators not only would have several more months to follow up with households that hadn鈥檛 responded the first time around, but also to reconcile the data. That would have put the U.S. Census Bureau on track to meet its legal deadline of Dec. 31 for providing the president with an accurate count of each state鈥檚 population. Census data is used for a variety of purposes, including determining how much government funding should be allocated to state and local jurisdictions and apportionment allocations for congressional districts.

But in recent years, key political issues emerged that have disrupted the typical course of events. First, the Trump administration asked for a citizenship question to be added to the census, but in 2019 was . Not long afterward, as the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to upend the traditional door-to-door operations, the Commerce Department asked to have more time 鈥� to the end of October, rather than July 鈥� to follow up with 鈥渘onresponse鈥� households. The department then asked for a series of further deadline modifications throughout the process but, in a last-minute switch, asked to keep the deadline to send the count to the president the same: Dec. 31. Though some congressional delegations raised concerns about the potential for undercounting, the U.S. Supreme Court .

That shortened time between the end of the count, and the Dec. 31 deadline of delivering the count to the president, shortchanges data reconciliation processes that ensure an accurate count, explains , director of the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology at the 天美影视传媒 and a professor of international studies, sociology, and of public policy. These data reconciliation processes were statutorily set for four months after the close of enumeration, but now are being given only two and a half months. On Thursday, census officials said .

On Nov. 30, the Supreme Court will take up yet another census issue raised by the Trump administration: whether it can exclude undocumented immigrants from the count it uses to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

鈥淔or decades the U.S. Census Bureau has prided itself on its civic duty for scientific professionalism and the provision of accurate data for informing local, state and federal governments about the needs of all residents, businesses and communities. Enshrined in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the complete enumeration of all persons reflected the framers鈥� belief in scientific reasoning for effective democratic governance,鈥� Curran said. 鈥淗owever, as with many other aspects of our democratic institutions, the current administration has sowed considerable confusion about census data and raised the specter of distrust in its quality, relevance and accuracy.鈥�

听UW News spoke with Curran about the controversy surrounding the 2020 census, and what may come next.

Does the outcome of the recent presidential election have any effect on the census?

听It鈥檚 not so much the presidential election, but the results of the runoff elections in January that will determine control of the Senate. As with most instances over the last four years, my answer is going to get into some uncharted territory.

Normally, according to Title 2 of the U.S. Code, within one week of the opening of the next session of the Congress after Dec. 31, the president must report to the clerk of the House of Representatives the apportionment population counts for each state and the number of representatives to which each state is entitled. If the Nov. 30 hearing before the Supreme Court yields a decision that supports the administration, and allows for excluding undocumented immigrants in the enumeration, then I expect there will be a major fight in the U.S. Congress. 听States where there may be a significant loss in population by eliminating undocumented immigrants, such as California, Florida and Texas, would be on the hook to either lose seats or not gain more seats in the House of Representatives. This loss would also affect over $600 billion in federal funds allocated annually to states according to their apportionment.

What is the logistical 鈥� impact of a shorter timeline in getting census results to the president?

The earlier deadline for the census count, originally set for July, allowed for the continued and challenging efforts to count hard-to-reach populations and to conduct the substantial, systematic and thorough data reconciliation processing to ensure that the census does not yield under- or over- counts of any groups of persons. These processes took four months during the 2010 census and were expected to take longer this year, because of the new online and phone-based data collection efforts, the variability of follow-up rates to census nonresponses and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Commerce Department claims that 99% of households have been counted. Why is that in question?

That count includes both the count of people or households who self-responded and a count of 鈥渘onresponse鈥� people or households whom enumerators reported following up on. For the latter, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross claimed that census enumerators used efficient ways to impute, or estimate, the counts for those persons and households. This imputation approach drew upon other sources of data for a nonresponse address, but it is not yet clear how data reconciliation processes will hash out the variability in imputation rates and the quality of those imputations. This year, Washington state had a pretty high self-response rate at 72.4%. For Puerto Rico more than 64% of the count is imputed, whereas in Minnesota, data is imputed on fewer than 25% of households.

This seems to be a particularly controversial census. But have there been other significant disputes over previous censuses?

The 1920 census was controversial because the country had just experienced dramatic increases in its immigrant population, especially immigrants to the country鈥檚 cities. While the actual numbers were validated, they were not used for apportionment purposes during 1920-1930 because of substantial and successful legislative resistance from congressional representatives in rural districts.

During the Second World War, census information was used to relocate Japanese Americans for internment, which also violated the promised confidentiality of the census. Following the war, Congress added statutory language to ensure complete confidentiality of census data. Since then, there has never been a data breach. Other debates in the census have included those around how we count race and ethnicity, which has been politically charged, and with each decade, yielded different ways of categorizing our population.

Additionally, the amount of information collected on the census has been contentious: By 2000, both to cut costs and increase response rates, the long-form version of the census was eliminated, and only a short-form census is used now. The American Community Survey, an annual, nationally represented sample of households, replaced the long form.

For those who worry about the accuracy of the final 2020 census, is there any opportunity to revisit the outcome, or do we wait for 2030?

听I鈥檓 sure that there will be considerable efforts to advocate for, and support, an accurate final product. Census products are absolutely vital for the conduct of life in the U.S., from private to public to civil society sectors. When it comes to the allocation of federal dollars or the apportionment counts, deciding on which number is the accurate one is probably going to be both adjudicated in the courts and through legislative action. I am often an optimist, and as painful as these political debates and processes might be, I hope this will be a teachable moment and an opportunity for everyone to understand better why we need well-funded, scientifically informed, expert-led federal and state agencies to provide accurate and comprehensive data about the country.

The coronavirus doesn鈥檛 spread uniformly through a community.

But in the world of disease modeling, many projections take a high-level approach to a geographic area, like a county or state, and forecast based on a general idea that a virus will take root and spread at an equal rate until it reaches its peak of infection.

A research team led by UC Irvine and the 天美影视传媒 has created a new model of coronavirus diffusion through a community. This approach, Sept. 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 听factors in network exposure 鈥� whom one interacts with 鈥� and demographics to simulate at a more detailed level both where and how quickly the coronavirus could spread through Seattle and 18 other major cities.

The team used U.S. Census Bureau tract demographics, simulation techniques and COVID-19 case data from spring 2020 to estimate a range of days for the virus to spread within a given city.

The result: Some neighborhoods peak sooner than others. And in every city, the virus sticks around far longer than some might expect.

鈥淭he most basic takeaway from this research is risk. People are at risk longer than they think, the virus will last longer than expected, and the point at which you think you don鈥檛 need to be vigilant means that it just hasn鈥檛 happened to you yet,鈥� said co-author , an assistant professor of sociology at the UW.

Almquist and the team took on their study with two basic premises: Account for the social and geographic connections within a tract that could affect the course of the virus; and assume no vaccine or other major intervention alters its path. Then, based on actual COVID-19 and demographic data, project a likely scenario for spread over time.

Take Seattle. The study鈥檚 map of the city outlines each census tract and provides a color-coded range of days each tract could take to reach peak infection before the virus goes into a low remission. The overall range is vast, from neighborhoods with the fastest peak 鈥� 83 days 鈥� to those that take more than 1,000. That鈥檚 more than three years, assuming there is no significant intervention to stem the spread.

Denser neighborhoods in Seattle, such as Capitol Hill or the University District, reach peak infection rate earlier. But simulations predict that even nearby neighborhoods won鈥檛 reach peak infection until weeks or even years later. These models predict more 鈥渂urst-like鈥� behavior of the virus鈥� spread than standard models 鈥� with short, sudden episodes of infection across the city, Almquist said.

In the study鈥檚 model of Washington, D.C., census tracts also appear to reach peak infection rates at different times.

Again, denser areas tend to peak sooner. But the network connections can cause 鈥渂ursty鈥� peak infection days, with some areas seeing early peak infections and others seeing it much later based on the neighborhoods鈥� relative connections with each other, Almquist said.

Projecting the path of the virus can help estimate the impact on local hospitals. Researchers predicted this in several ways, such as modeling the number of cases per hospital over time and the number of days a hospital is at peak capacity.

The model of projected hospital cases shows how the geographic variations in the timing in peak COVID-19 infections could affect hospitals in different areas. Without outside intervention, some hospitals would remain at capacity for years, especially those farthest from major population centers.

These types of models are important because they provide a more detailed and nuanced prediction of an unknown like the novel coronavirus, said Almquist. Gauging how the virus might spread throughout a city and strain its hospitals can help local officials and health care providers plan for many scenarios. And while this study assumes no major interventions will rein in the virus, it鈥檚 reasonable to believe the virus will linger to some degree, even with solutions such as a vaccine, according to Almquist.

鈥淚f you project these models for what it means over the country, we might expect to see some areas, such as rural populations, not see infection for months or even years before their peak infection occurs,鈥� Almquist said. 鈥淭hese projections, as well as others, are beginning to suggest that it could take years for the spread of COVID-19 to reach saturation in the population, and even if it does so it is likely to become endemic without a vaccine.鈥�

Co-authors are Loring Thomas, Peng Huang, Fan Yin, Xiaoshuang Iris Luo, John Hipp and Carter Butts, all of UC Irvine. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and UC Irvine.

For more information, contact Almquist at zalmquist@uw.edu.

The 天美影视传媒鈥檚 , or CSDE, along with partners in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences and the , is among eight awardees across the country selected to develop training programs in advanced data analytics for population health through the National Institutes of Health鈥檚 Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.

This five-year, $1.8 million training program at the UW will fund 25 academic-year graduate fellowships, develop a new training curriculum and contribute to methodological advances in health research at the intersection of demography and data science.

The new training program will be led by , assistant professor of sociology, and will build on CSDE鈥檚 graduate certificate in demographic methods by integrating training in advanced statistics and computational methods.

The inaugural cohort will begin the program in October and is composed of graduate students Ian Kennedy, Neal Marquez and Crystal Yu, all in sociology; Emily Pollock in anthropology; and Aja Sutton in geography.

鈥淥ur faculty are at the forefront of research programs grounded in advanced data analytics,鈥� said Robert Stacey, dean of the UW鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences. 鈥淭his grant recognizes the important interdisciplinary work happening across the UW, and particularly in the social sciences, to build this knowledge into much-needed education and training programs.鈥�

, associate professor of sociology and statistics, and , professor of statistics and biostatistics, led听the grant application with support from , director of the CSDE and a professor of international studies, public policy and sociology, along with faculty affiliated with CSDE, CSSS and the eScience Institute.

The NIH review praised UW鈥檚 plans. 鈥淭he leadership team has well-established credentials, complementary expertise, and a strong track record and the proposed program builds on an existing program with demonstrable record of success,鈥� noted reviewers. 鈥淭he curriculum 鈥� which offers coursework in statistical methods, machine learning, coding, databases, data visualization and data ethics 鈥� is well-thought-out and will provide trainees with numerous immersive opportunities.鈥�

This funding was designed to fill educational gaps and needs in the behavioral and social sciences research community that are not being addressed by existing educational opportunities, according to the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. The other institutions awarded similar grants include Emory University; Johns Hopkins University; Stanford University; University of Arkansas Medical Center; the University of California, Berkeley; UC San Diego; and UC San Francisco. More information about the national initiative can be found .

For more information, contact Curran at scurran@uw.edu or Almquist at zalmquist@uw.edu.

Adapted from information provided by the UW Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology.

On a recent Saturday evening, a dozen women gathered around a table at a community room in the White Center neighborhood of Seattle, settling in with snacks and conversation.

The evening鈥檚 program would be more education than entertainment, an opportunity to discuss topics so sensitive that, without the group of women assembled that night, might not be discussed at all.

Against one wall of the room, a model of the female reproductive system. Standing before them, a doula, one of three medical professionals from the Somali community there for that night鈥檚 installment of Mama Amaan, a series of lessons on prenatal and postpartum care, designed with and for Somali women.

Part grassroots service, part research project exploring the effectiveness of a culturally sensitive health care intervention, Mama Amaan (Somali for 鈥渟afe motherhood鈥�) is a partnership between the of Tukwila and the 天美影视传媒. The goal: to test the feasibility of a community-developed and run program of pre- and postnatal care services.

With the support of a grant from the UW Population Health Initiative, Mama Amaan brings together women in five different locations around South Seattle and South King County for monthly lessons in the physical, mental and emotional issues of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum life.

Delivered by local Somali doulas and nurses, the lessons aim to assist East African immigrant and refugee communities in accessing and navigating 听mmaternal health services.

鈥淭he health care system in the U.S. hasn鈥檛 been incorporating what works for these women, taking into consideration where they come from. This creates health inequalities for this immigrant population,鈥� said , an associate professor of anthropology and global health at the UW. 鈥淏esides needing health care that is accessible, appropriate and affordable, we need health care to be much more responsive to the communities we serve. That鈥檚 where anthropology can be a useful tool.鈥�

South Seattle鈥檚 Rainier Valley is among the most diverse neighborhoods in the city, home to . But it also has some of the for women and infants, Chapman said.

It was while learning about these disparities that Chapman and local nurse practitioner, Muna Osman of the Somali Health Board, began meeting with women in the community. They brought local doulas, midwives and nurse practitioners to understand the needs and cultural norms. Somali women said they often felt discriminated against, ignored or insulted in traditional health care settings, and language was often a barrier. The very topics of pregnancy and childbirth aren鈥檛 openly discussed.

Since those early meetings, the Mama Amaan research and pilot study team quickly grew to include a UW alum as field coordinator, five UW undergraduate medical anthropology and public health as research assistants, and two UW graduate students in global health. All of the people involved are Somali women, and the team鈥檚 familiarity with the community made them especially skilled to conduct the focus groups, interviews and other data collection.

鈥淲e heard from Somali women that they are completely aware of the current barriers to providing the best of care to the Somali community. They also communicated their need for pre- and postnatal support, specifically citing education to empower them to be the drivers of their own care,鈥� said Sumaya Mohamed, a graduate student in the UW Department of Global Health and the project鈥檚 administrative coordinator.

Mama Amaan launched last spring with a program of monthly lessons 鈥� nine, in fact, to match the cycle of pregnancy 鈥� ranging from anatomy and nutrition, to C-sections and the stages of labor. In some cases, participants are also referred to health care providers and to assistance from the federal Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants and Children.

But underlying all of it is the spirit of community: Conversation, as much as instruction, enlivens each session. So far, as many as 60 women have attended sessions across the five sites; more than a dozen have given birth, and eight have been attended to through the postpartum period.

鈥淚n this first year of the program, our goal is to find out what works for the community and what doesn鈥檛, and how we can respond in the most community-responsive ways possible,鈥� Chapman said. From there, depending on funding, the team seeks to expand geographically and to measure specific health impacts of the services.

鈥淔irst, we looked at what we could do with this community that makes health education a safe and happy experience,鈥� Osman said. 鈥淣ow, the question is, can you take something developed by and for a community and scale it up?鈥�

Other collaborators on the project are and the . Additional funders are the UW Royalty Research Fund, the UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, the UW School of Public Health and the UW Department of Global Health.

For more information, contact Chapman at rrc4@uw.edu and Osman at feedmair1@gmail.com.