About . Birth before 37 weeks can lead to a cascade of health risks, both immediate and long-term, making prevention a vital tool for improving public health over generations.Ěý

In recent years, researchers have identified a potential link between wildfire smoke — one of the fastest-growing sources of air pollution in the United States — and preterm birth, but no study has been big or broad enough to draw definitive conclusions. A new study led by the ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝ makes an important contribution, analyzing data from more than 20,000 births to find that pregnant people who are exposed to wildfire smoke are more likely to give birth prematurely.

“Preventing preterm birth really pays off with lasting benefits for future health,” said lead author , a UW postdoctoral researcher in environmental and occupational health sciences. “It’s also something of a mystery. We don’t always understand why babies are born preterm, but we know that air pollution contributes to preterm births, and it makes sense that wildfire smoke would as well. This study underscores that wildfire smoke is inseparable from maternal and infant health.”

In the study, ,Ěýresearchers used data from the , a federal research project focused on how a wide range of environmental factors affect children’s health. The sample included 20,034 births from 2006-2020 across the contiguous United States.

Researchers estimated participants’ average daily exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, generated by wildfire smoke, and the total number of days they were exposed to any amount of smoke. They estimated the intensity of smoke exposure by how frequently participants were exposed to wildfire PM2.5 levels above certain thresholds.

They found that pregnant people exposed to more intense wildfire smoke were more likely to give birth prematurely. In mid-pregnancy, exposure to any smoke was associated with an elevated risk of preterm birth, with that risk peaking around the 21st week of gestation. In late pregnancy, elevated risk was most closely associated with exposure to high concentrations of wildfire PM2.5, above 10 micrograms per cubic meter.

“The second trimester is a period of pregnancy with the richest and most intense growth of the placenta, which itself is such an important part of fetal health, growth and development,” said co-author , a UW professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and of pediatrics in the UW School of Medicine. “So it may be that the wildfire smoke particles are really interfering with placental health. Some of them are so tiny that after inhalation they can actually get into the bloodstream and get delivered directly into the placenta or fetus.”Ěý

The link was strongest and most precise in the Western U.S., where people were exposed to the highest concentrations of wildfire PM2.5 and the greatest number of high-intensity smoke days. Here, the odds of preterm birth increased with each additional microgram per cubic meter of average wildfire PM2.5.

It’s possible those results were more precise simply because the West experiences more wildfire smoke on average, making the exposure model perform better, Sherris said. But there may be other factors behind the regional differences.Ěý

The composition of wildfire smoke is different across the country. In the West, smoke tends to come from fires nearby, while in places like the Midwest, smoke has typically drifted in from faraway fires. and reacts with sunlight and airborne chemicals, which could have affected the results. Researchers also noted that external factors like co-occurring heat or housing quality may have effects that aren’t fully understood.Ěý

Researchers hope that future studies will examine the exact mechanisms by which wildfire smoke might trigger preterm birth. But in the meantime, Sherris said, evidence for a link is now strong enough to take action.Ěý

“There are a couple avenues for change,” Sherris said. “First, people already get a lot of public health messaging and information throughout pregnancy, so there’s an opportunity to work with clinicians to provide tools for pregnant people to protect themselves during smoke events. Public health agencies’ messaging about wildfire smoke could also be tailored to pregnant people and highlight them as a vulnerable group.”

Co-authors include , doctoral student of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW; , clinical associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW; , professor of biostatistics at the UW; , associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and of epidemiology at the UW; , postdoctoral fellow of epidemiology at the UW; and , assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the UW. A full list of co-authors is included with the paper.

This research was funded by the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program at the National Institutes of Health under multiple awards. A full list of ECHO funding awards is included with the paper.Ěý

For more information or to contact the researchers, email Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.

Think of your last memorable moment in nature. Did you spot a bird you’ve never seen before? Dip your toes in a river? Maybe climb a tree?

New research from the ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝, recently published in the , examined whether children’s interactions with nature that are embodied, rather than just visual, are associated with being in the moment and feeling connected to something beyond the self.

Researchers coded responses from 127 Girl Scouts, ages 8-11, about a recent meaningful nature experience. A questionnaire then assessed the degree to which participants experienced presence in nature, the study’s term for being in the moment. Exploratory analyses found that participants who had embodied interactions reported a greater sense of presence in nature than those who reported only visual interactions.Ěý

, co-author of the study and doctoral student of psychology at the UW, talked with UW News about the study.

Can you explain the difference between embodied and visual interactions with nature?

Carly Gray: We think of embodied nature interactions as engaging senses other than just vision. One’s whole body is often involved. Whether you’re moving or being still, you’re experiencing nature through more than just your eyes. A visual nature interaction is one that just uses the sense of vision — maybe watching a bird through a window or looking at the textures in a leaf.

To identify visual and embodied interactions in the study, we applied what we call an interaction pattern approach, which is a way of characterizing the how humans interact with nature. A relatively abstract interaction pattern could be something like “listening to animals.” That interaction pattern could encompass more specific interactions ranging from “hearing your neighbor’s dog bark” to “hearing birdsong in a forest.”

That leads us to the idea of presence. How do you use that term in the context of this study, and how does it tie in with the other ideas you were discussing?Ěý

CG: We think of presence as a meaningful experience with optimal awareness and some sense of connection beyond the self — whether that’s the natural environment that one is in, some higher power, other people you’re with, or something else. It’s frankly difficult to put into words, which I think speaks to some of the power of what these experiences can feel like. In this study, we were looking specifically at presence in nature.

How did you then quantify this information?

CG: We developed questions based on existing measures and created some questions of our own. We used these questions to ask the Girl Scouts about their experience of presence in nature during the experiences they had just written about.

We asked the Girl Scouts to write about a meaningful nature experience and tell us where they were, what they were doing and why the experience was meaningful. We combed through these written narratives to identify interaction patterns and developed a coding manual to describe how to do this in a standardized way. After reading through half of these nature experiences, we looked at the interaction patterns and noticed that a lot of them were relying on vision. Primarily, we noticed a lot of verbs like seeing, watching, looking, staring. For example, a visual nature interaction would be “looking at a tall tree.”

We wanted to know what might be different between the Girl Scouts who reported solely visual experiences versus more embodied nature experiences. The Girl Scouts who engaged in nature using more action-oriented verbs — talking, listening, smelling, feeling — engaged in embodied nature interactions. For example, “building a snowman” and “hiking on a trail” came up in a few participants’ narratives. We considered these embodied nature interactions. Some of my other favorite examples were “talking to chickens,” “jumping in puddles,” and “throwing snowballs.”

Based on their interaction patterns, some Girl Scouts were categorized as having only had visual experiences. If a Girl Scout wrote about at least one interaction that used a non-visual verb, they were categorized as having had an embodied experience. We compared these two groups, embodied and only visual, based on their numeric scores on our measure of presence in nature and found that the Girl Scouts who reported embodied nature interactions also reported a stronger sense of presence in nature.

What are some potential practical implications of this research?

CG: I think this is a promising first step into understanding what it might mean to have a meaningful experience in nature, especially among young children. In this paper, we wrote specifically about applications to environmental education. For example, children can be encouraged to smell nature by finding nature items that smell good to them, like pinecones or flowers, and bringing those back to the classroom for an age-appropriate ecology lesson. A writing lesson could begin with students listening to nature with their eyes closed and then writing a creative short story about what they imagined they heard. We expect these embodied educational activities might foster a greater connection to nature and a sense of meaning through experiences of presence in nature.

We conducted this study with 8-to-11-year-old Girl Scouts, but I think it could have implications for educating young people of all ages. In my teaching, I’m a big fan of getting whole bodies involved in the learning process. So, I think this idea of embodied versus visual interactions with nature could be applied all the way from preschoolers to through college students.

Embodied nature interactions don’t need to be limited to educational settings, either. This idea of embodied versus visual nature interactions can be a helpful framework for parents and families to think about meaningful ways to spend time interacting with nature with their children. This Earth Day, consider how you can go beyond looking at spring flowers to engage with nature in more fully embodied ways.

Other co-authors were , UW professor of psychology and of environmental and forest sciences; , UW professor of environmental and forest sciences; , associate professor of pediatrics in the UW School of Medicine; , UW associate professor of environmental and forest sciences; , lead public health research scientist at ICF, who earned her doctorate in environmental and forest sciences at the UW; and of the Girl Scouts of Western Washington.

The study was funded by the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

For more information, contact Carly Gray at cgray19@uw.edu.

Asthma affects more than 6% of U.S. children, making it the most common chronic disease in kids nationwide. It’s difficult to isolate any single cause, but one of the most common contributors is air pollution: Studies have shown that breathing air with high levels of fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and other environmental pollutants can increase children’s risk of developing asthma. But it’s been unclear whether long-term, early childhood exposure to ozone, the pollutant that most frequently exceeds U.S. air quality standards, contributes to the disease.ĚýĚý

, a doctoral student at the ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝, set out to find a possible link. In a study , Dearborn and collaborators identified a puzzling trend: Children exposed to higher levels of ozone in their first two years of life were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with asthma or wheezing at ages 4-6 — but researchers didn’t observe the increased risk of asthma at ages 8-9.ĚýĚý

While the researchers couldn’t pin down the exact reason, possible explanations include the changing nature of asthma as kids age, which could lead to a drop-off in formal diagnoses, and the influence of other risk factors and pollutants on asthma as children’s lungs grow.Ěý

“It’s a puzzling finding,” said Dearborn, who led the research in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences. “It’s something we spent a long time trying to consider, and I don’t know if we ever came up with a satisfying answer. But these findings are important. Even if we only see the effects early in life,Ěýthere are still all kinds of associated health care costs and stresses for families. There are all sorts of larger contextual factors about having this chronic disease at any point in life.”Ěý

This study relied on data from the (ECHO) program, a federal research project focused on how a wide range of environmental factors affect children’s health. Researchers drew 1,118 participants from six cities, including Seattle and Yakima, who had low-risk pregnancies and completed validated surveys that asked if their children had been diagnosed with asthma or had experienced wheezing.ĚýĚý

Researchers estimated exposure in the first two years of a child’s life using a model developed by co-author , a UW professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, of epidemiology and of medicine. They found that a relatively small increase in ozone exposure — 2 parts per billion — in a child’s first two years of life was associated with a 31% increase in asthma and 30% increase in wheeze at age 4-6 years. Asthma and wheeze risk at ages 8-9 was not found to be associated with their early life ozone concentration.Ěý

Researchers also analyzed how exposure to mixtures of three common air pollutants — ozone, nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) — affected asthma outcomes. In this analysis, ozone stood out.Ěý

“We interpret trends, and what we can conclude from this analysis is that when ozone within the air pollution mixture was higher than about 25 parts per billion, we saw a higher probability of asthma regardless of the concentration of nitrogen dioxide,” Dearborn said. “We found a relationship between ozone and asthma only when fine particulate matter was at or above median concentrations, giving novel evidence that the relationship between ozone and childhood asthma may depend on the concentration of other pollutants, like fine particulate matter.”Ěý

The study’s findings highlight the need for more research into the effects of long-term ozone exposure in early life, Dearborn said. Further study could determine why the increased asthma risk related to ozone is not evident at ages 8-9, and whether it increases again later in childhood.ĚýĚý

In the meantime, Dearborn said, researchers and public health officials should pay more attention to the effects of long-term exposure to ozone.Ěý

“In the United States, ozone regulations only consider a very short time period,” Dearborn said. “We don’t regulate ozone over the long term, and that’s where this analysis fits in. Maybe we should be considering both a short- and a long-term threshold for the regulation of ozone.”ĚýĚý

Other authors are , a UW professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and of pediatrics in the UW School of Medicine; postdoctoral researchers and , research scientist , and clinical associate professor , all of the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences; , a UW professor of biostatistics; , a graduate student in the UW Department of Epidemiology; of Seattle Children’s Research Institute and an assistant professor of pediatrics in the UW School of Medicine; Margaret Adgent and Paul Moore of Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Yu Ni of San Diego State University; Marnie Hazlehurst and Drew Day of Seattle Children’s Research Institute; Ruby Nguyen of the University of Minnesota; Kaja LeWinn of the University of California, San Francisco; and Kecia Carroll of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.ĚýĚý

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s ECHO-PATHWAYS program; the National Center for Advancing Translational Health Sciences; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the UW Pediatric and Reproductive Environmental Health Scholars K-12 program; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the UW EDGE Center; the National Institute on Aging; and the Urban Child Institute.Ěý

UPDATE (Aug. 2, 2024): A previous version of this story misstated Paul Kinahan’s name.

Fifteen faculty members at the ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝ have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state . Selection recognizes the new members’ “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.”

Twelve UW faculty members were selected by current WSAS members. They are:

• , associate professor of epidemiology, of health systems and population health, and of child, family and population health nursing, who “possesses the rare combination of scientific rigor and courageous commitment to local community health. Identifying original ways to examine questions, and seeking out appropriate scientific methods to study those questions, allow her to translate research to collaborative community interventions with a direct impact on the health of communities.”
• , the Shauna C. Larson endowed chair in learning sciences, for “his work in the cultural basis of scientific research and learning, bringing rigor and light to multiculturalism in science and STEM education through STEM Teaching Tools and other programs.”
• , professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, “for her sustained commitment to community-engaged, science-driven practice and policy change related to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of mental health, with a focus on providing effective, sustainable and culturally appropriate care to people with serious mental illness.”
• , the David and Nancy Auth endowed professor in bioengineering, who has “charted new paths for 30-plus years. Her quest to deeply understand protein folding/unfolding and the link to amyloid diseases has propelled her to pioneer unique computational and experimental methods leading to the discovery and characterization of a new protein structure linked to toxicity early in amyloidogenesis.”
• , professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, of global health, and of emergency medicine, who is “a global and national leader at the intersection of climate change and health whose work has advanced our understanding of climate change health effects and has informed the design of preparedness and disaster response planning in Washington state, nationally and globally.”
• , professor of bioengineering and of radiology, who is “recognized for his contributions to the science and engineering of medical imaging systems and for leadership in national programs and professional and scientific societies advancing the capabilities of medical imaging.”
• , the Donald W. and Ruth Mary Close professor of electrical and computer engineering and faculty member in the UW Clean Energy Institute, who is “recognized for his distinguished research contributions to the design and operation of economical, reliable and environmentally sustainable power systems, and the development of influential educational materials used to train the next generation of power engineers.”
• , senior vice president and director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the Joel D. Meyers endowed chair of clinical research and of vaccine and infectious disease at Fred Hutch, and UW professor of medicine, who is “is recognized for her seminal contributions to developing validated laboratory methods for interrogating cellular and humoral immune responses to HIV, TB and COVID-19 vaccines, which has led to the analysis of more than 100 vaccine and monoclonal antibody trials for nearly three decades, including evidence of T-cell immune responses as a correlate of vaccine protection.”
• , professor of political science and the Walker family professor for the arts and sciences, who is a specialist “in environmental politics, international political economy, and the politics of nonprofit organizations. He is widely recognized as a leader in the field of environmental politics, best known for his path-breaking research on the role firms and nongovernmental organizations can play in promoting more stringent regulatory standards.”
• , the Ballmer endowed dean of social work, for investigations of “how inequality, in its many forms, affects health, illness and quality of life. He has developed unique conceptual frameworks to investigate how race, ethnicity and immigration are associated with health and social outcomes.”
• , professor of chemistry, who is elected “for distinguished scientific and community contributions to advancing the field of electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, which have transformed how researchers worldwide analyze data.”
• , professor of bioengineering and of ophthalmology, whose “pioneering work in biomedical optics, including the invention of optical microangiography and development of novel imaging technologies, has transformed clinical practice, significantly improving patient outcomes. Through his numerous publications, patents and clinical translations, his research has helped shape the field of biomedical optics.”

Three new UW members of the academy were selected by virtue of their previous election to one of the National Academies. They are:

• , professor of atmospheric and climate science, who had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences “for contributions to research and expertise in atmospheric radiation and cloud processes, remote sensing, cloud/aerosol/radiation/climate interactions, stratospheric circulation and stratosphere-troposphere exchanges and coupling, and climate change.”
• , the Bartley Dobb professor for the study and prevention of violence in the Department of Epidemiology and a UW professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for being a national public health leader whose innovative and multidisciplinary research to integrate data across the health care system and criminal legal system has deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm and informed policies and programs to reduce its burden, especially among underserved communities and populations.”
• , division chief of general pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital and a UW professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for her leadership in advancing child health equity through scholarship in community-partnered design of innovative care models in pediatric primary care. Her work has transformed our understanding of how to deliver child preventive health care during the critical early childhood period to achieve equitable health outcomes and reduce disparities.”

In addition, Dr. , president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and of the Cancer Consortium — a partnership between the UW, Seattle Children’s Hospital and Fred Hutch — was elected to the academy for being “part of a research effort that found mutations in the cell-surface protein epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which plays an important role in helping lung cancer cells survive. Today, drugs that target EGFR can dramatically change outcomes for lung cancer patients by slowing the progression of the cancer.”

the Boeing-Egtvedt endowed professor and chair in aeronautics and astronautics, will join the board effective Sept. 30. Morgansen was elected to WSAS in 2021 “for significant advances in nonlinear methods for integrated sensing and control in engineered, bioinspired and biological flight systems,” and “for leadership in cross-disciplinary aerospace workforce development.” She is currently director of the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium, co-director of the UW Space Policy and Research Center and chair of the AIAA Aerospace Department Chairs Association. She is also a member of the WSAS education committee.

“I am excited to serve on the WSAS board and work with WSAS members to leverage and grow WSAS’s impact by identifying new opportunities for WSAS to collaborate and partner with the state in addressing the state’s needs,” said Morgansen.

The new members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences will be formally inducted in September.

Three professors at the ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝ have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine in recognition of excellence in the fields of health and medicine, along with a commitment to volunteer service. Election to the Academy is considered one of the most prestigious honors in health and medicine.

Dr. , a professor of epidemiology and of pediatrics; Dr. , a professor of pediatrics; and , an affiliate professor of biochemistry, were among the 100 new members .

“This is a tremendous and well-deserved honor for each of these valued members of the UW community,” UW Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Tricia Serio said. “All threeĚýare all visionary leaders in their vital fields, and their commitment to creating a better world through their work exemplifies the impact we strive for at the University of Washington.”

Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar was recognized for his research on gun violence, which the Academy said has “deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm.” His work integrates data from health care and criminal justice systems to better understand risk factors related to gun violence and injury. That research has informed policies and programs aimed at reducing the risk of firearm-related harm, particularly in underserved and overlooked communities.

He is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Prevention of Violence and interim director of the in the UW School of Medicine.

Dr. Coker heads the General Pediatrics department at Seattle Children’s Hospital and is co-director of the . Her research focuses on eliminating health and health care disparities for Black and Latinx children, as well as families in low-income communities. The Academy cited her leadership in advancing child health equity and work that has “transformed our understanding of how to deliver child preventive health care during the critical early childhood period to achieve equitable health outcomes and reduce disparities.”

She is the founder and former director of the Health Equity Research Program at Seattle Children’s Center for Diversity and Health Equity.

Zeng is executive vice president and director of the in Seattle. The Academy recognized her leadership of a team whose work has led to “transformative understanding of cell type diversity” by generating large-scale, open-access datasets and tools for use in neuroscience research.

Seven UW faculty members have been elected to the Academy in the past four years.

For more information or to contact any of the honorees, email Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.Ěý

Twenty scientists and engineers at the ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝ are among the 38 new members elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2021, according to a July 15 . New members were chosen for “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.”

Current academy members selected 29 of the new members. An additional nine were elected by virtue of joining one of the National Academies.

New UW members who were elected by current academy members are:

• , professor and Port of Tacoma Chair in Environmental Science at UW Tacoma, director of the and science director of the , “for foundational work on the environmental fate, behavior and toxicity of PCBs.”
• , professor of psychology, “for contributions in research on racial and gender inequality that has influenced practices in education, government, and business” and “for shifting the explanation for inequality away from individual deficiencies and examining how societal stereotypes and structures cause inequalities.”
• , professor of chemistry and member faculty at the , “for leadership in the innovative synthesis and chemical modification of nanoscale materials for application in light emission and catalysis.”
• , professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences, and founding director of the , “for work on the health impacts of climate change, on climate impact forecasting, on adaptation to climate change and on climate policy to protect health.”
• , professor of environmental and forest sciences and dean emeritus of the College of the Environment, “for foundational studies of regional paleoenvironmental history and sustained excellence in academic leadership to catalyze and sustain transformative research and educational initiatives.” Graumlich is also president-elect of the American Geophysical Union.
• Dr. , the Joseph W. Eschbach Endowed Chair in Kidney Research and co-director of the , “for pioneering contributions and outstanding achievements in the development of the novel wearable artificial kidney, as well as numerous investigator-initiated clinical trials and multi-center collaborative studies.”
• , professor of environmental chemistry and chair of the Physical Sciences Division at UW Bothell, “for leadership in monitoring and understanding the global transport of atmospheric pollutants from energy production, wildfire, and other sources, as well as science communication and service that has informed citizens and enhanced public policy.”
• , professor and chair of psychology, “for contributions demonstrating how psychological science can inform long-standing issues about racial and gender discrimination” and “for research that has deep and penetrating implications for the law and societal efforts to remedy social inequities with evidence-based programs and actions.”
• , the Leon C. Johnson Professor of Chemistry, member faculty at the and chair of the Department of Chemistry, “for developing new spectroscopy tools for measuring energy flow in molecules and materials with high spatial and temporal resolution.”
• , professor of astronomy, “for founding the and leading the decades-long development of the interdisciplinary modeling framework and community needed to establish the science of exoplanet astrobiology” and “for training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists who will search for life beyond Earth.”
• , professor and chair of aeronautics and astronautics, “for leadership and significant advances in nonlinear methods for integrated sensing and control in engineered, bioinspired and biological flight systems” and “for leadership in cross-disciplinary aerospace workforce development.”
• , associate professor of chemistry and member faculty with the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute, “for exceptional contributions to the development of synthetic polymers and nanomaterials for self-assembly and advanced manufacturing with application in sustainability, medicine and microelectronics.”
• Dr. , Associate Dean of Medical Technology Innovation in the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine, the Graham and Brenda Siddall Endowed Chair in Cornea Research, and medical director of the UW Eye Institute, “for developing and providing first class clinical treatment of severe corneal blindness to hundreds of people, for establishing the world premier artificial cornea program in Washington, and for leading collaborative research to translate innovative engineering technologies into creative clinical solution.”
• Dr. , professor of medicine and director of the , “for global recognition as an authority on drug and vaccine development for viral and parasitic diseases through work as an infectious disease physician and immunologist.”
• Dr. , professor of pediatrics and of anesthesiology and pain medicine, and director of the , “for outstanding leadership in pediatric anesthesiology and in the care of children with traumatic brain injury” and “for internationally recognized expertise in traumatic brain injury and direction of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center for the last decade as an exceptional mentor and visionary leader.”

UW members who will join the Washington State Academy of Sciences by virtue of their election to one of the National Academies are:

• , professor of biostatistics, “for the development of novel statistical models for longitudinal data to better diagnose disease, track its trajectory, and predict its outcomes” and “for revolutionizing how dynamic predictors are judged by their discrimination and calibration and has significantly advanced methods for randomized controlled trials.” Heagerty was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021.
• , the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering, “for foundational contributions to the mathematics of computer systems and of the internet, as well as to the design and probabilistic analysis of algorithms, especially on-line algorithms, and algorithmic mechanism design and game theory.” Karlin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , professor emeritus of applied mathematics and data science fellow at the , “for inventing key algorithms for hyperbolic conservation laws and transforming them into powerful numerical technologies” and “for creating the Clawpack package, which underpins a wide range of application codes in everyday use, such as for hazard assessment due to tsunamis and other geophysical phenomena.” LeVeque was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , the Benjamin D. Hall Endowed Chair in Basic Life Sciences and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for advancing our physical understanding of cell motility and growth in animals and bacteria” and “for discovering how the pathogen Listeria uses actin polymerization to move inside human cells, how crawling animal cells coordinate actomyosin dynamics and the mechanical basis of size control and daughter cell separation in bacteria.” Theriot was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , professor and chair of biological structure, “for elucidating cellular transformations through which neurons pattern their dendrites, and the interplay of activity-dependent and -independent mechanisms leading to assembly of stereotyped circuits” and “for revelations regarding the fundamental principles of neuronal development through the application of an elegant combination of in vivo imaging, physiology, ultrastructure and genetics to the vertebrate retina.” Wong was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.

New members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences are scheduled to be inducted at a meeting in September.

Providing economic relief to struggling families can lead to another positive effect — fewer cases of child neglect, according to new research by the ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝.

A 10% increase in a common benefit for low- to moderate-income working families, the Earned Income Tax Credit, led to a 9% decrease in the annual number of reports of child neglect made to child welfare agencies over a 14-year study period. That’s a significant impact, researchers say, and can inform future social policies.

The study is relevant to current policy actions, as President Joe Biden has recently proposed an as part of his new stimulus plan.

“The EITC is an important part of the U.S. safety net that has been shown to substantially reduce child poverty. Our results add to growing evidence that policies that improve family economic security can also prevent child maltreatment,” said , a doctoral student at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the UW.

She is lead author of the published Jan. 19 in the journal Child Maltreatment.

Child maltreatment is a common problem in the United States, with an estimated subject to a child protective services investigation before they turn 18. The stress of poverty has been linked to child abuse and family instability, and other research has explored the impact of different economic policies on child-abuse prevention. The UW study is the first to focus on the Earned Income Tax Credit – a program designed to assist lower-income families, often with a tangible benefit in the form of a tax refund – and its potential association with reports of child maltreatment made to child welfare agencies across the U.S.

The is provided by both the federal government and 28 states, and eligibility and credit size vary with income and family size. UW researchers focused on the generosity of refundable state EITCs, noting that such a benefit has been found .

The research team analyzed the number of child abuse and neglect reports to local and state agencies from 2004 through 2017 and the correlation with the EITC program at the state level. The team hypothesized that the more generous a state’s EITC, the more necessities, such as child care or rent, a family can put the money toward, potentially alleviating some of the stress that can lead to child maltreatment. Over the course of the study period, many states altered their level of benefit as a percentage of the federal tax credit, while others generally held steady. Minnesota, for example, provided an average of 33% of the federal credit, depending on household income, while Oklahoma provided 5% of the federal credit before making its EITC nonrefundable in 2016.

With the child abuse and neglect data, the UW team counted all reports of maltreatment, rather than just those reports that were found to be substantiated, reasoning that . Taking all states into account – those with and without an EITC — during the study period, states averaged nearly 4,400 maltreatment reports per 100,000 children each year.

When annual state EITC benefits were taken into account, the team found maltreatment reports, particularly those of neglect, declined as benefit levels rose: A 10 percentage-point increase in state-level benefits was associated with 241 fewer reports of neglect per 100,000 children. The effect was even more pronounced in the number of neglect reports on children from infancy through age 5, the age range at which .

Put another way, a 10 percentage-point increase in the refundable EITC benefit led to a 9% drop in rates of reported child neglect.

“This study highlights the importance of investigating the impact of social policies on health. Violence is a health issue with multiple forms, such as child maltreatment. An emerging body of evidence is empirically demonstrating that violence prevention can be an added benefit of social policies that were not necessarily enacted with that specific goal originally. This study is the most recent addition to that literature,” said , an associate professor of epidemiology at the UW, director of the Violence Prevention Section at the , and the principal investigator of the that supported this study.

While child neglect showed a trend, the link between EITC benefits and reports of specific types of abuse – physical, sexual and emotional – was not statistically significant. Researchers note that child abuse rates, in general, have declined much more significantly than neglect rates in recent decades, while neglect is found in .

Child neglect, too, may be more distinctly associated with poverty, potentially making some interventions more effective in preventing certain types of maltreatment than others.

“Child neglect often involves the failure of a caregiver to provide children with necessities, such as food, shelter and basic supervision. Additional income provided to families through the EITC can improve parents’ abilities to meet these basic needs,” Kovski said.

Researchers say the findings point to the fundamental value of an economic policy – the EITC – as a child-maltreatment prevention strategy. In other words, proactively improving financial stability among families may mitigate the circumstances that lead to child neglect and abuse.

The study was funded by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Co-authors were of the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the UW; and of the UW Department of Epidemiology; and ofĚý the UW Department of Epidemiology, the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center and the UW Department of Pediatrics.

For more information, contact Kovski at kovskin@uw.edu.

While gun violence in and as calls for policies to stem the crisis grow, ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝ researchers point out in a new analysis that barriers to data stand in the way of advancing solutions.

“Firearm data availability, accessibility and infrastructure need to be substantially improved to reduce the burden of the public health crisis of firearm violence,” said , lead co-author and associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology in the UW School of Public Health.

The paper was in JAMA on Oct. 11. Other co-authors are and from the Department of Pediatrics in the UW School of Medicine.

The authors look at three specific categories — firearm ownership and storage, firearm purchase and firearm tracing — to show how previously available data led to published research. In these three cases, data either is no longer being collected or researchers are not allowed access.

For example, a 2003 amendment to the U.S. Department of Justice appropriations bill still blocks the release of federal data involving the tracing of firearms to anyone outside of law enforcement or prosecutors. In another example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System previously collected data related to household firearm ownership and storage, but the CDC stopped asking those questions in 2004.

“There are fundamental questions of policy and practice important for preventing firearm violence that have been left unanswered for decades,” Rowhani-Rahbar said.Ěý“Part of our inability to answer those questions is due to limited research funding.ĚýHowever, there are circumstances in which the lack of access to pertinent data that are not readily collectible by or available to investigators, regardless of research funding, can substantially impede research progress.”

For the authors’ complete analysis, read the . For more research and information on firearms, visit the .

For more information, contact Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar, rowhani@uw.edu.

Pancreatic cancer has one of the worst prognoses — with a five-year survival rate of — in part because there are no telltale symptoms or non-invasive screening tools to catch a tumor before it spreads.

Now, ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝ researchers are developingĚýan app that could allow people to easily screen for pancreatic cancer and other diseases — by snapping a smartphone selfie.

uses a smartphone camera, computer vision algorithms and machine learning tools to detect increased bilirubin levels in a person’s sclera, or the white part of the eye. The app is described in a to be presented Sept. 13 at , the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing.

One of the earliest symptoms of pancreatic cancer, as well as other diseases, is jaundice, a yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes caused by a buildup of in the blood. The ability to detect signs of jaundice when bilirubin levels are minimally elevated — but before they’re visible to the naked eye — could enable an entirely new screening program for at-risk individuals.

In an initial clinical study of 70 people, the BiliScreen app — used in conjunction with a 3-D printed box that controls the eye’s exposure to light — correctly identified cases of concern 89.7 percent of the time, compared to the blood test currently used.

“The problem with pancreatic cancer is that by the time you’re symptomatic, it’s frequently too late,” said lead author , a doctoral student at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “The hope is that if people can do this simple test once a month — in the privacy of their own homes — some might catch the disease early enough to undergo treatment that could save their lives.”

BiliScreen builds on earlier work from the UW’s , which previously developed , a smartphone app that screens for newborn jaundice by taking a picture of a baby’s skin. AĚý in the journal Pediatrics showed BiliCam provided accurate estimates of bilirubin levels in 530 infants.

In collaboration with UW Medicine doctors, the UbiComp lab specializes in using cameras, microphones and other components of common consumer devices — such as smartphones and tablets — to screen for disease.

The blood test that doctors currently use to measure bilirubin levels — which is typically not administered to adults unless there is reason for concern — requires access to a health care professional and is inconvenient for frequent screening. BiliScreen is designed to be an easy-to-use, non-invasive tool that could help determine whether someone ought to consult a doctor for further testing. Beyond diagnosis, BiliScreen could also potentially ease the burden on patients with pancreatic cancer who require frequent bilirubin monitoring.

In adults, the whites of the eyes are more sensitive than skin to changes in bilirubin levels, which can be an early warning sign for pancreatic cancer, hepatitis or the generally harmless . Unlike skin color, changes in the sclera are more consistent across all races and ethnicities.

Yet by the time people notice the yellowish discoloration in the sclera, bilirubin levels are already well past cause for concern. The UW team wondered if computer vision and machine learning tools could detect those color changes in the eye before humans can see them.

“The eyes are a really interesting gateway into the body — tears can tell you how much glucose you have, sclera can tell you how much bilirubin is in your blood,” said senior author , the Washington Research Foundation Entrepreneurship Endowed Professor in Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Ěý“Our question was: Could we capture some of these changes that might lead to earlier detection with a selfie?”

BiliScreen uses a smartphone’s built-in camera and flash to collect pictures of a person’s eye as they snap a selfie. The team developed a computer vision system to automatically and effectively isolate the white parts of the eye, which is a valuable tool for medical diagnostics. The app then calculates the color information from the sclera — based on the wavelengths of light that are being reflected and absorbed — and correlates it with bilirubin levels using machine learning algorithms.

To account for different lighting conditions, the team tested BiliScreen with two different accessories: paper glasses printed with colored squares to help calibrate color and a 3-D printed box that blocks out ambient lighting. Using the app with the box accessory — reminiscent of a headset — led to slightly better results.

Next steps for the research team include testing the app on a wider range of people at risk for jaundice and underlying conditions, as well as continuing to make usability improvements — including removing the need for accessories like the box and glasses.

“This relatively small initial study shows the technology has promise,” said co-author Dr. , a professor in the UW Medicine Department of Pediatrics whose father died of pancreatic cancer at age 70.

“Pancreatic cancer is a terrible disease with no effective screening right now,” Taylor said. “Our goal is to have more people who are unfortunate enough to get pancreatic cancer to be fortunate enough to catch it in time to have surgery that gives them a better chance of survival.”

Co-authors include Allen School undergraduate student Megan A. Banks, research study coordinator Lauren Phillipi and assistant professor of medicine .

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Coulter Foundation and endowment funds from the Washington Research Foundation.

For more information, contact the research team at uwbiliscreen@gmail.com or at atm15@cs.washington.edu.

Two ĚěĂŔÓ°ĘÓ´«Ă˝ professorsĚýhave received the 2017 , the highest honor given by the U.S. government to early career scientists and engineers.

, associate professor of statistics and of computer science and engineering and Amazon Professor of Machine Learning, and , professor of pediatrics in the UW School of Medicine and of environmental and occupational health sciences in the UW School of Public Health, were among the 102 recipients announced by the White House this week.

Awardees are selected for their “pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education or community outreach,” according to a .

Fox was nominated by the National Science Foundation “for her groundbreaking work in large-scale Bayesian modeling and computational approaches to time series and longitudinal data analysis, and for outstanding research and mentoring of women in computer science and statistics.”

Her machine learning research has been applied in a wide range of domains, including neuroscience, finance and econometrics, human motion and social networks. ĚýSome of her latest projects include analyzing functional connectivity networks in the brain from neuroimaging data, modeling highly localized house price indices in collaboration with Zillow and developing a novel statistical framework for analyzing sparse social network data.

Fox is also an adjunct associate professor of electrical engineering and a data science fellow of the eScience institute.

Karr, who was nominated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, uses a community engaged approach to research focusing on environmental contaminants and pediatric respiratory health — including asthma, the health of farmworker children and global children’s environmental health.

Recent projects include working with Native American and Latino communities in the Yakima Valley to develop low-cost air pollution sensors aimed at reducing wood smoke exposure, conducting an intervention trial among Yakima youth with asthma to evaluate the effectiveness of home air cleaners and investigating how exposure to environmental factors from conception through early childhood influences the health of children and adolescents.

Karr, also an adjunct professor of epidemiology, directs the Northwest Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, a regional consultation and education service. She also cares for patients and teaches resident physicians at the Pediatric Care Center at UW Medical Center-Roosevelt.

More than a dozen federal departments or agencies nominate young scientists and engineers from across the country whose “early accomplishments show the greatest promise for assuring America’s preeminence in science and engineering and contributing to the awarding agencies’ missions.” The final awards, first established by President Bill Clinton in 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President.

“I congratulate these outstanding scientists and engineers on their impactful work,” President Barack Obama said in a statement. “These innovators are working to help keep the United States on the cutting edge, showing that federal investments in science lead to advancements that expand our knowledge of the world around us and contribute to our economy.”