Over five decades, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has become known as the nation’s. Low-income families receiving WIC benefits — which provides nutritious food in designated categories, nutrition education and access to other social services — have .��

But many families who are income eligible to participate in WIC aren’t receiving those benefits. Research has found that households who don’t use the full amount of their nutrition benefits are more likely to drop from the program.��

New research by the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý has found that households who redeem more of their benefits in the most popular food categories are more likely to remain in the program long-term. Better understanding these patterns could help WIC agencies identify families who might need a little extra encouragement to stay enrolled.

The study was .��

“Finding ways to identify kids and families that are at risk of dropping out of the program is of high importance,” said , a UW assistant professor of health systems and population health and first author of the study. “That’s basically what we’ve identified — a way to flag families who may be at risk of dropping off.”

WIC provides families with food benefits in , with fruits and vegetables and eggs as the most popular. In partnership with (PHFE WIC), a Southern California WIC agency with a large research and evaluation division, researchers analyzed redemption data from 188,000 participating infants and children 0-3 years old, between the years 2019 and 2023.��

Among those children, higher redemption of fruits and vegetables, eggs, whole milk and infant formula was associated with lower risk of their household discontinuing WIC participation.��

The risk of discontinuation decreased in a somewhat linear fashion as redemption rates increased.

Chaparro hopes that local WIC agencies will build on these findings and seek new ways to engage families at risk of dropping off. All WIC providers must offer nutrition education, which could be an opportunity to target households with lower redemption rates in popular categories.��

The findings come just over a year after the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees WIC, . Among other changes, the 2024 rule significantly increased benefits for fresh fruits and vegetables, which has proven popular.

“The expansion of fruit and vegetable benefits for WIC families has been among the most important policy changes of the last decade,” said , director of research and evaluation at PHFE WIC and co-author of the study. “Families want more fruits and vegetables, and this research demonstrates that their inclusion in the WIC food package is essential for longer-term engagement in the program.”

of the University of Tennessee and PHFE WIC is the corresponding author. This study was funded by .

In the 10 years since the federal government , studies have suggested the policy has wide-ranging benefits. Students in participating schools , are and .

Now, as cuts to food assistance programs threaten to slash access to universal school meals, a new study led by the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý finds another potential benefit to the programs: Students in participating schools were less likely to have high blood pressure, suggesting that universal free meals might be a powerful tool for improving public health.��

“High blood pressure is an important public health problem that isn’t studied as much on a population level as obesity,” said , a UW postdoctoral researcher of health systems and population health and lead author of the study. “We have evidence that CEP increases participation in school meals, and we also have evidence that school meals are more nutritious than meals that kids obtain elsewhere. This is a public health policy that is delivering nutritious meals to children who may not have previously had access.”

For the study, , researchers linked two datasets that rarely interact. They obtained medical records of patients ages 4-18 from community health organizations, and used patients’ addresses to identify the school they attended. The data encompassed 155,778 young people attending 1,052 schools, mostly in California and Oregon.

Researchers estimated the percentage of students with high blood pressure before and after schools opted into universal free meals, and compared those results against eligible schools that had not yet participated in the program. They also tracked students’ average systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings. All data were aggregated at the school level.��

They found that school participation in the CEP was associated with a 2.71% decrease in the proportion of students with high blood pressure, corresponding to a 10.8% net drop over five years. School participation in CEP was also associated with a decrease in students’ average diastolic blood pressure.��

“In previous work on the health impacts of universal free school meals, our team found that adoption of free meals is associated with decreases in and , which are closely linked to risk of high blood pressure,” said , a professor of health, society and behavior at the University of California Irvine’s Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health and senior author of the study. Jones-Smith conducted much of this research while on faculty at the UW School of Public Health. “So in addition to directly affecting blood pressure through provision of healthier meals, a second pathway by which providing universal free meals might impact blood pressure is through their impact on lowering risk for high BMI.”��

Improved nutrition of school meals may have helped drive the decrease, researchers said. The 2010 law that established the CEP also created stronger nutritional requirements for school meals. As a result, those meals now more closely resemble the , which to be an effective tool for managing hypertension.��

Despite the evidence supporting the DASH diet’s effectiveness, public health officials previously lacked an effective mechanism to encourage people with high blood pressure to follow its recommendations. “We know there are a lot of barriers to people eating this diet,” Localio said, but the combination of universal free meals and increased nutritional standards likely helped students overcome those barriers.

The study also contradicts the common misperception that universal free meals mostly benefit wealthier students, because students from low-income families would already receive free meals. The study sample consists primarily of low-income patients, with 85% of included students enrolled in public health insurance such as Medicaid.

“There is a perception that providing universally free school meals will only improve outcomes for students of relatively higher-income families, but our findings suggest that there are benefits for lower-income children as well,” Jones-Smith said. “Potential mechanisms for this include decreasing the income-related stigma around eating school lunch by providing it free to all students and eliminating the time and paperwork burden of individually applying, thus decreasing barriers to participation in school meals.”

These findings come at an uncertain time for universal free meals. A school is eligible to participate in the CEP if . In this way, recent cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s largest food assistance program, may affect schools’ access to the program.

“We’re in a contentious time for public health, but it seems like there’s bipartisan support for healthy school meals,” Localio said. “There’s legislation being considered in a number of states to expand universal free meals, and these findings could inform that decision-making. Cutting funding to school meals would not promote children’s health.”��

Co-authors on the study include , research professor emeritus of health systems and population health at the UW; , teaching professor of economics at the UW; Wyatt Benksen and Aileen Ochoa of OCHIN; and , associate professor of nursing at the UW. This study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development.��

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

New research from the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý shows that the program can improve fruit and vegetable intake and food security among low-income populations by providing financial support for buying healthy food.

The Fresh Bucks program works with local partners to help Seattle residents access healthy food. The program accepts applications from Seattle households with income less than 80% of the area median — $110,950 for a family of four in 2024. Recipients can use the $40 per month benefit to purchase fruits and vegetables at more than 40 retail locations throughout Seattle, including farmers markets, Safeway stores and independently owned grocery stores.

The study, , shows that Fresh Bucks households experience a 31% higher rate of food security and consume at least three daily servings of fruits and vegetables 37% more often than those assigned to a program waitlist.

“I would classify both of those numbers as pretty large,” said , co-author, UW affiliate professor of health systems and population health and of epidemiology and University of California, Irvine professor of health, society and behavior. “We don’t routinely see interventions that work that well. It’s a pretty big impact on diet in terms of what we can do from a policy perspective and expect to make a difference in food insecurity.”

Food insecurity, or the lack of access to nutritionally adequate foods, is linked to lower-income households and is often associated with poor nutrient intake, diabetes and hypertension. Diet quality, including fruit and vegetable intake, impacts the risk for premature disability and death from cardiometabolic disease, cancer and other causes. But fresh fruits and vegetables tend to be less available in lower-income neighborhoods and more expensive than processed foods.

“The UW’s study helps us understand how the City of Seattle’s Fresh Bucks program shows up in the day-to-day decisions of our enrolled households,” said Robyn Kumar, Fresh Bucks program manager at the City of Seattle Office of Sustainability. “Findings show that the healthy food access program makes a tangible difference for customers, significantly increasing food security and fruit and vegetable intake. We know these lifestyle changes have long-lasting benefits, and Fresh Bucks is helping to ensure that our most overburdened community members have equitable access to healthy foods and increased quality of life.”

In October 2021, 6,900 new applicants and existing beneficiaries applied to receive benefits in 2022. The total number of applicants exceeded program funding, so 4,200 households were randomly chosen to receive benefits. The remaining applicants were placed on a waitlist. The City of Seattle then mailed a follow-up survey to all 6,900 applicants in July 2022. The sample for this study consists of the 1,973 households who completed and returned the survey.

Researchers compared new applicants who received the benefit and new applicants assigned to the waitlist. They also considered the impact of losing Fresh Bucks by comparing returning applicants who were placed on the waitlist with those who continued receiving benefits. Losing the benefit reduced food security by 29% and resulted in households being 26% less likely to eat fruits and vegetables at least three times a day.

“The results were quite symmetric,” said , lead author and UW teaching professor of economics. “The people who gained the program saw nearly the same benefit as what was lost by the people who lost the program. So, it seems like there are two things going on: One is that the program is helping people, and the other is these effects don’t magically sustain themselves without funding.”

Because of the health risks associated with poor diet, insurers have recently shown increased interest and investment in “food is medicine,” or FIM, programs, which include produce prescriptions and programs that provide free, healthy food for patients. Before FIM programs, federal grants funded “nutrition incentive programs” to increase healthy food access and food security.

But Fresh Bucks differs from other healthy food benefit programs in several ways, including focused enrollment within households disproportionately impacted by food insecurity and diet-related chronic disease, divesting enrollment from SNAP participation, enabling participants to redeem benefits at a large chain food retailer and smaller local stores and no required match spending — where participants receive additional benefits based on how much of their own money they spend.

“We clearly see that once this program goes away, people can no longer afford to eat these foods, as evidenced by the increase in fruits and vegetables when people are receiving the benefit, but the near symmetric decrease when benefits are lost,” Jones-Smith said. “I think that really drives home the fact that money or material resources are necessary for enacting this kind of dietary change.”

Other co-authors from the UW include , recently graduated doctoral student of health systems and population health; , associate professor of health systems and population health; and , community research coordinator. The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

For more information, contact Knox at knoxm@uw.edu.

Twelve faculty members at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state July 17 as new members. Election recognizes the new member’s “outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement and willingness to assist the Academy in providing the best available scientific information and technical understanding to inform complex policy decisions in Washington.”��

The UW faculty members were selected by current WSAS members or by their election to national science academies. Eleven were voted on by current WSAS members:��

, professor, Bill & Melinda Gates Chair, and director of the Paul G. ��Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering, for “contributions in data management for data science, big data systems, cloud computing and image/video analytics and leadership in data science education.”��

professor of civil & environmental engineering and of industrial & systems engineering, for “pioneering work in human mobility analysis and infrastructure resilience, which have transformed transportation systems in terms of both demand and supply, and shaped the future directions of transportation systems research on community-based solutions and disaster resilience.”��

Lloyd and Kay Chapman Endowed Chair for Oral Health and associate dean for research in the UW School of Dentistry, and professor in the Department of Health Systems & Population Health, for “leadership in understanding and addressing children’s oral health inequities through community-based socio-behavioral interventions and evidence-based policies.”��

professor of biology, for “internationally recognized leadership in the biology of sleep, including groundbreaking research on molecular and genetic aspects of the brain, human behavioral studies on learning under varied sleep schedules, and contributions that have shaped policy on school schedules and standard time.”��

, the Virginia and Prentice Bloedel professor of physics and of electrical & computer engineering, for “foundational contributions to fundamental and applied research on the optical and spin properties of quantum point defects in crystals and for service and leadership in the quantum community.” ��

, professor and chair of human centered design and engineering, for “award-winning leadership in HCI computing, whose research has advanced health and education technology, influenced policy, and shaped the HCI field of through impactful scholarship, interdisciplinary collaboration and inclusive, real-world technology design.”��

, professor and associate dean for research in the UW School of Social Work, for “contributions to understanding psychosocial and physiological factors that moderate the effectiveness of their interventions and ultimately improve the health of children with abdominal pain disorders.”��

, professor of medicine in the UW School of Medicine and of pharmacy, “for leadership in health economics and cancer research, including work on financial toxicity, cost- effectiveness, and healthcare policy that has influenced national discussions, improved cancer care access, and shaped policies for equitable and sustainable healthcare.” Ramsey is also Director of the Cancer Outcomes Research Program at Fred Hutch.��

, professor of bioengineering and Vice Dean of Research and Graduate Education in the UW School of Medicine, for “national leadership in biomedical research, research policy, and graduate education, including pioneering novel drug delivery approaches for regenerative medicine applications in the nervous system and other tissues such as bone, cartilage, tendon and skin.”��

, Rabinowitz Endowed Professor of Earth and space sciences, for “revolutionizing our understanding of climate change in Antarctica through pioneering ice core extractions under hazardous Antarctic conditions and their subsequent analyses over two decades, and for applying that expertise to advance climate research in Washington State.”��

, professor of pharmaceutics, for “pioneering contributions to pharmaceutical and translational sciences, including groundbreaking research on drug transporters, PBPK modeling and maternal-fetal pharmacology that have helped shaped drug safety policies.”��

The Academy also welcomed new members who were selected by virtue of their election to the National Academies of Science, Engineering or Medicine. Among them is , the Arthur B. McDonald professor of physics and director of the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. Hertzog was elected to the National Academy of Sciences last year. ��

For Valentine’s Day, UW News asked 12 ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý researchers to share their love stories: What made them decide to pursue their career paths? Scroll down or click on the links below to see their responses.

Lakeya Afolalu | Katya Cherukumilli | Stephen Groening | June Lukuyu | Jennifer Nemhauser | Zoe Pleasure | Kira Schabram | Bára Šafářová | Adam Summers | Timeka Tounsel | Kendall Valentine | Navid Zobeiry

, Assistant professor of language, literacy and culture, College of Education

What do you study at the UW?��

My research explores how immigration, race, language, literacy and identity intersect in the lives of Nigerian immigrant and transnational youth. Unlike in many West African countries, race is the most salient identifier in the United States, often overlooking the diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic identities of youth of African origin. This often affects how immigrant youth make sense of their identities in this country. My research examines how Nigerian youth use multilingualism, literacy and digital literacies to construct and negotiate their identities across home, school and digital environments in the U.S.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

My mother is African American. My father is Nigerian. So, growing up, I often felt like I was split between both cultures. There were also so many societal and familial expectations about what it meant to be “Black,” “African American” and “Nigerian.”

Growing up, my family members and friends in Detroit called me by my African American name, “Lakeya.” But when my sisters and I spent summers and holidays in Queens, New York, with our Nigerian family, the moment I crossed over the threshold of the door I was called by my Nigerian name, “Iyore.”

Honestly, I’d say I set out very early in life to define my life’s path and to be intentional about how I wanted to make myself known to the world — my identity. It was not — and even as an adult Black woman in America, it still is not always — comfortable to defy identity expectations. But what other way is there to live? To be a shell of what others, or society, believe we should be? Is that living? It is not.

As a teenager, I had less confidence in being bold and being my true self. I loved reading novels. I’d go to the bookstore and buy books to read, but I hid this practice from my friends because of some unwritten rule that one can’t be Black, cool and smart. Adolescent peer pressure was a real issue. That’s also how I fell in love with writing. Often feeling misunderstood, I resorted to the pages of my journals where I could be myself and dream of my future self. I continue to keep a journal.

My Aunt Darcelle says I’ve been asking profound questions since I learned to speak. That hasn’t changed. So, it’s no surprise that I’ve committed to a career in research. My research is not just research, though. It’s the story and lives of so many young people who feel wedged between other people’s and society’s ideas of who they should be and what they should become. Sometimes, these expectations can come from those closest to us who have well-meaning intentions — parents, family members, close friends. I understand this feeling well.

There are many times when I’m writing a manuscript or analyzing data, and I draw on memories of my own schooling experiences to interpret interview transcripts from the Nigerian youth in my study. Or I remember similar instances from West African seventh-grade students in Harlem, which guided me to draw on theoretical frames that align best with the Nigerian youth experience.

My research is truly about shifting the narrative about what it means to be Black, Nigerian and African. Why? Well, because Blackness is so rich, diverse and multifaceted. So is Nigerianness and Africanness. As I engage in my research to illustrate the rich diversity of Nigerian youth’s languages, literacies and identities, I also aim to contribute to dismantling rigid identity structures, creating greater freedom for all young people who find themselves in environments that are structured by prescribed identities that conflict with how they desire to be known.

My research is a contribution to freedom — a freedom that transcends into adulthood. My feet may be in the academy, but my heart and hands always have been and always will be in the communities that mirror mine. It’s truly an honor to do this heart work.

I also want to touch on how I decided to pursue this career path. Growing up, I always wanted to play school and take on the role of the teacher. In fact, I cried whenever my sisters and cousins wouldn’t play school with me. For Christmas and my birthday, I would ask my mother to buy me dry-erase boards, markers and other office items so that I could set up my “classroom” in the house.

I fell in love with teaching because my early elementary teachers were some of the first people who made me feel seen. For instance, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Schave, would let me choose and read books to the whole class on Fridays. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Korn, at Fitzgerald Elementary on the west side of Detroit, would invite me to the writer’s table in the classroom whenever I finished my work early. At that table, I realized how powerful and freeing the art of writing is.

While I had these great school experiences, they were also starkly different from my cousins’ experiences. They lived and attended public schools in Auburn Hills, in the suburbs outside of Detroit. I often visited them on the weekends and noticed that they read the same books that I read at my elementary school, except that we had the abridged version in basal textbooks while they had the full chapter books. That struck something within me, and I realized very early in life that your ZIP code — where you lived — determined the quality of your education. It felt unfair. I didn’t have the words to describe it then, but I now know that it was an equity issue — not just educationally but also in terms of economic and social mobility.

So, I decided around the age of 7 that I wanted to become a teacher. I made an internal promise to myself, a commitment, that children who grow up in communities like mine — the beautiful west side of Detroit — would have access to a quality education no matter what. Since that commitment, I’ve taught elementary and middle school in Newark, New Jersey, Detroit, and Harlem.

Thinking back to the connection with my research on identity, I had many conversations with my Nigerian father, who wanted me to pursue a career in finance. In Nigerian culture, there’s often the idea that doctor, lawyer and engineer are the only three career choices, but I was less interested in the money and prestige. I was committed to a career in education.

Today, as an assistant professor and the founder of a that supports the identities and well-being of youth of color, I have small moments when I think back to little Lakeya and smile. I’m doing exactly what she set out to do and more. She would be proud.

What advice would you give to your younger self?��

It’s okay to be misunderstood. It’s okay not to fit in. In fact, not fitting in is what makes you beautifully unique. I know that none of your identity and educational experiences may make sense now, but they will later. Trust me, it will make sense — not just for you but for many youths who find themselves making sense of their identities. In fact, you’ll dedicate your career to speaking, writing and doing community-based work about these topics. Finally, I know you’re looking for that example like yourself, with your dreams and who lives between multiple cultural worlds, but in time, you will become the example you’re looking for. Hold on. It’s going to be a beautiful roller coaster of a ride.

For more information, contact Afolalu at lafolalu@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research group, the Safe Water Equity and Longevity Lab, aims to bridge gaps between scientific discovery, technology design and safe water provision. We integrate methods from human-centered design and environmental engineering to investigate barriers that limit safe water access and to develop usable water quality monitoring and treatment technologies. Specifically, we use data science, experiments, hardware prototyping and community-engaged research methods to design collaborative tools that improve safe water management and mitigate exposure to chemical contaminants in water supplies.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From a young age, I always felt a deep connection to our planet. I loved spending most of my time outdoors exploring the natural world. I was very curious and talkative as a child, wanting to solve riddles, play games and learn about how everything worked. My curiosity led me down a winding path of research adventures that allowed me to study geology and supercontinents, climate change and alpine plant ecology, fuel-efficient cookstoves, wastewater irrigation and, eventually, safe drinking water.

When I reflect on how I ended up choosing to research access to drinking water, I think about the different places I have lived: south India, Florida, California and Washington. Each region has a uniquely different way of life, cultural traditions and natural environments. A common thread in each of the places I have called home was proximity to the coastline and easy access to fresh springs, rivers and lakes. I have always found myself drawn by an invisible force to the nearest body of water.

I am grateful that my career allows me to address environmental health challenges while also considering the human experience, to reflect on and reconcile inequities and injustices, and to collaboratively solve complex puzzles with brilliant students, colleagues and community partners.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t be scared to do what you love every day, follow your heart and never stop speaking your mind. You’ll eventually find your way and realize it was the journey that mattered in the end.

For more information, contact Cherukumilli at katyach@uw.edu.

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, Associate professor, Department of Cinema & Media Studies

What do you study at the UW?

I am a media historian who specializes in the sociocultural aspects of media technologies. This includes researching and writing about devices themselves, the implications of the introduction and widespread adoption of these devices and how people use them. For example, my first book was . I have also published research on cell phones, , 16 mm training films, and the use of television screens in the family minivan.

What made you fall in love with your research area? ��

I was 7 when I was stuck on a Pan Am 747 for five hours on the tarmac at London Heathrow and boy, was it exciting when they finally played the movie on the big screen at the front of the cabin!

After that, I lived in Poland under a military dictatorship, which profoundly shaped my media experience growing up. For example, we used to watch Hollywood films played on a 16 mm projector in our living room — both the films and projector were provided through the U.S. Armed Forces. The range of films could be odd. I remember watching “Sophie’s Choice,” “Heartbeeps,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Going Ape!,” “Sleeper,” “Fire and Ice,” “The Towering Inferno,” “City on Fire,” “When Time Ran Out,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Krull” — not exactly .

At the same time, we were watching Polish television (mostly the animated shows “Pszczółka Maja” and “Bolek i Lolek”). Occasionally, a Hollywood film would be aired on TV, over-dubbed in Polish in such a way that the English language dialogue was still audible. I have distinct memories of watching “The Poseidon Adventure” and hearing the first few words of a line in English before the Polish translation came in on top of the dialogue. It wasn’t until a decade or so later that I learned this is not the standard technique for making alternate language versions of films.

We sometimes had access to U.S. television shows from other American diplomats who would return from home leave. They would bring videotape recordings, so I got to watch “Hogan’s Heroes,” “M*A*S*H” and “Gilligan’s Island” months after air date, complete with commercials (which I found both profoundly perplexing and compelling — As I type right now, I am singing the ). I even got to see “Roots” and “The Day After” on Betamax (we did not have what was then thought of as the inferior VHS format).

I would say that those media experiences — in-flight film, 16mm home exhibition, watching films on television in multiple languages — sparked my interest in our mediated mass culture. Until relatively recently, film studies was marked by a bias toward theatrical exhibition of feature films (with the occasional nod to experimental films shown in art galleries) and media studies was concerned with the effective transmission of messages to audiences. The forms of media encounter that are unforeseen and often unintended at the moment of production often get treated as accidental and inconsequential and yet, for many people that is the primary mode of encounter. Because of my experience, I know that all media forms, devices and their contents are contingent on a particular and fortuitous set of circumstances. So I find myself curious about those circumstances and their history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

If I had known I would become an academic, I might have told my 8-year-old self to take better notes and told my undergraduate self to spend more time in faculty office hours asking about academia. Knowing what I know now, I would have told myself 10 years ago to stop worrying what others might think and just write the damned book.

For more information, contact Groening at groening@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research centers on using transdisciplinary approaches to develop solutions for creating sustainable, inclusive and integrated energy solutions for underserved communities. My expertise supports policymakers and practitioners seeking equitable, community-centered energy transitions that combine technical and socioeconomic perspectives.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I grew up in a small community outside Nairobi, Kenya. From an early age, I saw firsthand the challenges of unreliable power: frequent outages, power surges and a system that did not always meet the needs of the people it served. When the lights went out, my family, like many in the area, was often left scrambling to preserve our food or finish homework assignments in candlelight. It was not just an inconvenience — it was a reminder of how something as essential as electricity could hold communities back. I knew from then that I wanted to do something about it, but at the time, I did not quite know how.

When I was in high school, I applied to colleges in the U.S. and was accepted to Smith College on a full scholarship. There, I pursued engineering science, but what really sparked my love for the field was not just the technical challenges — it was how energy systems intertwined with society. At Smith, I was not just solving equations. I was also exploring how power affects everything from education to health care to human development. My engineering courses were paired with courses in psychology, economics and sociology, and that blend of disciplines opened my eyes to a new way of thinking: Energy wasn’t just a technical problem to solve, it was a societal one.

The more I learned, the more I realized that fixing energy systems in underserved communities couldn’t be as simple as just adding more power or building bigger grids. It had to be about understanding the people who needed that power. I wanted to create systems that responded to real needs, that didn’t just drop in solutions, but considered the community’s culture, environment and existing infrastructure. After graduating, I had a job developing software to estimate the cost of power systems, but I kept thinking about how we could rethink energy to make it more sustainable, more inclusive and more connected to the social fabric of the places it served.

That thinking led me to pursue a master’s in renewable energy systems at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom and then a doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where my research focused on finding ways to develop energy systems that were as much about community as they were about technology. I didn’t just want to create another power system that might fail because it didn’t align with how people lived or how societies worked. Instead, I wanted to design systems that were responsive to local contexts and to the needs of communities they intended to serve, systems that people could rely on for the long haul.

In 2023, I joined the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý as an assistant professor, where I founded the IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Energy Analytics for Society) research group. Our work is all about creating energy systems that work for the people who use them. It’s a mix of developing sustainable technology, social understanding and deep collaboration with communities. We’re working on projects in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and even here in the U.S., always with the goal of creating solutions that are both sustainable and tailored to the specific needs of each community.

What I love most about my research is that it’s not just about the science — it’s about the people. Every project is a chance to dive into a new community, understand its challenges and design solutions that truly fit. I’m passionate about making sure that when we think about energy, we’re thinking about people, not just power. And now, teaching and mentoring the next generation of engineers at UW gives me a chance to pass on that mindset — to inspire others to think beyond the technical and ask, “How does this system help the people who need it most?”

It’s been a winding journey, from a small town outside Nairobi to researching sustainable and inclusive energy solutions at a major university. But the core of it has always been the same: a desire to make a difference, to solve real-world problems with technology and to ensure that everyone, no matter where they are, has access to the energy they need to thrive.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I’d tell my younger self not to worry so much about fitting into a mold or following a traditional path. Every experience, even the ones that seem unrelated or uncertain, contributes to your journey. Embrace the uncertainty, because it often leads to the most interesting places.

I’d also remind myself to be patient and kind with the process. Progress isn’t always linear. There were times when I felt overwhelmed or unsure of my next step. It’s okay to feel that way — it’s part of learning and growing. The setbacks, the challenges and even the moments of doubt are just as important as the successes. They shape you and teach you valuable lessons.

Finally, I’d tell myself to take more risks — to seek out the scary opportunities, the ones that seem daunting or unfamiliar. You never know where a seemingly small decision or unexpected twist in the road might take you. Sometimes, the things that seem out of reach are the ones worth pursuing most. So, trust yourself, stay curious and keep pushing forward, even when the path isn’t always clear. The journey will be worth it.

For more information, contact Lukuyu at jlukuyu@uw.edu.

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, Professor, Department of Biology

What do you study at the UW?

We use plant, yeast and human cells to understand and engineer the molecular interactions that allow organisms to process information during development and stress responses.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was a little girl, I attended a Montessori school in Los Angeles. This was the 1970s, and the teachers embraced the philosophy of letting a child’s interest direct their learning. I had one teacher that I really bonded with, named Dr. Pillai. He introduced me to the process of science research, rewarding my seemingly insatiable curiosity with thoughtful responses and sharing just the right book or model or experiment to help me dig deeper into any topic that caught my interest. He made me feel like asking a million questions was a wonderful quality (something not everyone agreed with, then or now!).

The pure joy of learning about the natural world through experimentation struck a deep chord. While the road was quite twisty between those early years and my decision to pursue science as a career, I am sure that I would not be here today without that early encouragement.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Be nicer to your dad when he is helping you with your math homework!

For more information, contact Nemhauser at jn7@uw.edu.

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, Doctoral student, Department of Health Systems & Population Health, School of Public Health

What do you study at the UW?

My research focuses on understanding how people make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health care while navigating the multi-level influences that shape our current societal structure. In my research, I use mixed methods to analyze more traditional data sources, such as qualitative interviews and surveys, and newer data sources, such as TikTok videos, Reddit posts and electronic health record notes, to understand what type of information people seek out about sexual and reproductive health, their motivations behind decision-making and their care interactions with providers. I seek to examine how people with different lived experiences (for example: chronic disease, young people, veterans) may have different decision-making motivations and informational needs to make autonomous reproductive health decisions.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I first became passionate about sexual and reproductive health while taking the class Sex, Gender and the Brain as a neuroscience undergraduate at Emory University. My final project focused on how anti-choice groups attempted to limit reproductive autonomy by promoting erroneous interpretations of neuroscience data to argue that oral contraceptives are dangerous. The class demonstrated to me how scientists could meld science with feminist theory and, more specifically, how the intentional distribution of misinformation online provides another tool to limit bodily autonomy.

Earlier in my educational career, teachers often framed my biology, chemistry and physics classes as apolitical or unbiased by societal structures. I now know that is not true. This class was one of the first classes where we were asked to name the specific orientation or lens of a research paper or study and describe who and what was left out.

I quickly dropped my neuroscience focus after this class and instead focused on policy-relevant, public –health-informed research that aims to improve access to and the equity and quality of sexual and reproductive health care and information. While earning a master’s of public health, I started working at the Guttmacher Institute, a leading sexual and reproductive health policy and research organization based in New York City. There, I started working on research projects that directly studied ways to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I would advise my younger self to think critically about the lessons that are available in all academic classes, including English, dance, and history, and to think about how these lessons can be used to become a better public health researcher and writer.

For more information, contact Pleasure at zoep2@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor of management, Foster School of Business

What do you study at the UW?

My two primary topics of inquiry are meaningful work and employee sustainability. My research examines how to support employees who want to make a positive difference through their work in ways big and small, ranging from employees who view work as a calling — not just a paycheck but as a source of personal, social or moral significance — to those engaging in everyday acts of helping, kindness and compassion. I study the challenges that impede these activities to determine how employees can conduct their work more sustainably.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I fell into academia. In 2007, I was working for the largest animal shelter in North America and I enrolled in a part-time master’s program in business because I had aspirations of one day rising into a leadership position in animal welfare.

In 2008, the Great Recession hit and I lost my job, but I also learned that professors in my master’s program did research (who knew!). At the time, research on meaningful work was in its infancy and focused primarily on the positive aspects (for example: showing that employees doing meaningful work have greater engagement and satisfaction). I saw this among my co-workers in the animal shelter, but I also saw so much frustration, burnout and resignation. Every day, employees who wanted to save animals’ lives were in the corner crying because of their inability to do so.

I applied to 10 doctoral programs and got into one, where I was lucky that my supervisors encouraged me to join the burgeoning wave of research looking at meaningful work as a double-edged sword and what to do about it. The rest is history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

This is less advice for my younger self and more gratitude to all the people who helped me along the way. Early in your career, you do not yet know how anything works: how research works, what journals are appropriate outlets, how to develop the ability to know where to dedicate our efforts: what research projects are not only novel but important. Until then, senior mentors are invaluable guides. What makes for a successful career is all the people who generously offer their time and guidance along the way. I did many, many things wrong in my early career, but one thing I did right was to seek out and show my appreciation for any and all help. I would not be here if it wasn’t for the thousands of hours invested in me by others in the field and I hope I am paying that forward in a small part.

For more information, contact Schabram at schabram@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, School of Urban Studies, UW Tacoma

What do you study at the UW?

��My research is primarily on housing segregation, but I have also become an expert on the overlap of and its relationship with the greening of cities in times of climate change and rising inequality.

What made you fall in love with this new research area?

��I happened to fall into this area in the middle of the night a couple months into my architecture doctoral program. It was early spring. I had moved to College Station, Texas, and was living in a relatively old timberstick house. It was about 1 a.m. when I jumped into my bed and then yelped out from a sharp pain in my lower back.

My first thought: a snake bite?! I leapt up, squeezed my back as if I could prevent any poison from getting in, turned on the light and scanned the bed for a snake. Nothing. Instead I saw a bug — a flat dark bug, not even an inch long. I scooped it up in a jar, let go of my “poisoned skin” and sighed in relief.

Then I thought, could this be a risky bug? I had just moved to the U.S. from Europe and I didn’t know the local fauna at all. To resolve this in a rational way, I settled on eliminating worst-case scenarios. I Googled: “most dangerous insects in Texas.” I checked the bug in the jar for unique characteristics and compared it to a ranking of… JESUS! The third bug on the list was exactly the same bug that was staring at me from the jar: A Kissing bug… a bite from which can lead to Chagas disease… Deadly… No cure… Organs disintegrate in several decades.

My heart was pounding. My hand was back on the bite site. I was skimming the internet frantically. It was so late, and I had no one to call at that hour. I thought of calling people in Europe, but what would they know? I forced myself to read slowly and make a plan.

The message became clear: There is no cure for Chagas disease and the only symptom (sometimes) occurs the following morning: the swelling of one eyelid on the side closer to the bite site. Even if I went to the hospital, this seemed to be an under-studied disease and tests were limited. I resolved to just sleep it off and go to the doctor in the morning.

I woke up early. My face was symmetrical. Phew. I took the jar to the clinic right as they opened. Someone in the waiting room told me about getting bit by a brown recluse. “Oh well,” I thought, giving up on life a little.

The doctor took one look at the bug and said “Yes, that is a Kissing bug. There’s no cure. No test. Just move on, sorry!”

Perplexed, but also assured by the lack of urgency, I left the clinic. Over the next few days, my worries slowly faded as there apparently was nothing to do about this. I tossed the bug.

Two weeks later I saw an announcement on the university homepage from , then a doctoral student studying biomedical sciences. She was asking about any Kissing bug sightings and .

I immediately wrote to Rachel and reported what happened. She was super excited and asked me to bring her the bug. I said I threw it out, but had photos and I found a similar one — I had lots of bugs in my old house. We met over coffee. Rachel informed me that the bug was NOT a Kissing bug and that I should not worry. She could test me, but it was not necessary.

She explained the science of how the parasite behind Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, . It’s quite the process: After the bug bites you, it poops. The parasites are in infected bugs’ poop, which means that the poop has to get smudged into the bite site for you to get infected.

Then Rachel asked about my doctoral research and I told her I was studying housing in the colonias that line the border of Texas and Mexico. Her eyes lit up because she was looking to get samples from there. Thanks to the bug bite and my coffee with Rachel, a whole team formed and we started a pilot project that combined our research interests. This study became my master’s thesis, and six years later in the prestigious Habitat International journal.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Talk to doctoral students from many more disciplines!

For more information, contact Šafářová at bsafar@uw.edu.

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, Professor, Department of Biology and School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

What do you study at the UW?

I am a natural historian who applies physics, math and engineering concepts to living systems to understand how they work. My research is driven by both the evolutionary implications of function and the possibility of bio-inspired design.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From my earliest childhood I spent three seasons in downtown Manhattan and summer in the north woods of Ontario, Canada. The contrast between the most urban environment and a place without utilities or indoor plumbing was formative. Fishes, whether in tanks, on lines, or through my SCUBA mask, were my constant and most interesting companions. No detail was too obscure, and no species too drab to escape my attention.

I left fish behind when I got to college. Instead, it was a constant joy of mathematics and engineering, with a liberal arts sprinkling of art history, economics and German. After college I tried many things: I started a business, taught in the NYC public school system and attempted a career in photography. But I wasn’t willing to persist when things were hard or no fun. Then I went to Australia to become a SCUBA instructor. There I met my first biologist. I was smitten with the idea of making a living trying to understand animals.

On my return to New York, I immersed myself in biology, particularly the natural history of fishes, reptiles and amphibians. Spending hours in the field closely observing animals and their environment was one avenue of inspiration. The other was investigating animals’ shape, or morphology, with an electron microscope. The link between form and function was how my weeks passed — looking at microstructure, then wading in temporary ponds for larval salamanders. I fell completely in love with both areas and have made my career at that interface.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Treasure your mentors in the moment. They are gone too soon and you will never feel like you made it clear enough how much they affected you and your career.

For more information, contact Summers at fishguy@uw.edu.��

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, Associate professor, Department of Communication

What do you study at the UW?

I am a critical-cultural studies scholar who focuses on race, gender, and sexuality in the media. Specifically, I study how Black people negotiate mass media as marginalized subjects whose status as citizens is always precarious. I’m especially interested in the stories that circulate about Black women, both external narratives and the stories that Black women craft about themselves.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I sometimes think of myself as an accidental academic. I pursued a degree in magazine journalism and international relations in college with the intention of becoming a magazine editor. But everything changed the summer I landed an internship at my dream magazine, . At the time, many publications were closing their doors or downsizing their staff in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. All of a sudden, pursuing a career in magazines began to feel like a much larger risk than I was comfortable with. Aside from the industry woes, I also realized that I had just as much fun studying magazines (and other media) for class projects as I did working for one.

At Essence, the assignments that my editor gave me reflected a particular image of Black womanhood and assumptions about Blackness, femininity and masculinity that were key to the magazine’s brand. When I returned to school for my last year of college, I took a Black feminist theory course where I wrote essays exploring the questions that had popped into my mind during my internship – questions that I couldn’t shake, questions that played in the background of my mind whenever I was walking through the magazine aisle at the grocery store, or watching television or a movie. This taste of how deeply satisfying a life of the mind could be was a turning point. By the end of the feminist theory course I had decided to apply to graduate school.

My first book, “,” was a full-circle moment. In the book I offer a cultural history of Essence magazine and position it as a predecessor to contemporary commercial representations of Black womanhood realized in the 2010s through hashtags like #BlackGirlMagic and advertising campaigns, such as Proctor and Gamble’s “.” It was an amazing feeling to follow my curiosity and return to the questions that first captivated my mind as an intern. During the writing process I realized that the seeds of these questions had started even earlier, when I was a little girl sitting in a Black beauty shop with dozens of issues of Ebony, Jet and Essence magazines. Long before I was old enough to fully comprehend the articles, the images in these magazines captivated me, beaconing me to explore further.

The thing that most fills my heart about the scholarly path that I’ve chosen is being able to document and amplify the brilliance and beauty of Black women. There’s so much that’s problematic in the stories that society tells about Black women, but the brightest moments in my teaching and research are connected to the dope narratives that Black women craft about themselves.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Lean into the questions that captivate you and the subject areas that awaken your passion and curiosity. This will point you in the direction of your most fulfilling research projects and your very best writing.

For more information, contact Tounsel at timeka@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, School of Oceanography

What do you study at the UW?

��I’m a coastal ecogeomorphologist, which means I study how ecology, geology and physics change the landscape on the coast. A lot of my work focuses on how biology (plants, microbes) alters how mud moves around coastal systems and changes what our coastlines look like. I am particularly interested in marshes and mudflats. I go into the field to measure what is really happening on the coast, and then develop numerical computer models to predict how these processes will change in the future.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was 5 years old, my family went on vacation to Cape Cod National Seashore. We attended an educational program at the Salt Pond Visitor Center, and I knew I was in love. The stinky, muddy marsh felt like home to me immediately, and I still remember talking to the volunteer scientist about how marshes work. At that time, however, I had no idea that you could study marshes and mud as your job!

That formative memory never left me, even though, as I continued in school and focused on science, I intended to become a medical doctor. In my world, if you were good at math and science, the logical career path was to become a medical doctor.

I went to college at Boston University, where I planned to major in chemistry. But for every class project, I ended up focusing on oceans and coastlines. I had a wonderful TA who noticed this trend and mentioned to me in passing that my university had a marine science program and that maybe I should consider taking a class in that program to see if I liked it. I enrolled in a class called “Estuaries” and I’ve never looked back. The first week of the class, we took a field trip to collect data in a marsh and I was instantly transported back to my 5-year-old self, loving the marsh. I was the first student who jumped into the mud to collect data, and I didn’t want to leave. Within a few weeks I was working in that professor’s lab, and I really haven’t left the marsh since.

I also started developing so many questions about how things worked — and how everything tied together, from the mud to the birds — that I quickly realized that research and teaching in the field was what I needed to do with my life. My research has expanded a lot since then to encompass many different types of coasts, but my love for the rotten-egg-smelling, squelching mud drives a lot of what I choose to do. Being out in nature and seeing the processes happen in real time inspires me to understand coastal systems and help make a more resilient future for our planet and for people.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I am incredibly lucky to have a job that I absolutely love, and I would encourage my younger self to pursue what makes me happy. Sometimes my work hardly feels like work because I am so engaged and excited by what I am discovering and the students I get to work with. While every day isn’t always amazing (I have bad work days too!), at the end of the work week I’m always thankful for what a great job I have. I hope that everyone is able to find something they are passionate about in their life.

I would also say: Believe in yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. Just keep doing what you love and what you think is important and helpful to others, and everything will work out okay.

For more information, contact Valentine at kvalent@uw.edu.

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, Associate professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research team integrates materials science, data science and advanced manufacturing with primary applications in aerospace. We focus on three main areas:

1. Smart material testing methods, using physics-informed machine learning to control the testing parameters.
2. Smart manufacturing that leverages automation, sensing and machine learning. The goal is to develop AI for autonomous and self-aware manufacturing systems.
3. Smart engineering approaches to accelerate aerospace design and certification. We use a combination of machine learning, automated testing and physics-based numerical simulations techniques.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

According to my parents, my first word was “hot.” Looking back, it seems like a fitting start to a life deeply intertwined with the principles of heat transfer. My fascination with heat and materials began early and found a natural outlet in my love for cooking. I enjoy experimenting with different cooking techniques, all of which benefit immensely from an understanding of heat transfer. This passion even led me to publish a cookbook a few years ago.

After earning my doctoral degree, I began working at a research center in Canada, where I collaborated with various companies to solve their manufacturing challenges. Over time, I worked with a wide range of materials — concrete, wood, polymers, metals and composites. As I delved deeper into manufacturing, I started noticing fascinating parallels between it and cooking. Both require precise control of variables like temperature and pressure to transform materials into something new.

For instance, making aerospace composite parts in an autoclave is essentially pressure-cooking a layered material. Similarly, tempering chocolate to achieve its perfect microstructure, texture and snap is strikingly similar to controlling the crystallinity of thermoplastics to optimize their performance. Recognizing these connections allowed me to combine my personal passion for cooking with my professional love for materials science and engineering.

This love for exploring the science behind materials was paired with my lifelong interest in mathematics, which naturally led me to integrate machine learning and AI into my research. These tools provided a way to unlock deeper insights and bring innovation into material design and manufacturing. For example, my very first project as a professor at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý was a collaboration with Boeing, where we developed AI for manufacturing aerospace composites. It was akin to creating a smart oven that can monitor the temperature of various parts and autonomously adjust the controls — a direct parallel to advanced cooking techniques.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

As you explore different options for your career, focus more on what you truly love to do. Don’t be afraid to combine your personal passions with your professional goals — start doing this earlier. The joy and fulfillment you’ll find in aligning your personal interests with your career will open doors to creative opportunities and unique solutions you might not have imagined. Trust the process and follow what excites you most.

For more information, contact Zobeiry at navidz@uw.edu.

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America’s homeless services system relies on a massive amount of data, and at first glance, that data is exacting. Federal reports describe the country’s unhoused population in granular detail, listing precisely how many people are experiencing homelessness in each city along with detailed demographic data. Want to know how many people ages 55-64 slept outside in Spokane last year? A spreadsheet confidently provides the answer: ��

That data influences decisions at every level of government, from how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) distributes $3 billion in funding to how local service providers target their outreach efforts. It’s also . As a result, communities across the country — including King County — don’t really know exactly how many of their residents are unhoused and have a limited window into people’s circumstances and needs. ��

So, a team of ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý researchers designed a better way to count. Led by , a UW associate professor of sociology, and , professor emeritus of health systems and population health, researchers developed a method that taps into people’s social networks to generate a more representative sample, which they use to estimate the total unhoused population. Along the way, agency staff and volunteers gather information on people’s demographics, resources and needs. ��

The researchers launched this method in partnership with King County in 2022 and repeated the process in 2024, publishing their findings . UW News sat down with Almquist and Hagopian to discuss their new approach and how it could help close the gaps in our understanding of homelessness in America.��

Statistics on homelessness and the demographics of unhoused populations are often quite specific. The federal government reported that on a single night in January 2023, for example. How do we get these statistics, and how reliable are they?����

Amy Hagopian: I’m always a little amused at numbers that create a false specificity; for example, an airline says my flight will arrive in Chicago at 11:33 a.m. Everyone knows that number isn’t true, except sometimes by accident, and yet we entertain the airline by pretending to believe the number. After all, there are no consequences for being wrong!��

The national count is an amalgamation of counts reported by each community’s jurisdiction, designed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Most jurisdictions are still attempting a single-night head count of people found by volunteers who move about in the dark with flashlights and clipboards — a highly problematic approach King County has abandoned in favor of our sampling method. When these numbers come in, HUD just adds them up, and of course the number won’t be round. We all know it’s way below the actual number, because a middle-of-the-night census isn’t going to find everyone.��

Zack Almquist: There is a common fiction that when we do a census it is exact, because government reports often do not provide a margin of error. I think if you asked many experts, they would say they know the reality is a range, not a single number. In fact, not providing a range provides a level of confidence that we really don’t have, regardless of how we get there.

One nice thing about using a statistical estimate is that people are trained to expect a margin of error or confidence interval. We can say, plus or minus 5%, or 100-200 people. In other words, by moving into a space where we expect to see a range, we can be more honest, and ideally be more prepared to handle the real situation.��

Why does it matter how accurate this data is?��

AH: America has the worst homelessness problem in the world created by an economic system – as opposed to war and other disasters – largely because we make no attempt to recognize the human right to housing as established by the United Nations. One reason to count by jurisdiction is to learn where the hot spots are, and which areas have managed to lower their counts, and why. ��

ZA: This is also an equity and respect issue for the people who are experiencing homelessness. We owe it to our community members to do our best to capture the real state of the problem in our area and to best represent their race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, and causal or associated factors like eviction. We cannot hope to adequately engage a problem if we can’t accurately quantify it.

Your team developed a new method to estimate the unhoused population. How does your method work, and how does it differ from the traditional PIT count?����

ZA: Our method takes the approach that there is no reliable way for us to obtain a census of people living unsheltered in our community, and that we need to move from a biased counting exercise to an approach that leverages modern statistical methods to obtain a best estimate of the population given our current resources. Modern sampling methods can improve how we count people. Sampling is the process of selecting a small group from a larger population to study and make conclusions about the entire population.��

We leveraged a sampling strategy that comes out of public health literature and is endorsed by the National Institutes of Health and World Health Organization. First, we collect a roster and bed count from shelters. The HUD-mandated Point-in-Time count was always split between the roster or bed count and an unsheltered count; the latter was historically counted in King County by a visual census. So, the total number of people experiencing homelessness is the number of people in emergency shelters on a given night plus the number of people living outside on a given night. Through some ratios and algebra, we can estimate the total number of people if we know who slept in an emergency shelter and know from historical measures the relative proportion of people who slept outside. ��

Our sampling strategy of leveraging people’s social networks and peer referral allows us to estimate the proportion of people who slept outside to those who slept in an emergency shelter on a given night. Further, this allows us to better find and count people who would be hard to find in the traditional visual census — people living in the woods or hiding — and also provides a clear method for the margin of error of our estimate of the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.��

Your count creates a more reliable estimate of the unhoused population, but that’s not all. What other information can you collect with this method, and how might it be useful?����

AH: When other jurisdictions do their midnight census counts, they are just counting bodies seen. There is no opportunity to collect demographic or life history or health status data unless they shake people awake and interview them in the moment, which few people do. Instead, they conduct a post-count interview process in places like food banks. Our approach provides the opportunity to count people during daylight hours while also learning something about their life course and circumstances. This provides King County with some valuable information about the causes of homelessness. Once we move towards a quarterly count, we can also learn about the “churn” —��the number of people moving into and out of homelessness and what the drivers are for those changes in circumstance.��

ZA: I think this point can’t be emphasized enough, as running a post-count survey is almost always conducted as a spatial convenience sample that surveys both those using emergency shelters and those who slept outside. It’s unlikely to include the same people who were in the one-night body count. ��

What have you heard from people who’ve participated in your method? How do participants’ experiences differ from the old Point-In-Time count?��

AH: We conducted a couple of focus groups recently with people experiencing homelessness in Seattle. We asked them about their impressions of the recent methods change in how we count. We found people appreciated the motivations behind the change, and the more respectful approach we are now using.����

ZA: I just want to second what Amy said, and to point out that people really appreciate being directly engaged with and having a chance to be paid for their time and effort.��

How else could this method be used? Are there potential applications outside of homelessness and housing services?����

AH: I have helped conduct mortality counts in war zones, and some of the lessons learned from those experiences were helpful here. For example, in Iraq conducted a door-to-door survey to ask adult household members to tell us about the alive or dead status of their siblings. This allowed us to calculate a total war-related mortality rate for the country, as our sample was selected proportionate to size of the governorate sampled. ��

ZA: I think the basic ideas used here could end up influencing health and demography measurement efforts for several hard-to-estimate populations. For example, international migration can often be split between those we can count with high fidelity, like registered immigrants, and unregistered immigrants. Combining new sampling methods with administrative data to count hard-to-reach populations could be employed for a number of problems in industry, health and public policy. I hope to see these ideas picked up broadly.��

AH: We are grateful to the UW’s Population Health Initiative for the opportunity to develop these methods, and to our partners at King County Regional Homelessness Authority for being willing to try something new with us.��

For more information or to contact Hagopian and/or Almquist, contact Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.����

Eight cities in the United States have implemented , which contribute to health issues including obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

New research from the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý investigated responses to sweetened beverage taxes using the purchasing behavior of approximately 400 households in Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland and Philadelphia – all of which recently introduced beverage taxes. was published online Sept. 30 in Health Economics.

Researchers found that after the tax was introduced, lower-income households decreased their purchases of sweetened beverages by nearly 50%, while higher-income households reduced purchases by 18%. Since previous studies have shown that lower-income individuals consume sweetened beverages at a higher-than-average rate, these results suggest the taxes could help reduce health disparities and promote population health.

“If households reduce their sugar intake, they will experience health benefits,” said , co-author and UW associate teaching professor of economics. “Sweetened beverages are one of the largest sources of sugar in the American diet. They have all kinds of health consequences and don’t really provide any nutrition. The idea with the tax is that lower-income people, because they reduce their intake more, receive greater health benefits than the higher-income households.”

Using , researchers followed the households for a year before and after the tax was implemented in their city. Consumers were given a handheld scanner to report their purchases.

The results showed that households experienced price increases for taxed beverages, with the difference persisting for at least one year post-tax. Price increases were largest for lower-income households – a 22% increase in sweetened beverage prices versus 11% for higher-income households. After the tax was implemented, lower-income households saw a 47% decline in purchases of sweetened beverages. Researchers didn’t observe a post-tax increase in cross-border shopping.

“We also looked at untaxed beverages and found that lower-income households are substituting with untaxed beverages,” Knox said. “They’re using some of their money to go buy a different beverage, rather than buying a candy bar instead of buying a Coke.”

Policy makers are particularly interested in the response of lower-income consumers due to their higher consumption on average of sweetened beverages and concerns that the taxes are regressive.

Previous research from the UW found that lower-income and higher-income households paid about the same amount toward the tax, which means lower-income households spent a higher proportion of their income. But the study also showed 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 million to $16.4 million per year across three U.S. cities.

More found the tax was also associated with declines in childhood body mass index among children in Seattle compared to a well-matched comparison group.

“Together, this body of work suggests the tax is having the intended health benefits and this new evidence gives reason to believe health benefits could be larger for households with lower incomes,” said , co-author and UW professor of health systems and population health.

The research was funded by the UW’s Royalty Research Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Partial support was provided by a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant.

For more information, contact Knox at knoxm@uw.edu and Jones-Smith at jjoness@uw.edu.

When ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý President Ana Mari Cauce launched the Population Health Initiative in 2016, she spoke in soaring, ambitious terms. “We have an unprecedented opportunity to help people live longer, healthier, more productive lives – here and around the world,” 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. ��

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.����

“In this relatively short period of time, we’ve 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,” Cauce said in her most recent .��

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.��

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.��

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 — people who take the same test more than once, for example, will often score higher, potentially masking memory loss. ��

It’s 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’s often too late — modern treatments can slow the progress of memory loss, but there’s no way to regain what’s been lost.��

“So, how do you catch it early?” said , a UW associate professor of psychology. “We give people an app to have them check for themselves.”����

Stocco and , director of the UW Alzheimer’s 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’s 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.����

Researchers have long understood that a person’s ability to recall a specific memory tends to fade over time. This is called the “.” In�� Stocco and van Rijn found that they could measure individual differences in the slopes of such curves.�� The app works by comparing a person’s 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.����

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

“Just by looking at a single lesson, based on the result, there’s almost a perfect correspondence between the speed of forgetting and your probability of being diagnosed by a doctor,” Stocco said. “It 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’t need a doctor.”��

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.����

“It’s a solution that seems to solve these problems of early access and diagnostic bottlenecks,” Stocco said. “If this works, there’s no problem giving it to everybody in the state. We’re really interested in expanding and adding people from underrepresented populations and underrepresented areas, and the grant will allow us to do that.”��

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.��

Revamping the Point-In-Time Count to better understand King County’s unhoused population��

For years, volunteers fanned across King County on a cold night each January, flashlights and clipboards in hand, searching for people sleeping outside. They’d 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.��

There’s just one problem – the count is Volunteers can’t possibly find everybody. It captures only a single moment in time, and collects only limited data on people’s 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’t fully capture that distinction.��

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’s social networks to generate a more representative sample, which the researchers then ran through a series of calculations to estimate the total unhoused population.������

Called “respondent-driven sampling,” the method stations volunteers in common “hubs,” like libraries or community centers, and offers cash gift cards for in-person interviews and peer referrals. Volunteers collect detailed information on people’s 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.��

“This method gives people a more active voice in being counted. It’s a more humane way to count people, and it’s also voluntary,” said , a UW associate professor of sociology and co-lead on the project. “The 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.”��

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.����

“Running 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,” Almquist said. “Also, people’s needs change depending on the time of year, and this method will help us better understand those rhythms.”����

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.����

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

“These PHI grants gave us the fuel to ignite these projects.”��

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.��

Engaging community to mitigate flood risk in the Duwamish Valley��

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.����

“The water was always there,” Jeranko said, “and now it’s fighting to come back up.”����

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.��

To mitigate that risk, the City of Seattle has updated the neighborhood’s 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.����

“In the community, people don’t think there’s been enough engagement. There’s all this talk about flood mitigation, but all they see are sandbags,” Jeranko said. “So DRCC was like, ‘Look, we really need the people who live in the flood zone to understand the solutions.’ Because we have this long-lasting relationship with them, they see us as someone who’s able to provide a list of solutions, not favor one over the others, and do it in an informative way.”��

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’s 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.����

“It 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,” said Paulina López, executive director of the DRCC. “Community leadership and representation is indispensable to bring climate justice to the Duwamish Valley.”��

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

“Even though UW and a lot of other universities really support and invest in community-engaged work, a lot of times it’s fundamentally hard to make that research happen,” Jeranko said. “But the Population Health Initiative grant was about supporting all those things.”��

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 López and Robin Schwartz of the DRCC.��

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.����

Call it the sweetness paradox. In grocery stores across America, foods that were once saturated with sugar now contain none��— yet they taste just as sweet. ��

The secret is an assortment of additives that replicate sugar’s sweetness, but not its calorie count. Broadly classified as non-sugar sweeteners (NSS), these additives are creeping into everything from diet sodas (aspartame) to no-sugar-added fruit cups (sorbitol, sucralose, acesulfame potassium).

The rise of NSS has made it easier for conscious consumers to reduce their sugar intake, but these products may present their own health risks. in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, , a UW clinical professor of health systems and population health and executive director of , and a team of co-authors argue for better and more comprehensive data on the proliferation and possible health effects of non-sugar sweeteners. They also call for reducing children’s exposure to NSS by restricting their use in kids’ food and beverages.

“The growing presence of (non-sugar sweeteners) in the food supply, combined with mounting concerns about their use… suggest that caution in adding them to foods and beverages is needed,” Krieger and his colleagues wrote.��

UW News sat down with Krieger to discuss what we know — and what we need to know — about these ever-present products.��

NSS have been getting a lot of attention lately, from their possible health effects to their impact on our overall diets despite having been used for decades. What’s the debate surrounding these products, and why are they drawing so much attention now?��

James Krieger: There’s been a longstanding controversy over the safety and efficacy of non-sugar sweetened products. The debate has just been lifted up recently because of a couple of things. Last year, the World Health Organization recommended that NSS not be used to achieve weight control or reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases, which means chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease. That created quite a stir. The food industry, particularly those who rely on these products, reacted negatively to the WHO report, while many public health officials and advocates said this is a great and long- overdue statement.��

There’s also growing use of these products in the food system, particularly as more consumers are looking for and demanding products with less sugar in them. This is because there is widespread awareness of the negative health consequences of too much sugar consumption. Industry is substituting NSS for sugar. They don’t want to change the overall sweetness of their product, because they know really well that sweet foods attract consumers. Instead, they’re maintaining sweetness by substituting NSS for sugar.��

Just how much of these products is the average American eating?����

JK: There’s not great data on consumption of NSS, and that’s a real gap in the knowledge right now. There’s better evidence on consumption of sugars, and that is going down.����

The challenge is that the food industry is not very transparent about how much non-sugar sweeteners are in their products. They have to list sweeteners on the ingredients list, but they don’t have to list the amount. So we know in more of a binary yes/no fashion, are people eating products with non-sugar sweeteners? And the trend line of that looks like it’s going up. For example, from the Environmental Working Group found that the number of food and beverage products containing non-sugar sweeteners increased three- to five-fold between 2013 and 2022.��

We need a lot more research and better data to know what the exposures to these products are. We don’t really know how much people are consuming right now.��

On a quick trip through the grocery store, one might come across a dozen different non-sugar sweeteners. There’s the classics, aspartame and sucralose, the sugar alcohols like erythritol and xylitol, and the “natural” NSS like stevia and monk fruit extract. Do different sweeteners interact with our bodies differently? Do some carry greater potential health risks than others?������

JK: It’s not clear. Most of the studies, particularly the long-term studies, have looked at these products as a group. But each one has a distinct pharmacologic and toxicologic profile. Some of the older NSS have been directly assessed by the FDA, but those assessments are very dated now. The way the newer NSS get into the food supply now is that industry just needs to send in a statement to the FDA saying that, in their estimation, these are safe.����

Now that said, there are some specifics. Some credible researchers and agencies within the WHO have raised concerns that aspartame may be linked to cancer. Others disagree. It’s clear that saccharine is probably a carcinogen, and it’s not used much now. A recent study that came out on erythritol looked at its association with cardiovascular disease, that is death or non-fatal heart attacks or strokes, and found they were increased. The researchers found a possible mechanism for that, linking non-sugar sweeteners to platelet clumping and blood clotting in vitro, which could explain that link, because these can block blood flow and cause heart attacks and strokes. So there’s a plausible mechanism that it could do that.��

My guess is that it’s probably going to be a class effect — they’ll all have kind of the same effect. And the reason I suspect that is because the common mechanism they all work by is they all bind to sweet receptors, and those aren’t just in your mouth, they’re also in organs and blood vessels, everywhere in the body. All of these products bind to those sweet receptors, no matter where they are. And then they might have effects ranging from insulin sensitivity, glucose metabolism, to vascular reactivity, platelet activation and so on.

There’s really pretty good evidence from long-term epidemiological diet studies that link exposure to non-sugar sweeteners to Type II diabetes, to weight gain, to heart disease. Those certainly are three big public health problems right now. That’s what has gotten me concerned about these and why I think we need to be taking a more active, aggressive approach toward limiting people’s exposure to them.��

You write in the article that it’s especially important to understand kids’ exposure to non-sugar sweeteners. Why is that?����

JK: In general, for any kind of environmental exposure, kids are more vulnerable because they’re going through these developmental windows when their bodies are more sensitive to the effects. Exposure early in life, can actually set up lifelong metabolic and physiological changes. So avoiding early exposure to substances associated with unhealthy biological processes is��a really good opportunity to set kids on a trajectory to a healthy life as opposed to problems.����

Also, taste preferences get set early in life. There’s evidence that kids who are exposed to more sweetness will develop a lifelong preference for sweetness, and that sets them up to either consume more sugar or non-sugar sweeteners. And children don’t make choices for themselves. They’re more vulnerable, so we have to do more to protect them from any kind of thing that’s going to jeopardize their health.��

That leads me to another thing that’s a little scary. The USDA released preliminary guidelines about the amount of added sugar that can be served in school foods and meals. The guidelines say that by 2027, no more than 10% of the calories in school food can come from added sugars, which is consistent with the US dietary guidelines. That’s great, but then I worry that the food industry will put more NSS in the foods available at schools, and kids’ exposure will go up.����

You highlight other countries, most notably Chile, that require food manufacturers to be transparent about the type and amount of NSS in their products. Do you see that as an effective strategy in the U.S.?��

JK: Chile is one of the few countries that requires the amount of non-sugar sweetener to be put on labels of their food products. I think that’s a great idea, and I would love to see that happen in the U.S.��

Another approach, short of putting the actual quantitative amounts on nutrition labels, is putting labels indicating the presence of NSS on the front of packages, which is what Mexico, Colombia and Argentina have done. Many countries, predominantly in Latin America, have put front-of-package labels warning about added sugars, salt and saturated fat, which are three ingredients of public health concern. Mexico, Colombia and Argentina have added a fourth, warning that the products contain these non-sugar sweeteners and that children should avoid them. That’s probably not going to happen in the U.S. anytime soon given industry opposition and slow action by the FDA.��

There’s more potential for either FDA or USDA to require more transparency by the food industry. I could see them saying that manufacturers must disclose how much and what types of non-sugar sweeteners are in their products to a database that could be made available to researchers. It could also help if federal agencies or nutrition groups and nonprofits take this data and package it in a way to make it accessible to consumers who want to know how much of this stuff is in there. It could increase the public’s ability to access that information, and those who are really motivated might make choices about what to buy or not buy.��

And finally, let’s protect children. There’s no place for NSS in foods commonly consumed by or marketed to kids. Until we have reliable data that NSS are safe for children, let’s do all we can to make sure they do not consume them.��

For more information, contact Krieger at jwkrieg@uw.edu.

Four new faculty books from the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý cover topics ranging from inequality’s effects on health to fad diets to former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy on gender equality. UW News talked with the authors to learn more about their recent publications.

Kima Cargill’s ‘Anxious Eaters’ analyzes the appeal of fad diets

Most everyone has heard of fad diets: the kind that promise results with an ostensibly simple solution, whether a daily pill or a long-term meal plan.

Not to mention the “lifestyle” approaches to eating that aren’t just about weight loss: Think paleo, keto, all-organic, no-sugar, low-carb. Whatever the formula, diets tend to promote a slimmer, healthier, happier life.

But what they’re really doing, argues , professor of psychology at ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý Tacoma, is tapping into people’s larger worries about and desires for identity, status and transformation.

In their new book, “,” Cargill and co-author Janet Chrzan dive into the types of diets, what they promise and what they yield, with some surprising finds. The early patriotic messages about weight loss, for example, or the politics around some fad diets today.

Published in 2022 by Columbia University Press, “Anxious Eaters” was the product of a long collaboration with Chrzan, an adjunct assistant professor of nutritional anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Cargill focuses on the psychological and sociocultural issues around overeating, and teaches a class at UW Tacoma called “.”

“When we first started writing the book, we knew we wanted to write about specific named diets, like paleo or ‘clean eating,’ because that’s how people think about them. Yet as we wrote, we found ourselves often repeating our ideas chapter after chapter, which reinforced one of our strongest observations,” Cargill said. “That same set of fears, beliefs and fantasies drive nearly all fad diets, even when the diets appear radically different. They are a lot like get-rich-quick schemes: There are always certain things about them that remain true.”

Cargill and Chrzan see common themes that drive interest in fad diets: the typically American beliefs in individualism and willpower; the desire for self-transformation; and the role of consumerism. Ads, testimonials, before-and-after photos – all the stuff of fad diets.

“We believe we can transform ourselves, that if I just sign up for this thing and pay a lot of money, I’ll be transformed,” Cargill said. “At its core the book is quite philosophical, more about the wishes and fantasies we have, than about the diets themselves.”

The authors aimed to give readers tools with which to analyze diets, not to cast judgment or recommend one diet over another.

Ultimately, losing weight – if that’s the goal – is about changing habits and behaviors. “For most people, the only diet that really works is eating a little less than you do now, in perpetuity. Just eat a little less food, every day, forever,” Cargill said. “It’s deceptively simple, but it takes a long time.”

For more information, contact Cargill at kcargill@uw.edu.

How inequality in US leads to poor health

The United States spends more on health care than any other country, but a United Nations Human Development Report released in September revealed that the U.S. ranks 44^th in life expectancy among U.N. countries. That number drops even lower when non-U.N. countries are included.

Dr. , associate teaching professor emeritus of health systems and population health at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý, examines this contradiction in his new book, “.” Published by Rutledge in November, the book examines why the U.S. performs so poorly in health measures.

The answer isn’t lack of health care, as the U.S. spends as much on health care as the rest of the world combined. And Bezruchka said studies show that personal choices, such as smoking and diet, don’t make a significant impact on a country’s average life expectancy.

“I learned that social factors and political factors really matter more than medical care and personal behaviors,” Bezruchka said. “A few things just hit me in the face. Namely, the longest-lived country is Japan, and they have two, three times as many men smoking there as we do.”

The greatest risk factor, Bezruchka argues, is inequality.

“Inequality is bad for you,” Bezruchka said. “As a matter of fact, it kills you. It kills us all. We have a lot of rich people in this country, and they’re healthier than poor people. That’s always the case. Is there any way to escape inequality? Living in the United States, the answer is no.”

Studies show that roughly half a person’s health as an adult is programmed in the first 1,000 days after conception, Bezruchka said. Healthier countries offer benefits that impact early life, such as parental leave. The U.S. and Papua New Guinea are the only U.N. countries that don’t require paid time off for new parents.

Other policies that help eliminate inequality include a fair taxation system, monthly child support payments, universal health care and guaranteed income. The U.S. focuses more on late-life programs, such as Social Security.

“In the United States, we have 70, 80 million people who either have no health care insurance or are vastly underinsured,” said Bezruchka, who spent more than 10 years in Nepal working in health programs. “The leading cause of bankruptcy in this country is inability to pay health care costs.”

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed these issues. Studies have shown that more economic inequality leads to higher overall death rates from COVID, Bezruchka said, and the U.S. has highest number of recorded COVID deaths in the world.

Social determinants of health include racism, poverty, pollution, education, income and wealth. These factors stem from political context and governance, Bezruchka said. They are also among the leading causes of stress.

“I call stress the 21^st-century tobacco,” Bezruchka said. “The U.S. offers individual solutions for stress and powerlessness. We get people to blame themselves for poor health instead of blaming the system. The book tries to make people recognize the system.”

For more information, contact Bezruchka at sabez@uw.edu.

Angela Merkel ‘led from behind’ on gender equality

Even after 16 years as the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel’s legacy on gender equality in politics remains a mystery. To help rectify that, eight social scientists, feminists and gender scholars came together to write “.”

, professor of international and European studies at the UW Jackson School of International Studies, initiated, co-edited and co-wrote a chapter for this project. It was written and edited with collaborators meeting on Zoom from countries around the world in an intense, two-year process.

Published by Routledge in December, the book investigates how Merkel, during her four governing periods, impacted gender equality policy in Germany and across Europe. Being the leader of a conservative party and a trained physicist from the former German Democratic Republic, or Communist East Germany, she initially did not see herself as a Western-style feminist.

“One of the puzzles about Merkel’s legacy is that a lot of change happened in terms of German gender policy despite her being a conservative woman from a Christian conservative party, and despite her coming into office with really not a feminist agenda at all,” Lang said. “So how did she manage to get her own party on track for the policy changes that we saw in those 16 years?”

One of the authors’ central findings, which led to the book’s title, is that Merkel often didn’t lead overtly in gender politics. Instead, she reacted to pressure from her social democratic coalition partners and from the level of the European Union in Brussels. She also allowed public opinion to inform her policy choice, such as in the passing of the German Marriage Equality Act.

Lang and her chapter co-author, Petra Ahrens from Tampere University in Finland, studied how the voluntary quota policies of the Christian Democratic Union evolved under Merkel’s reign from mere afterthoughts to a central demand of their women’s association.

“A fair number of German parties have quotas with which they promote women to higher positions on electoral lists or in party office — but the conservatives historically did not have a fixed quota,” Lang said. “Now, at the end of Merkel’s reign, they are starting to employ a gender quota and that was of interest to us. How did she get the party to see that there was no other choice but to take regulatory mechanisms into account?”

The answer, the authors argue, is through “leading from behind.” While Merkel remained non-committal, she allowed space for others to push for tougher gender quotas.

“She showcased impressive advances in gender policies, but she facilitated more than that she led,” Lang said. “That is why we need to see this legacy as mixed.”

For more information, contact Lang at salang@uw.edu.