New Study by Jones-Smith, Knox, Godwin, and Co-authors Evaluates Seattle’s Sweetened Beverage Tax and Changes in Children’s Body Mass Index
CSDE Affiliates Jessica Jones-Smith (Health Systems and Population Health, Epidemiology), Melissa Knox (Economics), and CSDE Demographer Jessica Godwin released an article with co-authors in JAMA Network Open, titled “Sweetened Beverage Tax Implementation and Change in Body Mass Index Among Children in Seattle“. This study sought to evaluate the association between the Seattle sweetened beverage tax and change in body mass index (BMI) among children. In this cohort study of 6313 children living in Seattle or a nearby comparison area, a statistically significant reduction in BMI was observed for children in Seattle after the implementation of a sweetened beverage tax compared with well-matched children living in nontaxed comparison areas. These results suggest that the sweetened beverage tax in Seattle may be associated with a small but reasonable reduction in BMI among children living within the Seattle city limits.
*New* PRB Book Talk: How Women Became America’s Safety Net (6/27/24)
Join the Population Reference Bureau for a Book Talk on Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net with author and sociologist Jessica Calarco. The virtual talk will occur on June 27th at 9:00am (PST) (register here). In Holding It Together, Calarco (University of Wisconsin-Madison) draws on five years of research to show how U.S. society and policy disproportionately burden women with caregiving responsibilities. With an expert panel, they’ll discuss Calarco’s key findings and their implications for reproductive health care policy and explore additional research on abortion, contraception, fertility, gender, and motherhood.
*New* Professor and Director of HKU Research Hub of Population Studies
Tier 3 PHI Grant Awarded to Romich, Ayala, Sederbaum, and colleagues
CSDE Affiliates Jennie Romich (Social Work), CSDE research scientist Sofia Ayala, CSDE Trainee Izzy Sederbaum (Public Policy & Governance), and colleague Santino Camacho (PhC, Social Work) were awarded a Population Health Initiative Tier 3 grant for a project, “Improving data to understand the well-being of small and excluded populations.” CSDE affiliates Scott Allard (Public Policy & Governance) and Arjee Restar (Epidemiology) along with Max Halvorson (Social Work) and Youngjun Choe (Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering) will serve as advisors to the project. Research data often renders small populations invisible. This project focuses on two populations who are rarely included and identified in sufficient numbers for group analysis in either general population surveys or administrative data, transgender (trans) people and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI). This project will establish community-informed methods and practices for identifying trans and NHPI populations within Washington State administrative data.
Almquist, McCormick, Hagopian, Yang, and Colleagues Receive a Tier 3 PHI Grant
CSDE affiliates Zack Almquist (Sociology), Tyler McCormick (Sociology), Amy Hagopian (Health Systems and Population Health), and Juhne Yang (CSDE, eScience Institute) along with Paul Hebert (Health Systems and Population Health, VA Health Services) and KCRHA community members, received a Population Health Initiative Tier 3 grant to extend a novel method they introduced for counting unsheltered people experiencing homelessness through a social network (peer-referral) method, respondent-driven sampling (RDS), which allows for creating a population-representative survey for understanding the needs, demographics, and size of the unsheltered population in King County. This team of researchers and community partners proposed in the PHI grant to extend this RDS method to allow quarterly surveying of this vulnerable population. Quarterly surveys will provide an entirely novel seasonal enumeration of the unsheltered population and facilitate the timely collection of new survey instruments relevant to changing conditions in the community.
Jenness and Co-authors Study Social Contact Networks in an Urban Jail to Understand Infectious Disease Transmission
CSDE Affiliate Samuel Jenness (Epidemiology, Emory University) authored research with colleagues in Epidemics, titled “Dynamic contact networks of residents of an urban jail in the era of SARS-CoV-2“. In custodial settings such as jails and prisons, infectious disease transmission is heightened by factors such as overcrowding and limited healthcare access. Specific features of social contact networks within these settings have not been sufficiently characterized, especially in the context of a large-scale respiratory infectious disease outbreak. The study aims to quantify contact network dynamics within the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia.