News by Subject Social & Behavior

A new study from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania investigated the ways that institutions control who has access to Wi-Fi. The findings indicate that powerful institutions and privileged people use quality-of-life policing -- the report and/or arrest of individuals engaged in nonviolent offenses such as loitering, noise violations, and public intoxication -- to keep those with less privilege, including people of color, from accessing resources like the internet.

What The Study Did: Researchers investigated the association between net worth at midlife and subsequent longevity in individuals as well as with siblings and twins.

In the first wealth and longevity study to incorporate siblings and twin pair data, researchers from Northwestern University analyzed the midlife net worth of adults (mean age 46.7 years) and their mortality rates 24 years later. They discovered those with greater wealth at midlife tended to live longer.

In one out of every six local authorities, rates of hunger are more than 150 per cent the national average. Shockingly, in one in 10 local authorities, the rate is almost double, according to new research by the University of Sheffield.

A researcher from the University of Tsukuba, together with well-known development economists, conducted randomized trials of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) agronomy method. Following SRI training of 5,486 Bangladeshi rice farmers, they compared trained and untrained farmers. The results showed compelling benefits for SRI's efficacy in increasing yield and profits, how it improves farming households' well-being, and its positive spillover effects in communities. This bolsters support for SRI's value, especially in the Global South.

National data analyzed by University of Minnesota Medical School researchers show that nearly 40 percent of all funds used to pay for medical school are expected to come from family or personal sources and scholarships. The prevalence of these sources, however, varies widely by race and socioeconomic status.

What The Study Did: Credit reports were analyzed to estimate the amount of medical debt in collections nationally and by geographic region and income group and its association with Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

Parenting deficiencies have long been blamed for the vocabulary gap between low-income children and their more affluent peers. But new research implicates the economic context in which parenting takes place -- in other words, the wealth gap.