While social and economic factors are often viewed as primary drivers of health, a new analysis in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) suggests that the relationship between societal position and physical well-being is more complex than previously understood.

Does your infant put their arm through their sleeve when you get them dressed? As you sort laundry does your toddler pick up the shorts you dropped? These are examples of how infants help by participating in shared activities. As infants approach their first birthday, helping becomes evident in the context of shared chores and interactive routines with their caregivers or retrieving an out of reach object for an unfamiliar adult. Researchers from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Munich, Germany aimed to address this by investigating how infants’ helping behavior is associated with motor development and social-cognitive skills as well as early interactions with their caregiver. The study shows that infants learn to help through everyday interactions with their caregivers. Specifically, the more caregivers modeled the required behavior, the more infants helped the caregiver. The study shows a link between maternal modeling and helping toward the mother but not helping toward the experimenter. 

A new study published in the May 2026 issue of the American Economic Review and authored by an international group of researchers gives a different perspective on how production and financial networks are at interplay. The research develops a framework that integrates two key dimensions of modern economies: the network of supply relationships among firms and the web of financial connections linking firms to banks. While these networks have traditionally been studied in isolation, the paper demonstrates that their interplay is essential to understanding how bank shocks affect the real economy. 

A new University of East London study argues that Africa’s young workforce and critical mineral reserves present a major global economic opportunity. The authors call for fairer international cooperation focused on investment, infrastructure, skills, and local industry, arguing that sustainable poverty reduction depends on partnership and shared economic growth, not aid alone.

Research from the University of Bath (UK) finds depression and anxiety remain high yet overlooked among around 1.8 million clinically vulnerable people in the UK still living restricted lives to avoid Covid.