Non-medical drivers of health, also known as social determinants of health, have a significant impact on health outcomes. As fellow Sandra McKay and her co-authors explain, adequate funding to identify and address non-medical drivers — housing and food insecurity, transport issues, and financial strain — can improve patients’ health and health care delivery systems, while also reducing costs.
Qualities like amazing tensile strength and electrical conductivity offer a huge range of uses for carbon nanotubes. In a new policy brief, fellow Rachel A. Meidl and her co-authors Dana Goerzen and Daniel A. Heller explain that to ensure carbon nanotubes’ role in a circular, sustainable economy, a coordinated system for classifying, testing, and identifying CNTs and a life cycle approach to risk assessments are needed to better understand impacts to facilitate consistent communication among researchers, industries, and policymakers.
Dana Goerzen, Daniel A. Heller, Rachel A. MeidlFebruary 28, 2024
Are our views of sustainability becoming distorted by the often unsubstantiated “green” actions of companies and organizations? This brief explores why we urgently need a new framework for sustainability — one that relies on a holistic, cross-disciplinary, and multidimensional life cycle approach.
Rachel A. Meidl, Kenneth B. Medlock IIINovember 8, 2023
With the 45V tax credit, the U.S. is well poised to compete for the growing pipeline of clean hydrogen projects globally, writes fellow Rachel Meidl. But if the Treasury adds restrictions to the new tax credit, the U.S. could lose its advantage and a key opportunity for large-scale decarbonization.
Regulating firearms under the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA) — just like any other product — could enhance their safety, writes fellow Sandra McKay. She explains how the CPSA could investigate misfirings and require safety information to be distributed with every gun sale.
The mass production and disposal of non-degradable fossil-based plastics is responsible for alarming environmental and social issues when not managed responsibly. Towards manufacturing environmentally-friendly materials, biopolymers, that is, polymers synthesized by living organisms, emerge as promising sustainable alternatives as they combine attractive mechanical properties, compostability, and renewable sourcing.
Building on the success of hunter education courses in Texas and experience in other states, fellow Sandra McKay and other Texas physicians explain how mandatory firearm safety courses and waiting periods for young firearm buyers could reduce gun violence.
Ryan Sorensen, Richard Bui, Jade Evenstad, Bolatito Adeyeri, Sarah Kim, Emily Wang, Joyce Tiong, Usman Baig, Sandra McKayMarch 29, 2023
It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. Robust stakeholder engagement preceded adoption of the fourteen‐day limit and should arguably be part of efforts to reassess it, write the authors.
Kirstin R.W. Matthews, Ana S. Iltis, Daniel S. Wagner, Nuria Gallego Marquez, Jason Scott Robert, Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, Marieke Bigg, Sarah Franklin, Soren Holm, Ingrid Metzler, Matteo A. Molè, Jochen Taupitz, Giuseppe Testa, Jeremy SugarmanFebruary 26, 2021
Carbon nanotubes are critical components for future decarbonization strategies and a clean energy revolution. If the U.S. is to reestablish climate leadership, advanced nanotechnology solutions must be a national priority, argues the author.
Integrating a life-cycle dimension into future policies to assess the social, environmental and economic implications of various products across their life cycle and throughout their value chain is critical to achieving sustainability and a circular economy, writes Rachel A. Meidl, fellow in energy and environment.