From an early age, children spend many hours interacting with screens: phones, tablets, and laptops. A new policy brief from the Child Health Policy Program explains the importance of unstructured free play for healthy child development and recommends four policy approaches to reduce screen time and ensure children’s well-being in the digital age.
Ann Lê, Katarina Reyes, Ethan T. Hunt, Christopher F. Kulesza, Zoabe HafeezApril 5, 2024
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.
The number of children walking and biking to school has been in decline for more than 50 years, yet associated death and injury rates remain high. In a new brief, nonresident fellow Zoabe Hafeez and co-author Shruti Natarajan review child pedestrian and bicyclist injuries in Houston, analyzing the worst hotspots and identifying how infrastructure improvements can have outsized benefits.
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
Prioritizing the safety and capacity of reconstruction workers can speed up the disaster recovery process and make communities more resilient to future hazards, write Drs. William Brett Perkison and Bill Christian, researchers at UTHealth Houston.
William Brett Perkison, Bill ChristianOctober 23, 2023
This policy brief explores the dangerous potential of neuroweapons, the need for a “Neuroshield” to protect democracies from the risks of disinformation, the implications of brain-computer interfaces and other national security considerations related to brain health.
Harris A. Eyre, William Hynes, Geoffrey F. L. Ling, Jo-An Occhipinti, Rym Ayadi, Michael D. Matthews, Ryan Abbott, Patrick LoveAugust 10, 2023
Economic security has become a top priority for the West following the disruptions caused by COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war and the growing threat of China. Could investing in brain capital help build more resilient economies?
William Hynes, Paweł Świeboda, Patrick Love, Jo-An Occhipinti, Harris A. EyreAugust 2, 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.
Hostile immigration enforcement policies and anti-immigrant actions against refugees and asylum seekers are causing trauma to migrant families and exposing them to dangerous living conditions on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Luz Maria Garcini, Kimberly Nguyen, Daniel Argueta, Aldo Barrita, Amy Barrett, Jin YanMay 25, 2023