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Gen Z wants doctors to discuss food, housing, safety, survey finds

University of Michigan researchers found that most members of Generation Z want their doctors to ask them questions related to “social determinants” of health like access to food and housing.  

In a poll of over 1,200 young people between the ages of 14 and 24, 81 percent said that health care providers should ask if their patients have access to food and housing as well as if they are safe at home and have experienced discrimination.  

Those same respondents said they believe physicians should refer patients to resources if they express difficulty accessing food, housing or are in danger at home.  

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“It seems obvious that addressing social needs, like food and housing, in clinical settings would benefit patients,” said Claire Chang, a University of Michigan Medical School student and lead author of the poll. 

“But we actually know very little about whether and how patients would want to receive this kind of assistance. Youth in our study told us that they do want to talk about social determinants of health with their providers. It is important for us to understand these preferences and desires as social/medical care integration efforts spread across the country.” 

The poll findings, which were recently published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, used data from the University of Michigan’s Department of Family Medicine MyVoice National Poll of Youth. Survey participants were asked to answer five open-ended questions via text message in March of last year.  

Out of all the respondents, 39 percent said they came from families with low enough income levels that would qualify them for free or reduced-price school lunch.  

“As a doctor, what I hear is my adolescent and young adult patients want me to ask them about more than just their health. They want me to ask about their lives,” said Poll director and University of Michigan family medicine doctor Tammy Chang in a statement.  

“This opens a door for doctors and other healthcare providers to really understand the root causes of the issues that young people are facing today. Youth in our study didn’t expect providers to solve their issues, rather, just listen. I can do that.” 

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US, other G7 countries to acknowledge challenges posed by China

President Biden and U.S. allies will release a collective statement on Tuesday acknowledging challenges posed by China on workers, companies and national security, the White House announced at the Group of Seven (G7) Summit.

The statement from countries representing more than 50 percent of the world economy is focused on strengthening cooperation on economic issues, cyberspace and quantum computing as well as the harms caused by China’s non-transparent, market-distorting industrial directives.

A senior Biden administration official on Tuesday called the release “unprecedented in the context of the G7.”

“The leaders will commit to working together to develop a coordinated approach to remedy China’s non-market practices to help ensure a level playing field for businesses and workers,” the official said.

The statement includes efforts to elevate supply chain resilience, with commitments to intensify development of critical minerals supply chains and establish a strategy that takes into account processing, refining and recycling.

G7 nations will also cooperate on cyber and quantum technology, advance trade and technology standards, and improve the framework for debt restricting by addressing China’s role in low- and middle-income countries falling into debt traps.

Additionally, leaders will commit to tackling forced labor, including state-sponsored forced labor reported in Xinjiang, and reaffirm the importance of democratic resilience.

The final G7 communiqué was released at the end of the summit in Germany. Biden then left Germany for Spain, where he will attend a NATO meeting.

“A consistent theme that will carry over from the G-7 to NATO is our commitment not just to the transatlantic alliance but also to our focus on the Indo-Pacific,” a Biden administration official said.

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US, allies to give $4.5B to address global food security

President Biden and international allies will contribute $4.5 billion to address global food security, the White House announced at the Group of Seven (G7) summit on Tuesday, with more than half of that commitment coming from the United States

Biden will announce $2.76 billion in additional funding from the U.S. to help protect over 47 countries that are considered to have the world’s most vulnerable populations, and mitigate the impacts of the war in Ukraine on growing food insecurity and malnutrition.

Up to 40 million more people could be pushed into poverty in 2022 as a result of the war in Ukraine, according to estimates from the White House. The most immediate needs will be in the Horn of Africa, where 20 million people could face starvation by the end of the year.

“We’re working on it,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters at the G7 on Tuesday when asked about getting grain out of Ukraine. Biden appeared to not hear the shouted question.

Senior White House officials on Tuesday said G7 leaders were focused on approaches to facilitate Ukraine’s grain to global markets, but didn’t have specifics to share.

“Getting grain out of Ukraine to global markets is at the very top of the list of priorities that leaders have, with respect to addressing the food security challenge,” an official told reporters.

Of the additional funding from the U.S., $2 billion will be for emergency interventions and $760 million will be for sustainable near-term food assistance to help mitigate further increases in malnutrition in vulnerable countries impacted by high prices of food, fertilizer and fuel. 

The commitments to address global food security were made on the last day of the G7 Summit in Germany. Biden then left Germany for Spain on Tuesday, where he will attend a NATO meeting.

In addition to the new funding, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will commit $2 billion in international disaster assistance funds for emergency humanitarian needs over the next three months.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. has provided $2.8 billion to scale up emergency food operations in countries impacted by the food security crisis.

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Google to shut down one of its products this fall

(NEXSTAR) – After more than a decade, Google is preparing to shut down its messaging platform, Google Hangouts, and to transition users to its newest service, Google Chat.

Hangouts – which was originally part of Google+, according to The Verge – allows users to message others or video call them. It can be accessed via a standalone app and an online feature. Google announced changes for Hangouts users in late 2020, which included directing them to use either Fi, Google’s cell phone service, or Google Voice.

Chat became free to access shortly after, and was added to Google Workspace in place of Hangout earlier this year.

In a Monday blog post, Google announced Hangouts will no longer be available starting in November 2022. If you use Hangouts on your phone or desktop, it’s likely that you’ve already been prompted to move to Chat.

Starting in July, those who access Hangouts in Gmail online will be upgraded to Chat in Gmail. According to Google, Hangouts on the web will still be available to access until fall. Users of Hangouts on the web will receive a notice at least one month before Hangouts begins redirecting to Chat on the web.

Chat is similar to Hangouts and other messaging platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams. It allows users to send private or group messages; offers Spaces as “a dedicated place for topic-based collaboration;” and can be accessed via an app. Users can also access Chat in an integrated view in Gmail.

“We have big ambitions for the future of Chat, and over the coming months you’ll see even more features like direct calling, in-line threading in Spaces and the ability to share and view multiple images,” Ravi Kanneganti, a product manager for Google Chat, wrote in Monday’s blog.

Hangouts isn’t the first platform to enter the “Google grave.” Among those is the aforementioned Google+, which was replaced with Currents about three years ago. Currents will be replaced with Spaces – already a feature within Chat – in 2023, Google announced in February.

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Natural gas used in homes may contain hazardous air pollutants: study

Natural gas used for powering household stoves, furnaces and water may contain levels of cancer-linked compounds that are toxic to residents when leaked, a new study has found.

The research, published in Environmental Science & Technology on Tuesday, investigated the composition of greater Boston’s “unburned” household gas, or the gas that comes out of kitchen stovetops when switching on the appliance.

While sampling natural gas supplies in more than 200 homes, the authors detected varying concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — known not only to be carcinogenic, but also to generate secondary air pollutants such as particulate matter and ozone. 

Though most related research has focused on methane — the primary component of natural gas — and its impacts on climate change, the degree to which other air pollutants are present in natural gas at household “end use” remains largely unexplored, according to the study. 

“When we talk about natural gas, we just talk about methane,” lead author Drew Michanowicz, a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told reporters in a call prior to the study’s release.

Considering gas beyond its methane contents therefore requires “a paradigm shift” that is critical to understanding the potential health impacts of household exposure, according to Michanowicz, who is also a senior scientist at the PSE Healthy Energy research institute. 

“Natural gas is mostly methane like pizza sauce is mostly tomatoes,” Michanowicz explained. “There’s other trace ingredients in pizza sauce. You need salt, oregano, pepper.”

From December 2019 through May 2021, Michanowicz and his colleagues collected 234 unburned natural gas samples from 69 kitchen stoves and building pipelines across the Boston region, according to the study.

Within these samples, they detected 296 unique chemical compounds — 21 of which are designated by the federal government as hazardous air pollutants.

“Historically, natural gas has been described as a clean or cleaner fossil fuel,” said co-author Zeyneb Magavi, co-executive director at the Boston-based Home Energy Efficiency Team.

“Now that we know there are small quantities of VOCs present in the gas supply in the Greater Boston area, it is reasonable to conclude that our gas supply is not as clean as we thought it once was,” Magavi said.

One VOC that the scientists found in 95 percent of the samples was benzene, which is classified by the National Toxicology Program as a known carcinogen. The wintertime concentration of benzene was nearly eight-fold greater than that of the summertime, according to the study.

Several other VOCs that are considered “hazardous” by the Environmental Protection Agency also appeared in most samples. Among those compounds were hexane, found in 98 percent of samples; toluene, found in 94 percent; heptane, found in 94 percent; and cyclohexane, found in 89 percent.

“Benzene is concerning because it’s a known human carcinogen that affects white and red blood cells and leads to anemia and decreased immune function,” Michanowicz said.

“Because of that, it’s strongly regulated,” he added, acknowledging, however, that the benzene levels found in the samples were relatively low.

Over the course of the study, Michanowicz said that the team uncovered five leaks — or about one in 20 homes — that were large enough to necessitate a follow-up with an expert. 

Michanowicz reiterated that their study focused on hazard identifications only and therefore did not assess human exposure or potential associated health effects. 

“It’s really the first step,” he said. “There’s more research that needs to be done.”

Nonetheless, he stressed that any such effects would likely be mirror the known impacts already linked to the combustion of natural gas, such as the formation of nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde.

“We think there probably is some risk, but that risk may be less than other really well-established environmental health hazards like tobacco smoke,” said co-author Curtis Nordgaard, an environmental health scientist at PSE Healthy Energy.

Adding up low-level leaks across a large metropolitan area like Boston could end up being significant, Nordgaard suggested. Also worth considering are those individuals exposed to higher concentrations of gas due to their occupations, such as commercial kitchen or pipeline workers, he said.  

Even prior to determining the precise health impact of exposure, the authors stressed that there are proactive measures residents can take to minimize potential harm.

Increasing filtration and ventilation in buildings is an effective step, as is finding and fixing indoor gas leaks, Magavi explained.

“A fossil fuel pipeline literally ends where a kitchen begins,” Michanowicz said. “This is a direct conduit to a gas well, far away, deep underground.”

“Cooking over a natural gas flame is probably the most intimate connection with climate change that we never think about,” Michanowicz added.

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'In it for the long haul'

Peggy Shepard, an environmental activist whose work has seen her get arrested at protests, now finds herself giving guidance to the White House.

Shepard, whose work focuses on environmental injustices against disadvantaged communities, is the cofounder of a New York City-based nonprofit that seeks to remedy such inequalities locally. 

She’s also the co-chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council — a group of outside advocates that advises the Biden administration on environment policies geared toward addressing racism and inequity.  

Multiple studies have shown that people of color are typically exposed to more pollution than their white counterparts, even at the same income levels.  

President Biden has moved to take on the issue, launching an initiative called Justice40 that seeks to steer at least 40 percent of all federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.  

He also created the advisory group in an executive order. Shepard said that allowing the organization to advise the White House directly gives it a broad scope over federal government activity.

“The concept is that we’re advising the White House directly, and the White House staff versus only advising the EPA and it not going any further,” Shepard told The Hill in a recent interview, noting that she previously advised the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Advising the White House, there’s an interagency working group so we are also more indirectly collaborating with all of the federal agencies as well,” she added.  

Shepard first got involved with environmental activism in the 1980s amid a fight against a sewage treatment facility near her community in New York. She said the plant caused “emissions and odors that were making people sick” in the West Harlem area.  

The fight was a long one, Shepard said, dragging on for eight years. 

She said that she was part of a group of activists who got arrested protesting against the plant, known as the “Sewage Seven.” 

And Shepard said her work on the issue opened her eyes up to other environmental problems. 

“When you take on one issue like that, your eyes are open and you begin to see the other issues,” she said, adding that she also did activism about the presence of polluting bus depots in majority Black areas. 

“When we started there were seven depots in Manhattan … six were uptown,” she said. “Every bus was diesel, and they were idling everywhere — outside of schools, people’s homes.” 

Meaningful community activism, she said, can take a long time.  

“It took us 18 years to get the [Metro Transit Authority] to move from diesel to hybrid,” she said. “You’ve got to understand that you’re in it for the long haul.” 

As for her efforts on the federal level, Shepard said it’s too soon to say whether the Biden administration is doing a thorough job of following the advisory council’s advice.  

“We don’t exactly know because we don’t know yet what recommendations are being implemented. We are collaborating with them,” she said. “It’s been slow; bureaucracy is slow.” 

One of the group’s biggest policy disagreements so far with the administration is its support for nuclear energy and carbon capture technology, in which the planet-warming emissions from burning fossil fuels are prevented from going into the air and warming the planet. 

While the administration supports nuclear and carbon capture, Shepard’s group listed both as “examples of the types of projects that will not benefit a community.” 

“They shouldn’t be supported by the government,” she said, and the fact that the administration does “makes us doubt their understanding of the issues.” 

Nuclear energy is a source that doesn’t contribute to climate change, making it popular among some climate advocates, but there have been questions about where radioactive nuclear waste should be stored. And high-profile meltdowns at sites including Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 have made nuclear energy reliably controversial.  

Meanwhile, carbon capture is an emerging technology that would enable fossil fuel plants to capture their emissions to prevent them from going into the atmosphere. Proponents have touted this as an important climate solution, but opponents have said it could extend the lifetimes of these facilities and have also pointed to some past mechanical problems.  

But despite some areas of disagreement, Shepard said she feels positively about the direction the administration and the country will move in.  

“I feel optimistic that the Justice40 Initiative will benefit communities, but that will only happen if advocates hold not only the federal government accountable, but also localities and states,” she said.  

Shepard’s environmental activism comes after previously working in journalism. She said that this past work helped her learn how to “ask the right questions” as well as with “not being afraid to ask questions and hold people accountable.” 

In addition to her White House advising, Shepard serves as the co-founder and executive director of the New York-based group WE ACT for Environmental Justice.  

In general, she believes the world is doing a better job tuning in to issues of environmental racism and injustice.  

“Ten years ago, you weren’t calling to do an interview, so I think that says something,” she said. “Nobody was interviewing [environmental justice] people 10 years ago … things have changed.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Why companies think paying for abortion travel is worth it

The nation’s largest companies are pledging to cover employees’ travel expenses to access abortion services, deciding an additional benefit for workers in a tight labor market outweighs the threat of legal action from states that have criminalized abortion. 

Walt Disney, Comcast, PayPal, Nike and other major employers announced those benefits on Friday, shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and upended a near 50-year precedent that guaranteed the right to abortion. Several other top employers implemented similar policies after the draft ruling was leaked last month.  

The wave of announcements came even as some GOP state lawmakers said they intend to go after employers that help their workers get an abortion, indicating that big companies are largely willing to take the risk to help hire and retain employees. 

“Everyone’s scrambling to have the employees they need, and so employers are asking themselves: Could I stand the possibility of a lawsuit against the certainty that some employees may just not stay with me if I don’t support this? It’s not an easy call to make, but I could imagine a lot of people ending in that place,” said Sandra Sucher, a professor of management at Harvard Business School. 

Ten states have already implemented laws to either ban abortion with very limited exceptions or heavily restrict access to the procedure. Roughly half of U.S. states are expected to enact near-total abortion bans, which would force people in some states to travel enormous distances to access an abortion clinic.  

Most large employers already covered abortions in their health care plans. Now, some firms, including Netflix, are paying as much as $10,000 to cover an employee’s out-of-state travel for the procedure. They’re under pressure to provide the benefits amid a tight labor market, where more than 11 million jobs remain unfilled and employers struggle to attract workers. 

The Society for Human Resource Management said in a note that employers are offering abortion benefits as a way to “enhance their ability to compete for talent.” Those policies include allowing workers to pay for travel using their health savings account. 

“But how these policies interact with state laws is unclear, and employers should be aware of the legal risks involved,” Emily Dickens, the group’s chief of staff and head of government affairs, said in a statement. 

Companies could face lawsuits from states or, in Texas, from anti-abortion activists under a state law that empowers citizens to enforce the abortion restrictions. Employers would likely cite the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which blocks states from placing mandates on employer-sponsored health plans, but it’s unclear how those lawsuits would play out in court. 

Texas GOP lawmakers recently warned Citigroup and Lyft against going through with their policies to reimburse workers who travel out of state for an abortion, threatening legal action. 

Some companies are taking a more cautious approach. In a statement following Friday’s ruling, Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, said it intended to reimburse travel costs for employees seeking an out-of-state abortion “to the extent permitted by law.”  

“We are in the process of assessing how best to do so, given the legal complexities involved,” the tech giant said.  

Businesses also face the threat of political blowback in deep-red states for taking stances on abortion. Some hard-line Texas lawmakers have proposed barring corporations from doing business in the Lone Star State if they help pay for out-of-state abortions. 

Still, that aggressive rhetoric ignores the reality that only a small number of major companies, including Yelp, Condé Nast and Levi Strauss & Co., have spoken out against the ruling and subsequent Republican efforts to ban abortion. 

While companies tout ensuring abortion access as an employee benefit, corporate America has remained quiet on the merits of the issue, even as the general public largely backs abortion rights. A recent poll from CBS News and YouGov found that 59 percent of respondents opposed the Supreme Court decision.   

“I don’t think that this is an area where companies feel they’re taking a political stance, as much as protecting employee rights,” Sucher said. “The core right is that employees get to decide how to manage their own health, and employers offer benefits to serve those employees and their health needs.” 

Most large companies have kept the focus on protecting their own employees’ rights. Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Starbucks, Microsoft and Mastercard are among firms that announced travel reimbursement policies without weighing in on the abortion debate.  

Vanessa Burbano, a professor of management at Columbia Business School, said the trend isn’t surprising, as some major companies have found in recent years that taking stances on polarizing issues has led to negative blowback that tends to overshadow positive feedback from others. 

“Companies recognize that this is something that a group of employees may care a lot about, and so they’re trying to address that without making these broad stroke statements that people outside of their core set of employees may have reactions to,” Burbano said. 

Companies are likely to keep the focus on their employees as they consider other policies, including relocating workers to states where abortion is legal, experts say.  

Some large employers already offer that perk. Google reminded employees in an email following the Supreme Court decision that they could “apply for relocation without justification.”

Source: TEST FEED1

The Memo: Left’s frustration with Biden, Pelosi intensifies on abortion

Progressive frustration with President Biden and the Democratic leadership in Congress is at a boiling point, just days after the Supreme Court rescinded the constitutional right to abortion.

Left-wing Democrats are fuming about what they see as a lackluster and vague response from party leaders to a literal life-and-death crisis afflicting millions of Americans.

“This is a 911 moment. It doesn’t get any more 911 than this,” prominent progressive Nina Turner told this column.

“The last time I checked, the Democrats control the White House, the Senate and the House,” Turner added, “and right now they’re playing tiddlywinks. This Congress and this president are not bold enough for this moment.”

Similar views are being vented across the progressive movement, from grassroots activists and elected officials alike.

At its core, the cry from the left is simple: Where’s the plan? 

Progressives assert that Biden and Democratic congressional leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), could be taking more specific actions and offering a more detailed map of the road ahead.

The left has plenty of suggestions.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) co-wrote a New York Times op-ed over the weekend that called on Biden to declare a public health emergency to protect reproductive rights. 

They asserted that this would have the effect of “unlocking critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services.”

Underlining the personal stakes, the two senators — ages 73 and 64, respectively — wrote: “The two of us lived in an America without Roe, and we are not going back. Not now. Not ever.”

A Washington Post reporter also tweeted Monday that Warren had called for the Biden administration to help establish outposts of Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health care organization, on the edges of national parks.

“They could put up tents, have trained personnel — and be there to help people who need it,” Warren said, according to reporter Caroline Kitchener. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Sunday tweeted seven measures Democrats could take to safeguard abortion rights. 

The New York congresswoman suggested establishing abortion clinics on federal lands, expanding the Supreme Court and repealing the Hyde amendment, which broadly prevents the use of federal funds for abortions.

So far, the calls for more assertive action have failed to win over the president. 

Biden has not budged from his opposition to expanding the Supreme Court. He has never seemed fully committed to filibuster reform. And he has remained silent about other proposals from the left, such as facilitating abortion on federal lands.

To be sure, Biden has not been entirely inactive. 

In his initial remarks at the White House responding to the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday, he stressed that “women must remain free to travel safely to another state to seek the care they need.”

He also said he would ensure that access to contraception and to abortion pills would be “available to the fullest extent possible and that politicians cannot interfere in the decisions that should be made between a woman and her doctor.”

There are, too, legitimate arguments against measures such as expanding the Court — a move that would surely set off a high court arms race in which the bench would be constantly expanded by whichever party was in power. 

Pelosi, for her part, on Monday outlined three legislative proposals that House Democrats plan to consider. 

One would codify Roe into law, another would underpin the right to travel between states for an abortion and the third would safeguard the privacy of reproductive health data stored on apps. 

But those have done nothing to quell the frustration among progressives who assert that their party’s leaders are just too timorous.

Biden “can open federal lands for abortion. He could talk to the two most obstructionist Democrats, Sen. [Kyrsten] Sinema and Sen. [Joe] Manchin, and press them to change. He could take a stand himself for abolishing the filibuster,” said Michele Weindling, electoral director for the Sunrise Movement, a youth-oriented progressive group.

“I am an organizer and I believe people are moveable,” Weindling added. “If I, as a 27-year-old here in my town of Denver, can see that, I would hope that the Democratic leadership would feel that way.”

There is, too, a serious tonal disconnect between Biden and congressional leaders on one hand and younger progressive activists and their standard-bearers, such Ocasio-Cortez, on the other.

Vincent Vertuccio, an organizer who works at the intersection of progressive movements and electoral politics, raised the issue of some congressional Democrats gathering to sing “God Bless America” near the Capitol on Friday — within earshot of the protests at the Supreme Court.

“That went immediately viral — and it didn’t go viral because people were thrilled with it,” he said. “It was people incredulous that this was the response to an American institution trashing a right.”

The split between Democratic leadership and the progressive base is crucial given that the midterm elections are little more than four months away.

Democratic leaders, including Biden, are adamant that anger at the Supreme Court’s ruling can be a galvanizing force in November. 

The left worries that the failure to do more is having just the opposite effect, disenchanting and enervating voters.

“The Republicans are playing for keeps and the Democrats are more concerned with decorum,” Turner said. “I say, forget about decorum. It is past time to play hardball with these people.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Source: TEST FEED1