Traditionally, businesses and consumers have obtained loans from banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions. However, in recent years, alternative forms of credit have arisen from the burgeoning financial technology (“fintech”) industry and large, ... More »
Nearly one million Rohingya refugees currently reside in camps in Bangladesh. Most Rohingya live in temporary settlements where conditions are not safe.The Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh cannot repatriate without threat from Myanmar’s military governme... More »
Cigarette use in the United States has been on a consistent downward trend in recent decades, dropping from 20.9% to 12.5% between 2005 and 2020. However, the rising popularity of electronic cigarettes (E-cigarettes) has counteracted this reduction in tobacco ... More »
As the Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said, “All students deserve access to safe, supportive schools and classrooms.” Today, these privileges remain out of reach for many. Since the 1990s, disciplinary action and exclusionary policies have widened racia... More »
In 2015, the ‘Chicken of Tomorrow’, meat from chickens raised in more organic conditions, was born in the Netherlands as a collective move by farmers’ organizations and chicken producers. This decision was the result of producers conceding to fierce campaignin... More »
The discussion around pretrial risk assessment instruments (RAIs) in the U.S. has become increasingly politicized and polarized. Initially celebrated for their supposedly impartial and accurate risk predictions, RAIs have increasingly been employed during pret... More »
Social safety net programs were designed to help poorer members of society meet their basic needs. The model in the United States was expanded by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty, which focused on prevention. The president’s administration hoped to... More »
It’s no secret that the United States has a housing affordability problem. The high cost of living in major cities stems from a shortage of available units. High rents burden low- to moderate-income families. The larger percentage of a household’s income goes ... More »
There is a growing awareness about the harmful effects of wildfire smoke and how those effects vary across socioeconomic groups. A new study by Berke et al. in Nature Human Behaviour suggests that differences in groups’ behavior, influenced by socioeconomic re... More »
A newly published international report confirms global warming has damaged coral reefs throughout the world’s oceans. The Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020 published by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), stated, the world has lost about 1... More »
Public health officials have long sought to improve health outcomes by influencing bad behaviors, like smoking or lack of exercise. Such behaviors are very clearly detrimental to health, so much so that it seems like no one would perform them—but people inevit... More »
Data analysis and visualizations by Vishal Joseph.In the past decade, the value of cryptocurrencies and digital assets has grown exponentially, rising from $14 billion in 2015 to $2 trillion this March (Fig. 1).Figure 1: The market capitalization of cryptocurr... More »