Social Systems Evidence

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “…a continuously updated repository of syntheses of research evidence about the programs, services and products available in a broad range of government sectors and program areas (e.g., climate action, community and social services, economic development and growth, education, environmental conservation, education, housing and transportation) as well as the governance, financial and delivery arrangements within which these programs, services and products are provided, and the implementation strategies that can help to ensure that these programs, services and products get to those who need them. 

The content covers the Sustainable Development Goals, with the exceptions of the health part of goal 3 (which is already well covered by existing databases).

The types of syntheses include evidence briefs for policy, overviews of evidence syntheses, evidence syntheses addressing questions about effectiveness, evidence syntheses addressing other types of questions, evidence syntheses in progress (i.e., protocols for evidence syntheses), and evidence syntheses being planned (i.e., registered titles for evidence syntheses). Social Systems Evidence also contains a continuously updated repository of economic evaluations in these same domains…(More)”

First-of-its-kind dataset connects greenhouse gases and air quality

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

NOAA Research: “The GReenhouse gas And Air Pollutants Emissions System (GRA²PES), from NOAA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), combines information on greenhouse gas and air quality pollutant sources into a single national database, offering innovative interactive map displays and new benefits for both climate and public health solutions.

A new U.S.-based system to combine air quality and greenhouse gas pollution sources into a single national research database is now available in the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center portal. This geospatial data allows leaders at city, state, and regional scales to more easily identify and take steps to address air quality issues while reducing climate-related hazards for populations.

The dataset is the GReenhouse gas And Air Pollutants Emissions System (GRA²PES). A research project developed by NOAA and NIST, GRA²PES captures monthly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions activity for multiple economic sectors to improve measurement and modeling for both GHG and air pollutants across the contiguous U.S.

Having the GHG and air quality constituents in the same dataset will be exceedingly helpful, said Columbia University atmospheric scientist Roisin Commane, the lead on a New York City project to improve emissions estimates…(More)”.

Harnessing the feed: social media for mental health information and support 

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by ReachOut: “…highlights how a social media ban could cut young people off from vital mental health support, including finding that 73 per cent of young people in Australia turn to social media when it comes to support for their mental health.

Based on research with over 2000 young people, the report found a range of benefits for young people seeking mental health support via social media (predominantly TikTok, YouTube and Instagram). 66 per cent of young people surveyed reported increased awareness about their mental health because of relevant content they accessed via social media, 47 per said they had looked for information about how to get professional mental health support on social media and 40 per cent said they sought professional support after viewing mental health information on social media. 

Importantly, half of young people with a probable mental health condition said that they were searching for mental health information or support on social media because they don’t have access to professional support. 

However, young people also highlighted a range of concerns about social media via the research. 38 per cent were deeply concerned about harmful mental health content they have come across on platforms and 43 per cent of the young people who sought support online were deeply concerned about the addictive nature of social media.  

The report highlights young people’s calls for social media to be safer. They want: an end to addictive features like infinite scroll, more control over the content they see, better labelling of mental health information from credible sources, better education and more mental health information provided across platforms…(More)”.

Data-driven decisions: the case for randomised policy trials

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Speech by Andrew Leigh: “…In 1747, 31-year-old Scottish naval surgeon James Lind set about determining the most effective treatment for scurvy, a disease that was killing thousands of sailors around the world. Selecting 12 sailors suffering from scurvy, Lind divided them into six pairs. Each pair received a different treatment: cider; sulfuric acid; vinegar; seawater; a concoction of nutmeg, garlic and mustard; and two oranges and a lemon. In less than a week, the pair who had received oranges and lemons were back on active duty, while the others languished. Given that sulphuric acid was the British Navy’s main treatment for scurvy, this was a crucial finding.

The trial provided robust evidence for the powers of citrus because it created a credible counterfactual. The sailors didn’t choose their treatments, nor were they assigned based on the severity of their ailment. Instead, they were randomly allocated, making it likely that difference in their recovery were due to the treatment rather than other characteristics.

Lind’s randomised trial, one of the first in history, has attained legendary status. Yet because 1747 was so long ago, it is easy to imagine that the methods he used are no longer applicable. After all, Lind’s research was conducted at a time before electricity, cars and trains, an era when slavery was rampant and education was reserved for the elite. Surely, some argue, ideas from such an age have been superseded today.

In place of randomised trials, some put their faith in ‘big data’. Between large-scale surveys and extensive administrative datasets, the world is awash in data as never before. Each day, hundreds of exabytes of data are produced. Big data has improved the accuracy of weather forecasts, permitted researchers to study social interactions across racial and ethnic lines, enabled the analysis of income mobility at a fine geographic scale and much more…(More)”

Citizen scientists will be needed to meet global water quality goals

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

University College London: “Sustainable development goals for water quality will not be met without the involvement of citizen scientists, argues an international team led by a UCL researcher, in a new policy brief.

The policy brief and attached technical brief are published by Earthwatch Europe on behalf of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)-coordinated World Water Quality Alliance that has supported citizen science projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. The reports detail how policymakers can learn from examples where citizen scientists (non-professionals engaged in the scientific process, such as by collecting data) are already making valuable contributions.

The report authors focus on how to meet one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals around improving water quality, which the UN states is necessary for the health and prosperity of people and the planet…

“Locals who know the water and use the water are both a motivated and knowledgeable resource, so citizen science networks can enable them to provide large amounts of data and act as stewards of their local water bodies and sources. Citizen science has the potential to revolutionize the way we manage water resources to improve water quality.”…

The report authors argue that improving water quality data will require governments and organizations to work collaboratively with locals who collect their own data, particularly where government monitoring is scarce, but also where there is government support for citizen science schemes. Water quality improvement has a particularly high potential for citizen scientists to make an impact, as professionally collected data is often limited by a shortage of funding and infrastructure, while there are effective citizen science monitoring methods that can provide reliable data.

The authors write that the value of citizen science goes beyond the data collected, as there are other benefits pertaining to education of volunteers, increased community involvement, and greater potential for rapid response to water quality issues…(More)”.

Scientists around the world call to protect research on one of humanity’s greatest short-term threats – Disinformation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Forum on Democracy and Information: “At a critical time for understanding digital communications’ impact on societies, research on disinformation is endangered. 

In August, researchers around the world bid farewell to CrowdTangle – the Meta-owned social media monitoring tool. The decision by Meta to close the number one platform used to track mis- and disinformation, in what is a major election year, only to present its alternative tool Meta Content Library and API, has been met with a barrage of criticism.

If, as suggested by the World Economic Forum’s 2024 global risk report, disinformation is one of the biggest short-term threats to humanity, our collective ability to understand how it spreads and impacts our society is crucial. Just as we would not impede scientific research into the spread of viruses and disease, nor into natural ecosystems or other historical and social sciences, disinformation research must be permitted to be carried out unimpeded and with access to information needed to understand its complexity. Understanding the political economy of disinformation as well as its technological dimensions is also a matter of public health, democratic resilience, and national security.

By directly affecting the research community’s ability to open social media black boxes, this radical decision will also, in turn, hamper public understanding of how technology affects democracy. Public interest scrutiny is also essential for the next era of technology, notably for the world’s largest AI systems, which are similarly proprietary and opaque. The research community is already calling on AI companies to learn from the mistakes of social media and guarantee protections for good faith research. The solution falls on multiple shoulders and the global scientific community, civil society, public institutions and philanthropies must come together to meaningfully foster and protect public interest research on information and democracy…(More)”.

Leveraging AI for Democracy: Civic Innovation on the New Digital Playing Field

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Beth Kerley, Carl Miller, and Fernanda Campagnucci: “Like social media before them, new AI tools promise to change the game when it comes to civic engagement. These technologies offer bold new possibilities for investigative journalists, anticorruption advocates, and others working with limited resources to advance democratic norms.

Yet the transformation wrought by AI advances is far from guaranteed to work in democracy’s favor. Potential threats to democracy from AI have drawn wide attention. To better the odds for prodemocratic actors in a fluid technological environment, systematic thinking about how to make AI work for democracy is needed.

The essays in this report outline possible paths toward a prodemocratic vision for AI. An overview essay by Beth Kerley based on insights from an International Forum for Democratic Studies expert workshop reflects on the critical questions that confront organizations seeking to deploy AI tools. Fernanda Campagnucci, spotlighting the work of Open Knowledge Brasil to open up government data, explores how AI advances are creating new opportunities for citizens to scrutinize public information. Finally, Demos’s Carl Miller sheds light on how AI technologies that enable new forms of civic deliberation might change the way we think about democratic participation itself…(More)“.

The paradox of climate data in West Africa: growing urgency coupled with diminishing accessibility

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Cirad: “In 2022, a prolonged drought devastated maize crops in northern Burkina Faso, leaving two million people without sufficient food resources. This dramatic situation could have been better anticipated and its impacts could have been mitigated with the collection and equitable sharing of specific data: that of agrometeorology, the science that studies the effects of meteorological, climatological and hydrological factors on crops.

Although it is too late to prevent the 2022 drought, protecting people from future droughts remains an urgent priority, especially in Africa, a continent where climate change poses a serious threat to rainfed agriculture, its main agricultural and economic activity.

To anticipate these climate risks, it is essential to have access to reliable meteorological data, which is crucial for ensuring sustainable and resilient agricultural practices. Yet in West Africa, the accessibility and reliability of this data are increasingly threatened and face unprecedented diplomatic, economic and security challenges…(More)”.

Federal Court Invalidates NYC Law Requiring Food Delivery Apps to Share Customer Data with Restaurants

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Hunton, Andrews, Kurth: “On September 24, 2024, a federal district court held that New York City’s “Customer Data Law” violates the First Amendment. Passed in the summer of 2021, the law requires food-delivery apps to share customer-specific data with restaurants that prepare delivered meals.

The New York City Council enacted the Customer Data Law to boost the local restaurant industry in the wake of the pandemic. The law requires food-delivery apps to provide restaurants (upon the restaurants’ request) with each diner’s full name, email address, phone number, delivery address, and order contents. Customers may opt out of such sharing. The law’s supporters argue that requiring such disclosure addresses exploitation by the delivery apps and helps restaurants advertise more effectively.

Normally, when a customer places an order through a food-delivery app, the app provides the restaurant with the customer’s first name, last initial and food order. Food-delivery apps share aggregate data analytics with restaurants but generally do not share customer-specific data beyond the information necessary to fulfill an order. Some apps, for example, provide restaurants with data related to their menu performance, customer feedback and daily operations.

Major food-delivery app companies challenged the Customer Data Law, arguing that its data sharing requirement compels speech impermissibly under the First Amendment. Siding with the apps, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York declared the city’s law invalid, holding that its data sharing requirement is not appropriately tailored to a substantial government interest…(More)”.

Climate and health data website launched

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Susan Cosier: “A new website of data resources, tools, and training materials that can aid researchers in studying the consequences of climate change on the health of communities nationwide is now available. At the end of July, NIEHS launched the Climate and Health Outcomes Research Data Systems (CHORDS) website, which includes a catalog of environmental and health outcomes data from various government and nongovernmental agencies.

The website provides a few resources of interest, including a catalog of data resources to aid researchers in finding relevant data for their specific research projects; an online training toolkit that provides tutorials and walk-throughs of downloading, integrating, and visualizing health and environmental data; a listing of publications of note on wildfire and health research; and links to existing resources, such as the NIEHS climate change and health glossary and literature portal.

The catalog includes a listing of dozens of data resources provided by different federal and state environmental and health sources. Users can sort the listing based on environmental and health measures of interest — such as specific air pollutants or chemicals — from data providers including NASA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with many more to come…(More)”.