This $453,264 three-year project grant from the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences program will fund anthropological and social science research at Emory University exploring the impact of energy burden on homemaking and welfare. Through ethnographic research methods including archival analysis, stakeholder interviews, and daily behavior monitoring, the researchers will examine how low-income households use and understand domestic energy, and how energy...
This Project Grant award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (CFDA 93.837 Cardiovascular Diseases Research) provides $631,630 to The Johns Hopkins University to conduct a long-term follow-up study on the health impacts of a household air pollution intervention in Puno, Peru. The goal is to determine the long-term effects of an 18-month program providing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves, continuous fuel, and behavioral messaging on outcomes such as lung function, cardiovascular...
This five-year, $721,211 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Integrative Activities program will support research at Colorado State University to develop more robust representations of sociotechnical transitions related to housing, well-being, and energy. The multidisciplinary team will conduct interviews and surveys to understand diverse stakeholder perceptions of well-being and social paradigms of change. They will represent the influence of networks and institutions in models...
This $650,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (CFDA 47.075) to The Pennsylvania State University supports research to strengthen the resilience and equity of U.S. energy infrastructure during extreme cold weather events. The project develops an integrated framework to assess and improve the allocation of natural gas between local distribution companies and power plants. It involves modeling the impacts of winter...
This $242,520 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences program (CFDA 47.075) supports research examining the impacts of electricity market regulation on energy transitions and environmental justice. Over a three-year period ending in February 2025, researchers at Columbia University will develop structural economic models to evaluate how rate-of-return regulation historically influenced shifts from coal to natural gas generation and may...
This Project Grant award of $274,392, provided by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (CFDA 93.837 - Cardiovascular Diseases Research), supports research on the social determinants of health (SDOH) and their impact on asthma-related morbidity among Black and Latinx adults with moderate-severe asthma. The key objectives are to: 1) determine if Black and Latinx adults have unique SDOH exposomes that distinctly associate with worse asthma outcomes, 2) assess if African American Black adults...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865) will measure the impacts of early-life and adolescent exposure to climate variability on the fertility, health, migration, and socioeconomic outcomes of working-age adults in Indonesia and Mexico. The $181,319 award to The Pennsylvania State University will leverage data from the Indonesian and Mexican Family...
This $250,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.079) supports the planning phase of a U.S.-Africa Research Center for Clean Energy (UARCCE). The grant will enable coordination efforts to (1) establish an energy solutions network to co-develop interdisciplinary, convergent research approaches and (2) leverage the network to identify use-inspired energy knowledge gaps. Specific clean energy research hypotheses will...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242), is intended to develop and pilot a mental health services access measurement system for integrated mental health care systems in Peru. The $542,314 award, spanning September 2024 to July 2027, will fund a three-part project. First, a community-based participatory research needs assessment will be conducted to inform the adaptation of existing care access...
This $317,220 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under CFDA 93.242 Mental Health Research Grants will support a two-year exploratory study to assess the unique HIV/STI prevention and care needs of Venezuelan sexual and gender minority migrants (VSGMM) living in Lima, Peru. The study aims to apply syndemic theory to understand how social vulnerabilities related to migration and sexual/gender minority status drive HIV/STI risk among this population. Researchers...
HOUSEHOLD ENERGY INSECURITY, HEALTH AND SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS IN COLOMBIA - ENERGY ACCESS IS AT THE HEART OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND INTRICATELY LINKED TO THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS RELATED TO POVERTY REDUCTION, GENDER EQUALITY, ENSURING HEALTHY LIVES AND PROMOTING WELL-BEING, AND CLIMATE CHANGE. HOWEVER, HOUSEHOLD ENERGY INSECURITY (HEINS) WHICH IS THE LACK OF ACCESS TO ADEQUATE, AFFORDABLE, RELIABLE, ACCEPTABLE AND CLEAN SOURCES OF ENERGY FOR A HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOOD POSES A CHALLENGE TO MANY HOUSEHOLDS. OUR ABILITY TO MEASURE ENERGY IN(SECURITY) IS LIMITED TO MACRO INDICES, FEW VARIATIONS OF ENERGY POVERTY INDICES, AND MEASURES DEVELOPED FOR HIGH INCOME COUNTRIES. THERE IS CURRENTLY NO WAY OF MEASURING ENERGY INSECURITY OR QUANTIFYING ITS SEQUELAE AT THE HOUSEHOLD LEVEL IN LOW INCOME COUNTRIES WHERE ACCESS TO MODERN FORMS OF ENERGY IS SCARCE AND CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION IS INCOMPLETE. THUS, THE SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVE OF THIS APPLICATION IS TO MEASURE HEINS AND EXAMINE ITS ROLE IN THE POOR HEALTH OUTCOMES AMONG WOMEN, INFANTS AND CHILDREN (WIC) IN COLOMBIA. THE CENTRAL HYPOTHESIS IS THAT HEINS IS DETRIMENTAL TO WIC IN DISEASE, ECONOMIC, NUTRITION, AND PSYCHOSOCIAL DOMAINS, IN WAYS DISTINCT FROM FOOD AND WATER INSECURITY. TO DO THIS, THE PROPOSED PROJECT LAUNCHES THE FIRST PHASE OF A LONGITUDINAL STUDY TO EXAMINE THE CUMULATIVE HEALTH RISKS AND DISADVANTAGES OF HEINS FOR THE FIRST 1000 DAYS OF LIFE. THIS PILOT STUDY WILL FOCUS ON THREE SPECIFIC AIMS. FIRST, DEVELOP A SCALE FOR MEASURING ENERGY INSECURITY AT THE HOUSEHOLD LEVEL (AIM 1); PSYCHOMETRICALLY EVALUATE AND VALIDATE THE SCALE (AIM 2); THIRD, ASSESS THE PREVALENCE AND SEQUELAE OF HEINS (AIM 3). METHODOLOGY. THIS STUDY WILL USE A MIXED-METHODS RESEARCH DESIGN EMPLOYING BOTH QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE METHODS. METHODS WILL SPECIFICALLY INCLUDE QUALITATIVE STUDY OF WOMEN IN COLOMBIA TO UNDERSTAND THEIR LIVED EXPERIENCES OF HEINS, IDENTIFICATION OF RELEVANT HEINS INDICATORS FROM EXISTING SCALES IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, ASSEMBLE AND PILOT SCALE QUESTIONS FOR DEVELOPING SETTINGS, DEVELOP AND PSYCHOMETRICALLY VALIDATE SCALE QUESTIONS, AND ASSESS STATISTICALLY THE EFFECT OF HEINS ON THE HEALTH OF WIC. SIGNIFICANCE. THIS EXPLORATORY STUDY TO UNDERSTAND THE EXPERIENCES OF ENERGY INSECURITY, DEVELOP AND VALIDATE A SCALE, WILL FACILITATE OUR ABILITY TO DEVELOP THE VERY FIRST SCALE ON HEINS IN LATIN AMERICA. THE ABILITY TO MEASURE ENERGY INSECURITY AT THE HOUSEHOLD LEVEL WILL BE TRANSFORMATIVE IN ADVANCING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE CAUSES OF A RANGE OF ADVERSE HEALTH OUTCOMES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCE, HEALTH INEQUITY. IT WILL ALSO BE USEFUL IN DEVELOPING INTERVENTIONS, IDENTIFYING SCALABLE TECHNOLOGIES AND POLICIES TO MITIGATE HEINS, AND INITIATE THE PRIMARY STEPS TO DEVELOP A CROSS-CULTURALLY VALIDATED SCALE.