Measurement of death needs to be improved to save lives in future
In a world dealing with the worst public health crisis in a century, the current U.S. system for tracking deaths suffers from organizational, political and procedural flaws that actually put public health and safety at risk, and requires significant updates and reform to solve the problems laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. Inaccuracies in mortality data have real consequences for the public health mission, said Dr. Vickie Mays, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor of health policy and management, who said these weaknesses have played out in how the U.S. measures mortality, creating data gaps critical to accurate classification of deaths, from COVID-19 to suicides to legal use of deadly force.
Sick leave eligibility rules in the U.S. widen racial inequalities in the labor market, finds study
Paid sick leave is one of the most powerful tools for preventing the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases and ensuring all workers can access treatment-;yet tens of millions of workers across the U.S. lack coverage.
Today, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health s WORLD Policy Analysis Center (WORLD) released the first study to systematically analyze how common sick leave eligibility criteria in the U.S. affect access and to examine sick leave policies globally to understand whether these criteria are necessary. The research found marked racial and gender gaps in leave access in the U.S. due to restrictions targeting workers at small businesses, part-time workers, and workers at new jobs.
UCLA Research Finds that U S Sick Leave Policies Widen Racial Inequalities, Lag Nearly Every Other Country | Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health ucla.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ucla.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
July 16, 2021
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The study, to be published next week by the Institute of Labor Economics, was conducted by three researchers at UCLA and Stanford … “Heat is of those things where our familiarity with it may engender a sense of false security,” said Jisung Park, a UCLA economist and the lead author of the study. “But this and other research suggests that hotter temperatures, which in many cases may not seem like such a big deal, appear to have hidden costs.” (Also: New York Times.)
July 14, 2021
UCLA In the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription to view. See more UCLA in the News.
(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s Jennifer Mnookin) The evidence is clear: Two doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is highly protective for most people. But there are subpopulations for whom these powerful vaccines are demonstrably not yet working. It is likely that hundreds of thousands of fully vaccinated individuals in the U.S., if not more, remain at just as much risk of contracting COVID-19 as they were before they were vaccinated.