SoCal Minds

What a waist -- and why U.S. girth growth's a worry

From RAND

It's just in the way we roll (over our belts) or maybe it's just jean-etic. Researchers in Santa Monica say there are sizable differences in the waist measures between Yanks and their English counterparts -- and that girth gap provides a huge clue as to why Americans are the sicker of the two people. Previous research has suggested it. But the new work underscores that the carrying visceral fat is linked to a variety of unhealthy circumstance, most notably diabetes with its many detrimental effects on individuals' well-being. And, while health officials long have focused on obesity and overweight problems, particularly as measured in the body mass index and other measures, the trending research looks at that waist measure with greater emphasis. Is the fat stored in the do-lap (as some Southerners call that belly droop over the belt) different and especially harmful, possibly more likely to be more directly linked to diabetes and other damaging disorders? More research will be needed but this study singles out girth as a factor to be examined.

A comparison finds Yank-English girth gap, with grimmer health result for Americans

 

A helping hand for aged, nonprofits, Haiti, First Ladies

From UCI, USC, RAND & Pepperdine

Oh, sure, there's plenty of it out there. Look around and there's certainly no lack of academic projects that only can be described as head-scratching fodder, leading to plenty of queries about the cost of various esoteric studies and research efforts. Then, again, look and the valiant, broad and deep good deeds that Southern California intellectual institutions undertake also can be inspirational, particularly on a scorching fall Monday when positive motivation might be sorely needed.

• So, dig in and consider, for example, how a prof's informed editing  of an experts' journal can offer a glimpse into the long, hard fight to identify, prevent and combat the sickening abuse of the aged, with the considerable assistance of generous, committed foundation's support of projects affecting the old.

• Or consider a lesson reinforced in the Haiti relief efforts for a Trojan emergency response expert about the need for perpetual vigilance and preparation, especially in a crisis-prone area like Southern California.

• It's also worth noting how folks from the think tank in Santa Monica have reached out to assist First Ladies and their aides from across Africa to help them address health and social concerns. Former First Lady Laura Bush also has lent her support to this program that will include chiefs of staff and other advisers to first ladies from Angola, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia.

• And because the world changes by the instant, especially due to the advent of new technologies, the folks out in Malibu will be assisting participants from the nonprofit world today and Tuesday in learning to demystify, simplify and boost their efforts to fund-raise with potential donors via smart phones and other mobile devices.

• Finally, in Exposition Park on Tuesday night, several different campus groups will join to sponsor an experts' conversation on charitable deed-doing under the rubric of 'Entrepreneurs Changing the World,' an initiative to bolster interest in and the Good Samaritan efforts of social entrepreneurs in the region. 

Photo at top (from left): Cora Neumann, RAND, and First Ladies, Madame: Penehupifo Pohamba, Republic of Namibia; Mathato Sebonoang Mosisili, Kingdom of Lesotho; Sia Nyama Koroma, Republic of Sierra Leone; Laura Bush; Ross Anthony of RAND / James Roderick, RAND

2 recognitions of SoCal expertise as masters of disaster

From Caltech & UCLA

While the wags may jest about the Southern California 'seasons' -- of temblors, torrential rains and mudslides, wildfires and, yes, sigh, riots and human uprisings -- the area's experience and expertise as masters of disasters is mattering a lot more. In Pasadena, a foundation gift and a school matching donation program has provided $10 million to set up a new 'terrestrial hazard center.' It will focus on interdisciplinary ways to study, ease the damage caused by and estimate the costs of natural hazards like 'global climate change, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, wildfires, and extreme weather events such as droughts, among others.' The school, noting its abundant expertise in engineering, seismology and an array of applicable other scientific fields, says the center's work could span everything from how best to expedite disaster relief to providing improved systems that offer even the briefest but still beneficial warnings about impending calamites. In Westwood, meantime, the Bruins will join some other high-powered colleagues across the country at the invitation of the Homeland Security folks to help develop guidelines on the health and safety of working firefighters. Among the researchers' key areas of focus will be the fitness and physiological, especially their cardiological responses to the giant stress related to their disaster response. And, meantime, the folks in Santa Monica as part of a continuing push of theirs, report that a recent, top-level group of former military and civilian leaders, scholars and chiefs of National Guard units across the country have urged Congress and the Defense Dept. to consider their recommendations on how the nation must better prepare for domestic disasters.

In Pasadena, $10 million in gifts launches a center on 'terrestrial hazard'

In Westwood, Bruins join in Homeland Security push to set firefighter health, safety guidelines

From Santa Monica, word of top-level warning about need for better U.S. preparedness for disasters

Can retail clinics, urgent care save billions in ER costs?

From RAND

With media reports building, again, by the day about an overcrowding crisis in the jammed and underfunded emergency rooms across Los Angeles county, the folks in Santa Monica offer another piece to the health dire care puzzle, asserting that as many as 17% of the ER visits nationwide could be handled, instead, at retail medical clinics or private urgent care centers. If this were to occur, there also would be an estimated $4.4 billion saving in annual health care costs for the country, they say. They note their research comes with a caveat or two because it's unclear whether existing clinics, often manned by nurse practitioners at pharmacies, groceries and even some mega-retailers, actually offer the care hours to take on as many potential patients as envisioned. Still, previous studies of ERs, retail clinics and urgent care facilities have shown that the private facilities certainly end up costing less for care that, generally speaking, turns out to be as satisfactory as that given after loooong waits in emergency rooms; it is, however, unclear whether patients possess the discernment to know the medical limits of the kind of care given at retail clinics and urgent care facilities. But certainly if greater emergency room capacity could be freed up, particularly with affordable shifts to acceptable private medical facilities, that could be huge for not only patients in major, sudden medical need but also for taxpayers who so frequently bear the brunt of the huge cost of providing lesser care in ERs designed for trauma response and the desperately ill. 

Sizable percentage of emergency room cases could be shifted to other facilities

How $112 body armor could save police lives, millions

From RAND

While the local media offer almost daily reports of new, scandalous and almost insane spending by select municipalities, here's a smart way for every burgh to drop a hundred bucks or so on a surprisingly effective means of protecting those who 'serve and protect.' Researchers in Santa Monica say that police officers who wear body armor -- equipment that is said to cost $112 to suit up one cop (and is of the sort shown on the stylish bobbie in photo on the left) -- have three times the likelihood of surviving a gunshot to the torso than those who lack the protective gear. Based on their analysis of 561 line-of-duty shootings over three years, researchers found that officers who sustained torso fire had a 68% chance of dying if they did not wear body armor as compared with the 20% if they did. It would cost roughly $26 million to outfit those cops nationwide who now do not wear body armor (some 75% of police already belong to agencies that have them and require them, in high-risk situations or during duty); doing so would save an estimated $51 million and at least eight officers lives annually, researchers said.

Chance of dying from torso shot found 68% higher for cops without protective vests

Click here for access to full report on high value of police body armor 

Will U.S., Boomers benefit from trend of working longer?

From RAND

Here's a good news-bad news summary of demographic research about the Baby Boom codgers: Both men and women will defy a long-developing trend of leaving the workforce as they age. But because they'll work longer and older, they may see mental and physical benefits from their continued engagement with jobs and labor -- and an increasingly gray America may need their shoulders at the wheel because of anticipated shrinkage in the number of U.S. workers, particularly if, as some partisans clamor for, there are declines in immigration that brings in young, productive labor. The demographic details, in colorful charts and with, of course, important implications to public policy, particularly in federal budgeting matters like Social Security, all gets covered in a review article from folks at the think tank in Santa Monica.

Nation may still need 'em, work will still feed 'em when Boomers get past 64

A bleak view of aid to most vulnerable after Katrina

From RAND

Five years after the calamitous hurricane known as Katrina walloped the Gulf Coast, the nation, still haunted by the specter of private and public helplessness in the face of a domestic disaster, remains humbled by the many human failures that harmed so many in their time of need. The folks from Santa Monica have convened nonprofit providers for a national conference in New Orleans to assess the research and policies about disaster response and relief. And they're providing an expert, pointed assessment of the sharply limited results of a hastily put together state and federal program hearkening back to the Bush era that was supposed to get the most vulnerable Americans out of federal emergency housing in trailers and back to the road to recovery. The picture painted of the aid provided to the poor, the old and the disabled is not pretty at all but will it provide an example of how to do better when the next catastrophe strikes?

Click here to read full RAND report on efforts to help poor, old, disabled after Katrina

In New Orleans, a national gathering of nonprofits to ponder how to respond better to disasters

As Haitian rebuilding struggles, SoCal expertise steps in

From RAND & UCLA

Alas, to the piteous woe of the impoverished people of Haiti, that island nation was an economic and social mess before a 7.0 earthquake devastated it. And, as might be expected in one of the hemisphere's poorest and most troubled spots, the planned rebuilding and reconstruction -- despite great promises and pledges of billions of dollars in aid -- goes forward in halting, byzantine fashion. Which is where two SoCal institutions come in, again, for Haiti as they have before. The folks at the Santa Monica think tank offer cogent expertise as to priorities Port-au-Prince ought make in the rebuilding: less worry about fancy building by friends, allies and international donors, they say. Haiti will continue to experience natural and other kinds of calamities but unless the world helps it build a sound, working government and functioning social institutions, it will be a perpetual basket case, the experts say. Why build roads, for example, if no one will keep them up? While calling for a working civil service, removal of official barriers that impede outsiders from bringing businesses and jobs and urging the government to monitor and not attempt to provide relief education and health services, the researchers also say that rubble removal and an island-wide coordination of all aid efforts should be put in place.

In place starting this weekend also will be a team of Bruin faculty and students, along with other participants from the UC Haiti Initiative, (which, among other things already has documented the destruction in a Flickr Photostream that includes the photo shown above). The dozen or so travelers will undertake a 10-day fact-finding mission to see the efficacy of international aid efforts and to figure better how the giant Golden State university system can best assist targeted elements of the Haitian needy.

Better priorities in dire demand for Haiti rebuilding, researchers say

Click here for full RAND study on 'Building a More Resilient Haitian State,' other resources on Haiti

Bruins to join UC Haiti Initiative team on 10-day, fact-finding tour in Haiti

A call for repairs to strains in U.S.-Mexico relations

From RAND

Of all the freighted international relationships that deeply affect Southern California, does any compare with what happens between the U.S. and Mexico? Consider that the researchers in Santa Monica note, among other things, that almost 1 in every 5 of Mexicans of working age in 2005 resided in...wait for it: the United States. And while the national clamor over immigration has hit another of its periodic crescendos and issues of trade remain thorny, the experts say it is long past time for the two nations to take new steps to work together to strengthen relations between the two neighbors. With narco-terrorism afflicting border areas and poverty, a lack of educational opportunities and social mobility still endemic in Mexico, its neighbors in the north need, for their own sake, to figure how to boost the Mexican economy and make wages and social programs more equitable so fewer folks decide to head for the U.S., researchers say. They note that, if nothing else, the two nations should set up a bi-national group to figure out, really, who migrates, what they do when they work in the U.S., what their job histories look like and how they do or don't contribute in America and Mexico.

New information needed on key issues that drive, sustain immigration, experts say

Click here for full RAND study, 'Ties that Bind, Issues that Divide'

What succeeds in counterinsurgency operations?

From RAND

With the United States mired in a seemingly intractable battle that has become one of its longest overseas incursions ever, policy-makers may wish to take heed of new research from Santa Monica that examines what works and doesn't in counterinsurgency operations. Experts scrutinized more than 20 distinct approaches tested in various global hot spots over three recent decades, including in Turkey, Croatia, Somalia, Burundi, Tajikistan and Kosovo. Some key take-aways: Trying just one approach won't get it -- indeed, successful counterinsurgency operations employed multiple options; escalating repression, relocation of populations and increasing support of insurgents 'have the weight of evidence against them' and their prospects for success. Outsiders -- like the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq -- must gauge carefully their prospects for prevailing in a conflict by understanding deeply and carefully, the researchers say, both the popular support that local insurgents enjoy, and, more important, the tangible support (food, supplies, intelligence, cover) that they receive. A bad, undependable or shaky on-scene partner or government in a counterinsurgency? That's a grim indicator for counterinsurgency failure, something that might give U.S. policy-makers much greater pause, both in the past Bush administration and on to the Obama folks, about President Hamid Karzai and his regime in Afghanistan.

Successful campaigns found to tap multiple approaches, awareness of insurgents' support

Click here to get full RAND study, 'Victory Has a Thousand Fathers'