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New Paper Analyzes Impact of School Closures on Families

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Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor and doctoral student Kate Watson collaborated on a new paper highlighting the needs of children and families during school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper, published in Social Work, analyzed responses to a nationwide survey of 1,275 school social workers who reported on their clients, including schools, children and families, during the COVID-19 school closures in spring 2020. While other reports have focused on academic challenges facing students during the pandemic as well as the effects of online learning on academic success, the authors identified a knowledge gap in understanding the needs and difficulties of K-12 students and their families from a social work perspective. In their responses to the survey, school social workers indicated that the children and families they served had significant unmet basic needs, including for food, health care and housing. “Poverty and mental health compounded pandemic difficulties, which were associated with the sociodemographic makeup of schools,” wrote Watson, the paper’s lead author, with co-authors Astor and colleagues from Hebrew University, Cal State Fullerton and Loyola University Chicago. Based on the survey results, the authors identified several policy and practice implications for the future. They highlighted the need for “additional services for students and families, a plan to address structural inequities in our schools and communities, coordinated outreach to reengage missing students, and recognition of the strong work being done by school staff coupled with a need for additional supports and resources to combat persistent inequality.” — Zoe Day

Park on Heat-Related Worker Injuries

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Assistant Professor of Public Policy R. Jisung Park was mentioned in an Agence France-Presse article about the impact of climate change on agricultural workers. Rising temperatures are increasingly threatening workers in the United States, resulting in greater health risks as well as negatively impacting performance. According to a recent study, 3 million workers in the United States experience at least one working week each year in temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Research shows that working in too much heat can cause fatigue, confusion, fainting and heat stroke. Park explained that, in California alone, “hotter temperatures may be causing upwards of tens of thousands of workplace injuries each year.” Increasing temperatures can result in decreased productivity and therefore loss of revenue, which impacts workers’ income. Experts recommend increasing worker protections, including access to shade, water and paid breaks, to protect the health and well-being of those in the workplace.

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Campus Police Presence Not Healthy for Development, Astor Says

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Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor was mentioned in a Southern California News Group article about the controversial presence of armed officers on school campuses. Many school districts in Southern California have armed officers on their campuses despite opposition from parents and students. In September, 18-year-old Mona Rodriguez was fatally shot by a school safety officer in an off-campus parking lot in Long Beach. In that school district, non-sworn officers are able to carry guns, batons and pepper spray but do not have arrest powers. Other school districts have their own police departments or have contracts with police and sheriff departments. According to Astor, a heavy police presence can adversely impact the school climate. “Very heavily armed schools prime the kids in those schools to think of the place more like a prison,” Astor explained. “Militarizing and turning schools into things that look like prisons is not healthy for development. It’s not healthy for identity.”

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Center for Innovation Report Finds Gaps in Heat Governance

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A Los Angeles Times article about the deadly consequences of extreme heat highlighted a study by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Extreme heat is becoming more frequent and severe as a result of global warming, but recent investigations show that the state has failed to address the growing threat of heat-related illness and death. The forthcoming Center for Innovation report described California’s regulation of extreme heat exposure as “fragmented across numerous state agencies” and “with no centrally responsible authority.” There are no heat exposure rules for schools, jails or prisons, and while California landlords are required to provide heating in rental units, there is no requirement for cooling. In places with heat illness prevention rules in place, such as assisted-living and childcare facilities, the extent of compliance and monitoring is unclear. Public health advocates call for coordinated statewide policies to prevent heat deaths and hospitalizations and protect those who work in hot settings.

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Shah, Bau Investigate Lockdown Impact on Female Mental Health

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Professor of Public Policy Manisha Shah and Assistant Professor of Public Policy Natalie Bau co-authored an article in Ideas for India about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in India. Researchers conducted a large-scale phone survey across six states in rural north India to better understand how lockdown measures contributed to economic instability, food insecurity, and declines in female mental health and well-being. Bau, Shah and their co-authors found that strict lockdown measures, while necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19 infection, contributed to economic and mental distress, especially in low-income settings with limited safety nets. Gender norms and low availability of mental health services made females especially vulnerable. For example, roughly 30% of the female respondents reported that their feelings of depression, exhaustion, anxiety and perception of safety worsened over the course of the pandemic. The authors recommended that policymakers target aid, particularly access to food, to vulnerable households and women.

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Koslov on Mobilizing to Combat Climate Change

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Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Liz Koslov was featured in a Katie Couric Media article about the growing threat of climate change. Many regions are already experiencing the consequences of climate change through frequent wildfires, long periods of drought, and increased frequency and severity of tropical storms. Rising temperatures and humidity have also prompted concerns about the health risks associated with climate change, including heat stroke and heat illness as well as exacerbation of chronic illness. While some changes such as rising sea levels are irreversible, there is still time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow the effects of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report describing five different climate futures depending on human action to reduce emissions and shift away from fossil fuel use. “There’s so much action happening to try to really transform these conditions,” Koslov said. “If anything, COVID showed us the power of mobilizing on a vast scale.”

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Matute on Prioritizing Safety of E-Scooter Services

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Dot.LA about Superpedestrian, an e-scooter startup that aims to prioritize rider and pedestrian safety. Some e-scooter companies have faced lawsuits from riders over bodily injury and death. Superpedestrian says it has spent years improving its technology to protect vulnerable pedestrians and alert the user when they are breaking the rules. According to Matute, focusing on safety makes it easier for cities to adopt micro-mobility like e-scooter services. “Having self-regulating technology like Superpedestrian has is really attractive to cities because they can approve scooters to go in without worrying so much about users behaving badly,” he explained. “People have died because of vehicle system failures, brakes not being up to snuff.” Superpedestrian recently made its debut in Los Angeles with 5,000 LINK e-scooters.

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Turner on Building Heat Resilient Communities

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Assistant Professor of Urban Planning V. Kelly Turner joined the America Adapts Podcast and the Smart Community Podcast to discuss ways to build heat resilient cities and address heat inequity. According to Turner, heat governance is in its infancy. “We don’t have institutions that are responsible for regulating heat at the local, state or federal level,” she said. Turner explained that there is a difference between the acute problem of extreme heat risk and the chronic problem of the urban heat island effect. “Not all urban heat is extreme, and not all extreme heat is urban, and you can’t necessarily solve both at the same time,” she said. Turner also discussed the tradeoffs of different heat interventions such as cool pavement, which effectively combats the urban heat island effect but is “not a substitute for shade.” She recommended engaging with communities to learn how people experience heat in order to make cities better places for people to live.

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Pierce on Safety Hazard of Mobile Homes

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Greg Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to ProPublica about the climate gap, which refers to the disproportionate and unequal impacts of the climate crisis. Across the United States, people of color, the poor and the undocumented are more likely to live in hotter places and less likely to have access to potable water. In Thermal, California, the population is 99% Latino, and many residents live in mobile trailer homes without clean running water or air conditioning. How mobile homes are going to fare in the climate crisis is, “quite frankly, not the sexiest to academics,” said Pierce, noting that residents of older manufactured housing are at great risk. In California, mobile homes are disproportionately located in the hottest census tracts, and poor insulation can drive up cooling costs. Furthermore, mobile homes built before 1976 are not up to date with new building and safety standards, creating additional safety hazards.

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Leap Sees Violence Exacerbated by Pandemic

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in a Los Angeles Times article about the disproportionate rise in homicides targeting Latino and Black victims. “It speaks to the two Los Angeleses,” said Leap, pointing to the significant disparities in public safety across the city. Communities of color have been disproportionately burdened by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to an increase in drug disputes and violence, she said. “Drug dealing is not a peaceful endeavor,” Leap said, and the violence it spawns has been “exacerbated literally by hunger, by worse poverty, by people not having enough money, by people being desperate.” Furthermore, many programs aimed at reducing gang activity and violence were put on hold during the pandemic. Leap explained that people who had relied on such programs were driven into a spiral of despair by their collapse, and she predicted that the increased violence will only stop once those programs are back in place.

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