In addition to the most pressing issues of the day, scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies focus their research on many regions of the world, from Beijing to Brazil.
Research Spotlight
South Korea's Democratic Decay
South Korea is following global trends as it slides toward a “democratic depression.” Both the spirit of democracy and actual liberal-democratic standards are under attack.
The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century
Southeast Asian and Chinese perceptions of each other are examined using survey research and by asking whether China views the region as its “strategic backyard.”
Author Vincent Barletta explores rhythm as a primordial and physical binding force that establishes order and form in the ancient world, as the anatomy of lived experience in early modern Europe, and as a subject of aesthetic and ethical questioning in the twentieth century.
Millions of Americans may have asked themselves these questions, or versions of them—especially in the wake of horrific mass shootings like those in Buffalo and Uvalde. Record-breaking spikes in gun sales over the last two years, alongside surveys indicating that self-protection continues to be the dominant reason for buying guns, underscore a widely-held belief that a gun in the home has security benefits.
A new study from my research team, recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, shows no such benefits. We found the opposite: people living in homes with guns face substantially higher risks of being fatally assaulted.
Gab was founded in 2016 as an uncensored alternative to mainstream social media platforms. Stanford Internet Observatory’s latest report looks at behaviors and dynamics across the platform.
Topic
This systematic review and meta-analysis summarizes existing evidence to establish whether vision impairment, ocular morbidity and their treatment are associated with depression and anxiety in children.
Clinical Relevance
Understanding and quantifying these associations support early detection and management of mental health symptoms in children with vision impairment and ocular morbidity. Additionally, this review provides evidence in favour of insurance coverage for timely strabismus surgery.
Methods
We searched nine electronic databases from inception to February 18, 2021, including observational and interventional studies assessing whether vision impairment and/or ocular morbidity and their treatment are associated with depression and/or anxiety in children. We used narrative synthesis and meta-analysis with the residual maximum likelihood method. A protocol was registered and published on The International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO, CRD42021233323).
Results
Among 28,992 studies, 28,956 (99.9%) were excluded as duplicates or unrelated content. Among 36 remaining studies, 21 (58.3%) were observational studies concerning vision impairment, eight (22.2%) were observational studies concerning strabismus, and seven (19.4%) were interventional studies. Vision-impaired children experienced significantly higher scores of depression (Standard Mean Difference [SMD] 0.57, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.26-0.89, 11 studies) and anxiety (SMD 0.61, 95% CI 0.40-0.821, 14 studies) than normally-sighted children. In particular, myopic children experienced higher scores of depression (SMD 0.59, 95% CI 0.36-0.81, six studies) than normally-sighted children. Strabismus surgery significantly improved symptoms of depression (SMD: 0.59 95% CI 0.12-1.06, three studies) and anxiety (SMD: 0.69 95% CI 0.24-1.14, four studies) in children.
Discussion
Among children, vision impairment is associated with greater symptoms of depression and anxiety. Surgical treatment of strabismus improved these symptoms. Further randomized controlled trials exploring the impact of public health measures for myopia correction on mental health in children are needed. Scaling up access to strabismus surgery could improve the mental health of affected children.
Key policy takeaways from Francis Fukuyama on why Ukraine will win; Jean Oi on U.S.-China climate cooperation; Rose Gottemoeller on nuclear arms control in Europe; Michael McFaul on sanctions and Russia; Larry Diamond on ranked-choice voting; and Renee DiResta on hate speech on social media.
This article examines the consequences of the opium concession system in the Dutch East Indies—a nineteenth-century institution through which the Dutch would auction the monopolistic right to sell opium in a given locality.
Is operating overnight associated with worse outcomes for surgical procedures performed by the attending surgeon the subsequent day? In this cross-sectional study of 498,234 daytime operations performed by 1,131 surgeons at 20 US institutions, there was no significant association between operating the previous night and the incidence of in-hospital death or major complications (sepsis, pneumonia, myocardial infarction, thromboembolic event, or stroke) for daytime operations performed the subsequent day. After adjusting for confounders, the incidence of death or major complications was 5.89% among daytime operations when the attending surgeon operated the night before compared with 5.87% among daytime operations when the attending surgeon did not. These findings suggest that operating overnight does not appear to be associated with worse outcomes when the attending surgeon continues to operate the next day.
A study examining the BRI through the lens of the obsolescing bargain to evaluate the practices of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and policy banks in mitigating political risk.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,
May 16, 2022
The objectives of this paper were to examine the risk of depression and depressive symptoms among Han and minority children and adolescents in rural China, the links between academic performance and depressive symptoms, and the prevalence of these links among specific subgroups. A total of 8392 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students at 105 sample rural schools in eight low-income counties and districts in a prefectural-level city in Southwestern China were randomly selected using a three-step sampling strategy. A total of 51% of the sample were female (SD = 0.50), and the age range was 7 to 19 years (mean = 11.35 years; SD = 1.05). Using the Patient Health Questionnaire 8-item depression scale, the prevalence of depressive symptoms in the sample was assessed, while data on students’ academic performance (standardized math test) and demographic characteristics were also collected. Our results show that the rates of major depression were 19% for Han students, 18% for Tibetan students, and 22% for Yi students; the rates of severe depression were 2% for Han and Tibetan students, and 3% for Yi students. Yi students were at significantly higher risks for major and severe depression than Han students. We conducted multivariate regression and heterogeneous analyses. Academic performance was negatively and significantly correlated to depressive symptoms. Across the whole sample, students with lower math scores, minority students, boys, younger students, and students with migrant parents were most vulnerable to depressive symptoms. The heterogeneous analysis suggests that among poor-performing students, subgroups at higher risk for depression include boys, non-boarding students, and students whose mothers had graduated from high school or above. These findings indicate a need to improve mental health outcomes of rural Han and minority primary school students, targeting academic performance for possible intervention.
A team of experts led by Rose Gottemoeller has produced a new report for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies on non-strategic nuclear warhead policies in Europe, particulary in light of Russia's changing status in the global nuclear community.
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law,
May 5, 2022
On May 4th, in front of the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, Nate Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor Of Law and codirector of the Stanford Cyber Poicy Center called upon the Subcomittee to enact legislation to ensure data relevant to contemporary social problems is unlocked, so researchers can study how big these problems are and seek to solve them.
Academic achievement in middle schools in rural China remains poor for many students. This study examines whether programmes and interventions can improve academic achievement by reviewing rigorous experimental evaluations of nine programmes (11 interventions) on 47,480 rural middle school students in China. The results find none of the interventions improved academic achievement. Moreover, we find no evidence for heterogeneous treatment effects by student gender, age or previous academic achievement. These results may be due in part to the academically-demanding nature of the middle school curriculum, which is applied universally to students with varying levels of cognitive ability.
Key policy takeaways from Larry Diamond on the future of democracy; Rose Gottemoeller on the West, Russia and nukes; Kathryn Stoner on Putin and Kremlin tensions; Michael McFaul on the West and Putin’s threats; Francis Fukuyama on illiberalism on the left and right; Renée DiResta on LinkedIn and deepfakes; and Michelle Mello on COVID misinformation.