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.
Objective To test the feasibility and effectiveness of a mindfulness-based intervention in rural-to-urban migrant Chinese children using trained community volunteers.
Method Migrant students ages 9 to 16 from 5 schools in Shanghai (N = 653) were randomly assigned to a mindfulness only group (n = 167), a mindfulness plus life skills group (n = 118), or a waitlist control group (n = 368). The first 2 groups received an 8-week mindfulness intervention delivered 1 hour weekly by trained community volunteers. The mindfulness plus life skills group received 8 additional hours of skills-based mentorship. Measurements on mindfulness, resilience, and anxiety and depression symptoms were collected before and after intervention. Multivariable regression analyses compared the intervention vs control groups.
Results Before intervention, there were no significant demographic or outcome measure differences between groups except that students in the intervention groups were slightly older. Students had relatively low levels of mindfulness and prosociality difficulties and similar degrees of depression and anxiety symptoms compared with prior studies. After intervention, no statistically significant differences were found in mean scores for mindfulness, resilience, anxiety, or depression in the intervention vs control groups.
Conclusion A volunteer-led mindfulness intervention did not significantly benefit migrant Chinese children after 8 weeks. More implementation research is needed for low-cost, scalable, and contextually effective mental health prevention programs.
Background: Prenatal anaemia causes serious consequences for both mother and foetus, and dietary factors are suggested to be associated with anaemia. However, research in pregnant women living in rural areas is limited. We aim to assess the contribution of dietary diversity to the magnitude of prenatal anaemia in rural China and identify the interactions between dietary diversity and several sociodemographic and maternal characteristics in relation to anaemia. Methods: A multi-stage random cluster sampling method was used to select pregnant women in rural western China. The Woman’s Dietary Diversity Score was created to measure dietary diversity, which was recoded into terciles. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to assess the associations between dietary diversity score terciles and the magnitude of prenatal anaemia. Multiplicative interactions were tested by adding the product term of dietary diversity and several sociodemographic and maternal characteristics into the regression models. Results: Out of 969 participants, 54.3% were measured as anaemic, with 28.6% mildly anaemic and 25.7% moderately to severely anaemic. There was an absence of agreement between self-reported and measured anaemia status (κ = 0.28, 95% CI [0.22–0.34]). Participants in the highest dietary diversity score tercile had lower odds of being moderately to severely anaemic after adjusting for potential confounders (RRR = 0.65, 95% CI [0.44, 0.98]). In participants with moderate to severe anaemia, significant interactions were found between dietary diversity score terciles, age, and parity (p for interaction < 0.05). Conclusions: The prevalence of prenatal anaemia in rural China remains high, and pregnant women living in these areas are insufficiently aware of their anaemia status. Improving dietary diversity is needed to manage prenatal anaemia in rural areas.
Infants born small for gestational age (SGA) remains a significant global public health concern, with potential interconnections among maternal diet, pre-pregnancy BMI, gestational weight gain (GWG), and SGA. This prospective study investigated the association between dietary diversity (DD) during pregnancy and the risk of SGA, as well as the synergistic effect of DD with pre-pregnancy BMI and GWG on SGA. Maternal dietary intake during pregnancy was assessed using 24 h dietary recalls, and dietary diversity scores (DDS) were calculated based on the FAO’s Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women index. Infant information was followed up. The Poisson regression model was employed to determine the association between maternal DD and SGA. Interactions between DD and pre-pregnancy BMI or GWG were evaluated under additive and multiplicative models. Among the 560 singleton live births, 62 (11.07%) were classified as SGA. After adjusting for potential confounders, the DDS exhibited a protective effect against SGA (aRR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.62–0.95). DD modified the association between being underweight prior to pregnancy and SGA on the additive scale (interaction contrast ratio = 7.39; 95% CI: 5.84, 8.94). These findings suggest that improving dietary diversity during pregnancy, particularly among women with a low pre-pregnancy BMI, may be a feasible strategy to reduce the risk of SGA newborns.
The Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab, in collaboration with Helena and various partners, has conducted a national Deliberative Poll® to determine what Americans would really think about possible reforms to our democracy and our electoral processes if they had a chance to weigh the options under good conditions. This project received crucial support from Porticus, the Skoll Foundation, the Thiry-O’Leary Foundation, and other donors.
Low- to moderate-intensity statins were associated with a greater reduction in LDL-C levels in older persons than younger persons and may be more appealing as initial treatment in older adults who are at increased risk for adverse events.
The authority of states and localities to require vaccination is a bedrock principle of public health law. Since 1905, when the US Supreme Court upheld compulsory smallpox inoculations, there has been sustained judicial consensus that the Constitution “does not import an absolute right to be…wholly freed from restraint.” Otherwise, “organized society could not exist with safety to its members.” Until recently, objections to mandatory vaccinations were confined to a small minority of US residents. However, civic values eroded during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a groundswell of resistance. With state legislatures now sharply limiting public health authority and a bevy of legal challenges mounted vaccination mandates—an old and highly effective public health tool—face legal uncertainty that only a few years ago seemed inconceivable.
Society for Medical Decision Making,
July 18, 2023
Under the current US kidney allocation system, older candidates receive a disproportionately small share of deceased donor kidneys despite a reserve of potentially usable kidneys that could shorten their wait times. To consider potential health gains from increasing access to kidneys for these candidates, we developed and calibrated a microsimulation model of the transplantation process and long-term outcomes for older deceased donor kidney transplant candidates.
Introduction: The high incidences of both the developmental delay among young children and the mental health problems of their caregivers are major threats to public health in low-income and middle-income countries. Parental training interventions during early childhood have been shown to benefit early development, yet evidence on strategies to promote caregiver mental health remains limited. In addition, evidence on the optimal design of scalable interventions that integrate early child development and maternal mental health components is scarce.
Methods and analysis: We design a single-blind, factorial, cluster-randomised controlled, superiority trial that will be delivered and supervised by local agents of the All China Women’s Federation (ACWF), the nationwide, government-sponsored social protection organisation that aims to safeguard the rights and interests of women and children. We randomise 125 villages in rural China into four arms: (1) a parenting stimulation arm; (2) a caregiver mental health arm; (3) a combined parenting stimulation and caregiver mental health arm and (4) a pure control arm. Caregivers and their children (aged 6–24 months at the time of baseline data collection) are selected and invited to participate in the 12-month-long study. The parenting stimulation intervention consists of weekly, one-on-one training sessions that follow a loose adaptation of the Reach Up and Learn curriculum. The caregiver mental health intervention is comprised of fortnightly group activities based on an adaptation of the Thinking Healthy curriculum from the WHO. Primary outcomes include measures of child development and caregiver mental health. Secondary outcomes include a comprehensive set of physical, psychological and behavioural outcomes. This protocol describes the design and evaluation plan for this programme.
Ethics and dissemination: This study received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Stanford University (IRB Protocol #63680) and the Institutional Review Board of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. Informed oral consent will be obtained from all caregivers for their own and their child’s participation in the study. The full protocol will be publicly available in an open-access format. The study findings will be published in economics, medical and public health journals, as well as Chinese or English policy briefs.
How do state-controlled broadcasters reach foreign publics to engage in public diplomacy in the era of social media? Previous research suggests that features unique to social media, such as the ability to engage in two-way communication with audiences, provide state-controlled broadcasters new opportunities for online public diplomacy. In this paper, we examine what strategies were used by four Chinese state-controlled media outlets on Twitter to reach foreign publics as the Chinese Communist Party worked to expand its public diplomacy and international media outreach efforts. We find that all outlets increased the volume and diversity of content while none engaged in interactive, two-way communication with audiences, and none appeared to artificially inflate their follower count. One outlet, China Global Television Network, made outsized gains in followership, and it differs from the other Chinese outlets in that it was rebranded, it disseminated a relatively lower share of government-mandated narratives pertaining to China, and the tone of its reporting was more negative. These results show that during a period when Chinese state-controlled broadcasters gained followers on Twitter, outlets made limited use of features unique to social media and instead primarily used social media as a broadcast channel.
China's higher education system has undergone a rapid expansion over the last two decades. By drawing on hand-collected data, we explore students' experiences in college and in the labor market post-graduation in the wake of this expansion. According to our data, the largest employer of college graduates in the labor market was the state sector, followed by the domestic private sector. To explain the returns to college education in China, we explore three mechanisms: human capital, social networks, and signaling. We find that human capital measures, apart from a student's college English test scores, cannot explain the college wage premium, whereas both social networks (for example, membership of the Communist Party) and signaling matter significantly. This seems to indicate that in China, connections are crucial for student success in the labor market, whereas the higher education system itself is more a system for selecting talented individuals than it is for educating them. Finally, students allocate their time accordingly, for example, by spending more time studying English in college than any other subject.
