New research suggests that poultry litter-based soil amendments and weather conditions, specifically extreme weather events, may influence how long bacteria survive in agricultural soils used to grow sweet onions. The findings could help inform food safety risk management for produce growers.
New research finds that people are far more likely to report suicidal ideation when they perceive their life to be getting worse relative to their own recent past, rather than because of their income, age or health status alone.
Superfund sites typically cluster in low-income communities, where 62% of households earn less than $50,000 annually. But near the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills northwest of Los Angeles people are much wealthier. This anomaly gave University of Southern California researchers an opportunity to study how wealthy residents respond when money cannot buy their protection from an environmental hazard.
During one of Oregon’s most destructive wildfire seasons on record in 2020, 1,200 residents surveyed in the weeks after the fires reported being overwhelmed by air quality information. They received data from multiple sources but little clear guidance on how to respond. A new study, published in Risk Analysis, finds that low-cost internet-connected air sensors can change that by providing hyper-local, real-time information that helps residents take protective action. But not all communities have equal access to this technology.
People rarely think about culverts until they are gone. These plain pipes and boxes carry roads over streams and span less than 20 feet — the federal cutoff for what counts as a bridge. That means road-stream crossings stay out of the National Bridge Inventory and therefore, off the inspection schedule. Yet, when Tropical Storm Irene tore through New England in 2011, it destroyed more than 960 of them in Vermont’s Green Mountains alone and left 13 communities entirely cut off for days.
A forthcoming study in the journal Risk Analysis introduces “agentic loafing,” a term for what happens when clinicians stop using AI as a tool and start simply ratifying its judgments. This research identifies three institutional drivers that normalize AI delegation in healthcare and offers a preliminary diagnostic tool that turns unmanaged bets into something measurable.
For U.S. coastal residents, storm surge is among the deadliest hurricane hazards, causing catastrophic property damage and loss of life; and scientists expect tropical storms to grow more intense. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, storm surge accounted for 41 of the 66 direct deaths. The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season is now underway, and while NOAA expects below-normal activity, emergency managers caution that it only takes one storm to devastate a community. A recent study published in Risk Analysis, finds that among residents living in flood-prone areas, place attachment is strongly related to protective action.
On any given U.S. holiday, traffic crashes claim more than 500 lives. But according to a new study published in Risk Analysis, the real danger lurks early in the annual calendar. The spring break window (from late February through early April) carries a significantly higher traffic fatality and injury risk than the Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day holiday stretch, and every other period of the year.
An estimated 15.8 million people in the United States live in pharmacy deserts. With limited access to healthcare services, like hospitals and pharmacies, these individuals are at risk of elevated mortality risk and higher rates of preventable disease progression.
When a natural disaster strikes a Latin American community, the damage doesn’t stop at downed power lines and flooded streets. A new study finds that disasters trigger a 69 percent spike in public protests in affected districts, a social fallout that emergency planners rarely account for and that current disaster response systems are not designed to address.
